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Where is it?

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meander

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I am new to this whole world of flashbacks. I used to think I was just silly but now I’m in a safe adult world the flashes come stronger and I am connecting the dots in as much a way as one ever really can with trauma memories (they’re never really accurate are they?)
Anyway my flashbacks/scenes always seem to happen on the left of me. I’m always viewing it out of me left peripheral/turning my head away from the left side/pushing away with my left arm or hand. Recently the flash has been a hand to the left of my face.

I am left handed for writing and some small other things.
What disconcerts me I think is does the leftness of the scenes mean they are not real? Just made up.
 
I think you’re hoping the memories and flashbacks are not real as a defense mechanism.

I have vivid memories of trauma. I know they are accurate and real.
 
I think you’re hoping the memories and flashbacks are not real as a defense mechanism.

I have vivid memories of trauma. I know they are accurate and real.

Is it like a door where you first open and see only a bit and shut it then next time you open expecting that bit so leave it a bit longer and you see more then shut it? My flashbacks feel like the same snippet playing over and over rather than ever a start, full play out then finish of an event/trauma. I have a vivid recall of the rape but I was older. I’ve never been able to talk about it or describe it apart from say the word. But even with that the flashbacks are usually a particular part of the event that plays over and over...to get myself out of it I feel like I fill the edges with the beginnng and other parts just so it will play through to its end and I can recover.
Is this normal? It feels terribly scripted!
 
My memories and flashbacks were/are different than yours, so I’ll hold off on answering.

I hope someone else who has experienced something similar will come along and answer. :hug:
 
What disconcerts me I think is does the leftness of the scenes mean they are not real? Just made up
We see the world upside down. That’s how our eyes send the image to our brains. Our brains turn them right side up. Put on a pair of goggles that turns the world upside down? 3 days later, the world will be rightside up, again. Because the brain has compensated for the goggles and “fixed” it. Know what happens when you take the goggles off??? Yep. The world is upside down. Again. Takes 3 more days for the brain to adjust, again.

The point of this cool little scientific factoid... is that what we SEE is always interpreted by our noggins. Even at such a basic level as which way is “up”.

Another cool fact (these both relate, I promise)

We don’t have color vision in our periphery. We just don’t. Everything that isn’t dead center in our field of view is actually shown to our brain in Black & White. (You can test this by having someone with different color flags walk up from behind you. Without looking at them try and tell what color the flag is. Keep trying, until you can. It’s freaky. Because everything else will be in color... except the flag. Almost no one believes this fact until it’s proven to them, so if you don’t believe me, don’t worry. Test it.) WHY does the entire world appear in color, then??? Our brain fills it in. We saw what color everything was when we walked into the room. You might not have noticed the walls were one of the bazillion shades of off white, but your brain did, and exactly matched the color in the 1/3 of your vision that doesn’t get it. Just coloured it right in. Because that’s what it does. The visual cortex spends a LOT of processing power excluding things, altering things, colouring things, adjusting things... that you never notice... until something goes wrong. (Or someone comes along with freaky little tests).

Okay... relating time...

There’s no particular reason to see everything first person, except that nature has made that the default. That’s why when we get hypothermic (or our brain is interrupted or distracted in other ways, like fever, or chemicals, bright flashes, hard bonks, etc.) we can float outside of our bodies. Not for real. Our brain knows what we look like, it knows what the world looks like, and voila. You’re seeing shit in 3rd person, instead of 1st person.

Ditto dreams, memories, and disassociation.

Your brain is doing what it ALWAYS does... interpreting visual data & filling in what it thinks needs filling in... it’s just doing it wacky.
 
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Your brain is doing what it ALWAYS does... interpreting visual data & filling in what it thinks needs filling in... it’s just doing it wacky.
Interesting yes, helpful, in part.
Not sure it answers my question but then I’m not sure I really had one. I prefer yes and no answers not interpretation/perspective, something to do with growing up with lots of rules I guess.
 
If recalling something, something that has already happened, the eyes do go to the left. That is by design. That is how we are wired.
 
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