It has long been understood that people who have experienced trauma have a different relationship to those memories than they would to memories of typical, everyday events. Even memories with negative emotional connotations, like sadness, still seem to be in a different category than memories of trauma—where shock and helplessness force the body into an extreme threat response. The intrusion that comes with re-experiencing traumatic memories often involves the entire body and can send people into devastating cycles of flashbacks, nightmares, and even dissociative states.

Similarly, the way that these memories are encoded or retrieved has often seemed different than typical memories, which can lead to fragmented recall, more inconsistent recollections, or even entire swaths of blacking out or not remembering. The differences between the experience of traumatic memories versus regular memories have long been understood by clinicians to require special care, and they have formed the foundation of various theories of how the body stores trauma. These differences have also informed the development of various treatment protocols for post-traumatic stress disorder, and discussions around exactly when and how........

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