Flashbulb memories are moments seared into our minds. Think of any momentous moment in your life (birth, death) and likely immediately a vivid memory will flash into your mind.
Think Mt.St.Helens that day in May 1980. Think seeing men walking on the moon in 1969. Think your first hearing or seeing the awful events of 9-11. Think of that November day in 1963 when you watched the footage over and over of Pres. Kennedy being shot.
Not to mention some terrifying or fantastically happy family moment. Think when you learned of the death of a loved one.
Flashbulb memories are said to be the surprise and indiscriminate illumination that "flash" into your mind when something..... sight, sound, image, smell..... triggers that flashbulb memory.
My daughter was aboard when a Delta airliner crashed upon take off. It took years of work for her to overcome "airplane smell" and fly away on vacations again. My son's face when he learned that he didn't quite make it home in time to see his father one last time. The time I was barefoot on the lake dock ready to jump into the boat when the boat sloshed up and my big toenail was torn loose.
Don't we all have these flashbulb memories? So what to do with them? What might we should do with them? If we consider them as autobiographical memories then shouldn't we be writing them down?? Aren't they part of our personal history?
Do you suppose your ancestors had flashbulb-memory-events? What would you give today for a one-page scribbled memory from them of that event?
Today, YOU are the ancestor. Please, for the sake of your posterity, write down your memories! They will bless you forever for doing so.
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