In threatening situations, an area of the brain called the amygdala kicks into high gear, commandeering the resources of the rest of the brain and forcing everything to attend to the situation at hand. When the amygdala is in play, memories are laid down with far more detail and richness than under normal circumstances; a secondary memory system has been activated. After all, that’s what memory is for: keeping track of important events, so that if you’re ever in a similar situation, your brain has more information to try to survive. In other words, when things are life-threateningly scary,
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