When something terrifying happens, like seeing a child or a friend get hurt in an accident, we will retain an intense and largely accurate memory of the event for a long time. As James McGaugh and colleagues have shown, the more adrenaline you secrete, the more precise your memory will be.3 But that is true only up to a certain point. Confronted with horror—especially the horror of “inescapable shock”—this system becomes overwhelmed and breaks down.
