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Paul Prater
Elite user
White Hall, AR
407 Posts
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Posted: Apr 23, 2012 2:24pm
Sometimes there are things that make me instantly flash back to my youth. I don't mean just a warm memory, I mean a very viscereal feeling of being there. This weekend, I walked into a room for a meeting and it was clear it was never updated. I instantly felt like I was a kid. Not just a kid, but in Cub Scouts at some kind of retreat. Almost like deja vu. However, I know I had never walked into that room before. Whenever that happens I try to hold onto to that feeling, but it is usually just a flash. I have really thought about ways to induce this feeling in my audience.
Has this happened to you? If so, when was the last time and what were the circumstances?
www.paulprater.com
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Godzilla
Inner circle
Tied & Untied Witches on
2901 Posts
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Posted: Apr 23, 2012 3:19pm
Paul,funny you should mention this!
I pulled out a CD of the film track'Rocky Horror Picture Show' and put into my truck to play and listen to today!
Not sure why,I grabbed it...but,something made me want to! 
So reading your post,maybe you can find some music/songs to make people have a Flash back!
Maybe something on this line...may help induce feelings with your audience!
It made me think of the several times I was at the Midnight movie and the friends, I were with! And,all the other things ,that happened while there!
Gary
"If you watch Godzilla backwards,it's about a big ass lizard who helps rebuild a half burnt-down city, then moonwalks back into the ocean"
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Jim Sparx
Inner circle
Far Out, Texas
1122 Posts
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Posted: Apr 23, 2012 3:47pm
I do this every time I think of my ex-wives, so what's new?
On the other hand there are psychiatric techniques we use with PTSD soldiers to rid their memories of events. Check out the book by Gerbode called Beyond Psychology.
This can also be done with groups.
Spartacus died for your sloth
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MatCult
Loyal user
Birmingham, England
277 Posts
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Posted: Apr 25, 2012 8:58am
The smell of hot tar always takes me back to one summer when I was a kid. It was the hottest summer I can remember and I spent the whole of my school holiday at the outdoor pool at the school in our village.
The changing room building had tar paper on the roof, so the place smelt of chlorine and hot tar. Whenever I pass somewhere they're resurfacing roads now I get a really vivid flashback to that summer. Happy days.
Smells and music - they cause the strongest flashbacks for me.
Not sure how best to harness that for an effect though, these anchors must be different for everyone.
Maybe use a short blast of a TV/ad theme, something many people will know.
In the UK, music from short channel idents like this would work pretty well I suspect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuN5QiUk00E
They are the sort of thing people would have heard every day in the 70s and 80s, so they are pretty strongly ingrained.
"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
- Tom Robbins
The Numbers Racket - Experiments in Arithmancy
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Jim Sparx
Inner circle
Far Out, Texas
1122 Posts
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Posted: Apr 25, 2012 11:18am
Anything that has pain associated with physical and emotional events can be brought back. All and everything in the environment including smells, weather, sounds can be remembered along with the event. These types of pain are usually denied by consciousness until the person begins to recall the event. This is done over and over until the event is discharged and no longer has an affect on the person. The above mentioned Gerbode has a website with lots of papers that explain this phenomena.
Extreme pleasure moments can also be brought back. Some may be associated with LSD use. Usually flashbacks of this nature are associated with fear, but not always. Your mileage may vary.....
Spartacus died for your sloth
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lozey
Veteran user
UK
382 Posts
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 6:31am
Smells are powerful triggers to flashbacks. Rubber or hot plastic smells set off my flashbacks
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DWRackley
Inner circle
Choo Choo Town
1522 Posts
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Posted: Apr 27, 2012 12:31pm
Particular smells can actually be more powerful than visual or auditory cues, especially if they were tied to an emotional event. For years, if I a caught a whiff of a particular brand of perfume, I was instantly transported (in my mind!) back to the front seat of my old car, seated next to a girl that I haven’t seen in 40 years. Women know this, and use it to their advantage.
If you can spare the time, the central plot vehicle of “Somewhere in Time” can be quite effective (but not for actual time travel ). It’s a state of mind I’ve heard referred to as “reverie”, and it’s not particularly difficult in self-induce, but it does take a nice block of uninterrupted quiet. Probably a mild form of hypnosis, it’s also a good place to recover old memories and generate new ideas, and in general just a really fun little playground.
For an audience, I’d agree with the TV theme songs MatCult mentioned (something from a time before there were 700 plus channels), even though there’s no guarantee of exactly what type of memories (good or bad) will be evoked in each particular individual.
You don't need to be psychic to predict the future. Any mother who's ever spotted her ten year old hauling his skateboard onto the trampoline KNOWS what's about to happen!
 ...because a MIND is a terrible thing...
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