Memory Pops: Why Your Brain Is a Chaotic Archivist With a Broken Filing System

Wednesday, March 12, 2025. This is for Viv in Canada.

Imagine this: You’re in the middle of brushing your teeth, minding your own business, when suddenly—BAM—you vividly recall that time in third grade when you called your teacher “Mom” and then spent the next six months contemplating faking your own death to avoid further humiliation.

Congratulations, you’ve just experienced a memory pop—your brain’s equivalent of an unwanted jump scare.

Memory pops are those random, often unbidden recollections that surface for no apparent reason, completely hijacking your train of thought.

They arrive without warning, like an eccentric uncle showing up to Thanksgiving uninvited, and often with about the same level of emotional subtlety.

But why do they happen?

And more importantly, can you make them stop? Science has some answers, but like most things involving the brain, they range from “It’s complicated” to “We’re honestly just guessing.”

Your Brain: A Hoarder, Not a Librarian

Let’s begin with an unfortunate truth: Your brain is terrible at organization. It’s not a sleek, efficient filing system—it’s more like a hoarder’s attic, where important documents are buried under old concert tickets, expired coupons, and emotional baggage from middle school.

Unlike a well-maintained archive where memories are neatly categorized, the human brain relies on associative networks, meaning that memories are stored in overlapping, tangled webs. This is why a whiff of sunscreen can transport you back to that weird summer camp where you learned the hard way that “edible” does not mean “tastes good” (Anderson, 2010).

Neuroscientists suggest that memory retrieval is cue-dependent, meaning that memories can be triggered by sensory stimuli, emotions, or even abstract thoughts (Tulving, 1983). Unfortunately, your brain doesn’t always bother making sure the memory it selects is relevant to the moment at hand. Hence, the spontaneous replay of that one time you tripped in front of your crush in 1998.

The Science of Unwanted Flashbacks

Memory pops don’t just happen to ruin your day—they’re a fundamental feature of how your brain consolidates and retrieves information. Research suggests they occur due to a few key processes:

• Hippocampal Scrambling – Your hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub, is constantly at work trying to reinforce important memories. Unfortunately, “important” is a flexible term, which is why it sometimes decides to resurrect the moment you mispronounced “quinoa” instead of remembering where you left your keys (Eichenbaum, 2017).

• Emotional Tagging – Memories with strong emotions attached to them (embarrassment, joy, regret) tend to resurface more frequently (McGaugh, 2003). This is why your brain is more likely to recall a past social faux pas than, say, the quadratic formula.

• The Zeigarnik Effect – Named after psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, this effect states that incomplete or unresolved experiences stick in your memory longer than completed ones (Zeigarnik, 1927). That’s why you randomly remember awkward conversations from ten years ago but forget the groceries you actually needed today.

• The Default Mode Network (DMN) Being a Chaos Goblin – The DMN is a collection of brain regions that become active when your mind is wandering, making it a prime suspect for throwing old memories at you out of nowhere (Raichle, 2015). If your brain were a streaming service, the DMN would be its “Recommended for You” algorithm—but one designed by your worst enemy.

Can You Stop Memory Pops? (Not Really)

If you were hoping for a way to prevent memory pops entirely, I regret to inform you that you’re out of luck. However, there are some strategies that might reduce their frequency or at least make them less disruptive:

• Mindfulness Meditation – Studies suggest that mindfulness training can help you disengage from intrusive thoughts, effectively allowing you to observe them without spiraling into an existential crisis (Hölzel et al., 2011).

• Cognitive Reappraisal – If a memory pop is particularly cringeworthy, try reframing it. Instead of thinking, “I was such an idiot,” think, “Wow, I have an impressive talent for making situations memorably awkward.” (Gross, 2002).

• Sleep and Memory Consolidation – Sleep plays a critical role in memory organization, and poor sleep is associated with intrusive memories (Stickgold & Walker, 2013). So, maybe don’t binge-watch sci-fi dystopias until 3 AM if you don’t want your brain pulling up the highlight reel of your most embarrassing moments the next day.

Final Thoughts: Embrace the Chaos

At the end of the day, memory pops are just a reminder that your brain, for all its impressive processing power, is still an absurd and unpredictable machine.

Maybe you can’t control when they happen, but you can control how much they bother you. Instead of fighting them, consider embracing them—like a weird, uninvited guest who just won’t leave.

After all, if you’re going to be haunted by your own past, you might as well learn to laugh about it.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

References

Anderson, J. R. (2010). Cognitive psychology and its implications. Worth Publishers.

Eichenbaum, H. (2017). The role of the hippocampus in navigation is memory. Neuron, 93(5), 1017-1031.

Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39(3), 281-291.

Hölzel, B. K., Lazar, S. W., Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, D. R., & Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(6), 537-559.

McGaugh, J. L. (2003). Memory and emotion: The making of lasting memories. Columbia University Press.

Raichle, M. E. (2015). The brain’s default mode network. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 38, 433-447.

Stickgold, R., & Walker, M. P. (2013). Sleep-dependent memory triage: Evolving generalization through selective processing. Nature Neuroscience, 16(2), 139-145.

Tulving, E. (1983). Elements of episodic memory. Oxford University Press.

Zeigarnik, B. (1927). Das Behalten erledigter und unerledigter Handlungen [The retention of completed and uncompleted actions]. Psychologische Forschung, 9, 1-85.