Say you’ll remember her!
The strangest thing is happening to Taylor Swift‘s fans! Not that they’d necessarily be able to recall exactly what… While speaking to Time on Friday, a 25-year-old Swiftie from New York named Jenna Tocatilan revealed she’d been hoping to see the superstar in concert for so long, that when she got there she couldn’t even really fathom what was going on! So at the end of the concert, she had no memory of having been there! She explained:
“Post-concert amnesia is real … If I didn’t have the five-minute video that my friend kindly took of me jamming to [a surprise song], I probably would have told everyone that it didn’t happen.”
Post-concert depression is a common thing we hear about all the time — but post-concert amnesia?! Even more surprising, Jenna isn’t alone!
Related: Matty Healy Addresses Taylor Swift Romance Reports!
Another superfan of the Anti-Hero songstress spoke to the outlet, as well, and described a similar situation. Thirty-two year old Nicole Booz said her show in Philadelphia on May 14 didn’t feel real:
“[It was like] an out-of-body experience, as though it didn’t really happen to me.”
Whoa. Sounds kinda scary actually!
Don’t worry, though, guys! If you go see Tay Tay or Beyoncé this year, it’s obviously highly unlikely you’ll forget the whole thing! These are strange cases. But even so, scientists actually have an explanation for why this happens — and it’s not as complex as you’d think.
According to neuroscientist Dr. Dean Burnett, an honorary research associate at Cardiff University, this isn’t just a The Eras Tour issue. It can happen at any event you put that much emotional intensity into! He explained to the outlet:
“If you’re at a concert of someone you love, surrounded by thousands of very excited other people, listening to music you’ve got established emotional links to, that’s going to be a lot of emotion happening to you at one time.”
He went on to say experiencing such high emotion for extended periods of time is the reason why it’s so easy to forget:
“As well as being exhausting for the brain, it’s going to mean all the things you experience will have a high emotional quality, which means nothing ‘stands out’, and that’s important if you want to retrieve a memory later.”
Makes sense! It would be hard to remember every tiny detail of the whole 3-and-a-half hour show!
Dr. Ewan McNay, associate professor of the State University of New York at Albany‘s psychology department, concurred, telling the outlet our brains respond to high positive emotions in a similar way it responds to high negative ones — AKA causing amnesia or burying memories to deal with all the stress! See, positive stress, or eustress, can be just as taxing on the brain as the negative kind. It’s like good trauma. Crazy, right?
It’s not a problem lacking solution, though. Dr. McNay says the answer for this is simple — just try to take it easy if you’re feeling forgetful:
“People could try to jump up and down and scream a little less, to control the excitement.”
Not something Swifties are going to find easy those nights! But maybe it’s worth calming down a bit so you can keep the memories forever?
Wild! Have U ever experienced post-concert amnesia, Perezcious readers? Tell us (below)!
[Image via MEGA/WENN]
