Fans complain of ‘post-concert amnesia’ after Taylor Swift performance

Jenna Tocatlian was still on cloud nine three days after the concert. She was so happy to have seen her idol Taylor Swift live. But something felt strange, reports the New Yorker The Times. In her head, where vivid memories should have been played in a continuous loop, there was only one thing: emptiness.

She couldn’t even remember Swift’s surprise song “Better Man”. There is a five-minute video on which she sings and dances to the song. “The post-concert amnesia is real,” Tocatlian said.

“The post-concert amnesia is real,” says Swift fan

The 25-year-old is not alone in this. On internet platforms like Reddit, many fans later write that they can no longer remember small details or even large parts of the show. One person wrote that they waited six months for the concert and after it ended suddenly felt like they hadn’t been there. Another wondered if he had dissociated during the concert. He described how he no longer had vivid memories of the concert and felt guilty about it.

“Looking back, it feels like an out-of-body experience, like it didn’t really happen to me,” says 32-year-old Nicole Booz. “Yet I know it was because my bank account has a $950 dip for the cost of the ticket.”

Is there “post-concert amnesia”? The medical background

But is this “post-concert amnesia” really possible? Yes, says Ewan McNay, a professor in the psychology department at the State University of New York at Albany, to the Times. The background is that people are too excited. “It’s not a concert-specific phenomenon – it can happen anytime you’re in a highly emotional state,” McNay says. Another example is weddings. For example, some might not remember their wedding dance.

When stress levels rise in the body, the neurons associated with memory start firing indiscriminately. “When you’re slightly tense, with a little excitement, it’s easier to remember,” says McNay. “But too much excitement kills memory formation.”

That happens in the body

The body starts pumping glucose from the liver into the bloodstream. Glucose is the energy supplier for our brain. Man could not think, learn, breathe or walk without this fuel. But when you’re excited — like meeting a bear in the woods or seeing Taylor Swift — the fuel is used for muscle, not memory, says McNay. At the same time, the vagus nerve (nerve for relaxation and rest) is stimulated and a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine is released.

This marks memories with a high emotional content. In theory, this makes them particularly lively and more likely to be stored in memory, but McNay describes the process as an inverted U: a little is good, too much is bad. Caffeine or alcohol will shift the curve even further to the right. This means it becomes harder for the brain to create and store new memories.

Professor Kraft: “Actually a tribute to the moment and the joy of it”

Many people mistakenly think of forgetting as a deficit, Robert Kraft, a professor of cognitive psychology at Otterbein University in Westerville, told The Times. Humans are simply not made to remember everything.

Studying for an exam or memorizing a presentation are situations in which you focus explicitly on remembering, says Kraft. But: “We don’t want to remember our life, we want to experience it.” So the fact that you don’t remember special moments is “actually a tribute to the moment and the joy of it”.

How to trick the brain and create memories despite excitement

But there is a strategy to better remember exciting experiences. McNay explains it this way: Running from a bear or screaming at a concert signals fear to the brain. “On the other hand, when you stand still and relax, you’re signaling to your brain that you don’t need to get too excited,” McNay says. “That can promote memory formation.”