Memories of trauma are often fragmented because these memories aren't usually put together properly. Instead, they include intense emotions, sensations, and perceptions. Memories of traumatic events can eventually be constructed into a narrative but usually remain fragmented. In peri-traumatic dissociation, where individuals separate memories from their emotional experiences, there is a “data-driven” processing style and “conceptually driven” processing occurs less. This leads to fragmentation of memory relating to the events of the trauma, meaning that the individual encoded the trauma based on facts of what they saw but they are missing the structure that pieces this together into one synthesized memory.
