This chapter focuses on episodic memory, a form of consciously accessible memory. More specifically, episodic memory refers to memory for a unique event. Episodic memories generally include the content of the event itself, and information on the spatial and temporal context in which the event occurred. The chapter discusses the ways in which emotion interacts with encoding, consolidation, and retrieval processes, focusing on how both the emotional content of an event and the emotional state of the individual can influence memory. Evidence reviewed in the chapter demonstrates that the emotions we experience when an event is occurring can influence the way we encode, consolidate, and retrieve that event. The chapter discusses an example of mood's influence on memory: the mood-congruent recall. It highlights that an emotional memory may be vivid not because lots of different details are remembered, but because a small set of details are remembered very well.

This chapter suggests that 'vivid personal memories' should be studied against the wider canvas of other repetitive phenomena of the imagination such as drug flashbacks, palinopsia, palinacusis, tinnitus, and the post-traumatic memories, and the vivid memories of subjects suffering conditions include phobias, panic attacks, obsessional disorder, phantom-limb phenomena, and depressive melancholia. The creation of a flashbulb memory depends on high level of 'surprise', a high level of 'consequentiality', and high level of 'arousal'. Flashbulb memories seem more accurate and stable than ordinary memories. Flashbacks are triggered by fatigue and certain moods states; and also by environmental cues assumedly related to the original situation suggesting the operation of a context-dependent retrieval mechanism. Victims of trauma often report 'anxious dreams' in which the traumatic event is relived in vivid multisensory images accompanied by the same intense emotions as those of the original event.