Over-Excited Taylor Swift Fans Experiencing Amnesia Post ‘Eras’ Concert

After spending hundreds of dollars – sometimes thousands of dollars – on tickets, some Taylor Swift fans are reporting that they cannot remember the three-hour concert and are confused as to why.

There is a scientific reason to explain why this is happening to people.

Generally speaking, what fans remember depends on what their memory encodes during the concert. Memories are created through a process called encoding, which turns events into memories. Fans can’t encode all the parts of the concert into their memory so that’s why they can’t remember everything. What they encode depends on what they were focusing on during the concert. For example, instead of intensely focusing on all the lyrics of the song, a fan is more likely to focus on Swift’s dance moves or her outfits. Fans are also more likely to remember the stunts Swift pulled, like when she dove into a pool onstage and then came out in a different outfit. Therefore, they cannot remember each song she sang and every moment of the concert. 

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There is another more specific explanation as to why fans may not remember the concert. It is possible that when people get so excited about a concert like this when they actually get to the concert they have trouble understanding that they are actually there. They probably have thought about this moment a lot, so they may experience a sensory overload. 

This phenomenon doesn’t just happen when people go to concerts but can happen anytime someone is in a highly emotional situation. Fans usually have an emotional connection to the songs Swift is playing and all these emotions can be an overload on the brain. Due to this, stress levels can rise which causes the neurons that are connected to creating memories to fire randomly. The body focuses on the rising stress levels so it doesn’t focus on creating memories. The emotional processing part of the brain, the amygdala, will then release neurotransmitters. Typically, the neurotransmitters will be able to indicate these memories as emotional so that when someone tries to remember that moment they will be able to see it vividly due to the emotional connection. 

In this case, there can be a thing as too much excitement, which is what fans are probably experiencing. If someone is extremely excited it’s possible that they won’t be able to create memories due to this overly excited phase. Their body will be too stressed to make these memories and will focus on the stress rather than memory formation. 

Fans need to remember that memories aren’t made as if you’re recording a video. It is a unique process in which different types of memories can be made based on the encoding process. 

While it may be a bummer for fans that they might not remember all of the concert, they can take comfort in knowing that since they weren’t focused on creating memories they were probably living in the moment and enjoying their time at the concert instead.