Posttraumatic stress disorder
Posttraumatic stress disorder often proceeds from experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event involving death, serious injury, or significant threat to others or oneself; and disturbing intrusive images, often described by the patient as 'flashbacks', are a common symptom of this condition across demographics of age, gender, and the nature of the precipitating traumatic event. This unbidden mental imagery is often highly vivid, and provokes memories of the original trauma, accompanied by heightened emotions or feelings and the subjective experience of danger and threat to safety in the present "here and now".