flashback
n. countablen. a sudden, very clear memory of something that happened in the past. It often feels like you are living through the event all over again.
n. a sudden and vivid involuntary recurrence of a past experience or memory. In clinical contexts, it refers to a symptom of post-traumatic stress where the individual re-experiences a traumatic event as if it were occurring in the present.
The smell of the ocean gave him a sudden flashback to his childhood.
After the accident, she suffered from frequent flashbacks that made it difficult to drive on the motorway.
The novelist uses a series of vivid flashbacks to reveal the protagonist's hidden motivations, blurring the line between the character's traumatic past and his increasingly unstable present.
From flash + back.
Often used with the preposition 'to' when identifying the specific memory or time period.