I've heard people say that stress can do funny things to your memory, but I never thought about it much until now. Yesterday I was out with a bunch of other Purdue folks doing some Airsoft skirmishing, and had my first experience of memory being seriously affected by stress. Basically, Daniel Flory, Chris Rhines, and I were waiting to ambush some other guys. I was lying down on a slight rise trying to look like a pile of leaves - the plan was to let our targets walk past me, so that Dan and Chris could fire on them from in front and I could fire from behind. Well, our adversaries decided not to follow our plan (Arg! Didn't they realize how well we set it up? ) and approached from a different direction, allowing them to see me way too early for the ambush to work.
The sequence of events, as I remember it:
One adversary (Marc) advanced towards me, and took cover behind a tree. I was visible to him, but I wasn't sure if he had seen me, so I stayed as still as possible. He stayed there for a couple seconds, and then moved forward to another tree. After a couple seconds there, he made direct eye contact with me and raised his pistol towards me. I knew he'd definitely seen me, and that staying put was suicide, so I rolled over, jumped up, and hoofed it to a tree a couple feet away.
The sequence of events, as Marc and Chris described it to me afterwards (discrepancies underlined):
One adversary (Marc) advanced towards me, and took cover behind a tree. I was visible to him, but I wasn't sure if he had seen me, so I stayed as still as possible. He stayed there for a couple seconds, and then moved forward to another tree. Seeing this, Chris moved to a covered position a few yards behind me, and shouted out "Ian! Can you move?" I responded, asking for covering fire as Marc made eye contact and raised his gun towards me. As Chris covered me, I rolled over, jumped up, and hoofed it to a tree a couple feet away.
I definitely didn't think that I could have forgotten an entire verbal exchange because of stress! Wow. Can this sort of thing be prevented with more practice? I imagine that if you can become more acclimated to the stress, this sort of thing won't happen as much...does anyone else have experience with this?
The sequence of events, as I remember it:
One adversary (Marc) advanced towards me, and took cover behind a tree. I was visible to him, but I wasn't sure if he had seen me, so I stayed as still as possible. He stayed there for a couple seconds, and then moved forward to another tree. After a couple seconds there, he made direct eye contact with me and raised his pistol towards me. I knew he'd definitely seen me, and that staying put was suicide, so I rolled over, jumped up, and hoofed it to a tree a couple feet away.
The sequence of events, as Marc and Chris described it to me afterwards (discrepancies underlined):
One adversary (Marc) advanced towards me, and took cover behind a tree. I was visible to him, but I wasn't sure if he had seen me, so I stayed as still as possible. He stayed there for a couple seconds, and then moved forward to another tree. Seeing this, Chris moved to a covered position a few yards behind me, and shouted out "Ian! Can you move?" I responded, asking for covering fire as Marc made eye contact and raised his gun towards me. As Chris covered me, I rolled over, jumped up, and hoofed it to a tree a couple feet away.
I definitely didn't think that I could have forgotten an entire verbal exchange because of stress! Wow. Can this sort of thing be prevented with more practice? I imagine that if you can become more acclimated to the stress, this sort of thing won't happen as much...does anyone else have experience with this?
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