Dissociative Fugue

Dissociative fugue is such a crazy concept so I needed to find some more information on it. A person is diagnosed with this dissociative disorder when they experience a loss of memory of their identity. Symptoms of this disorder include sudden travel away from home, the inability to recall important information about themselves or past events, and extreme distress. A person could wake up in a completely different city with absolutely zero memory of who they are. Can you imagine? That's insane!

The cause of this disorder appears to be linked to traumatic or stressful events in a person's life. This fugue state can last from less than a day to many months. While this disorder can usually go away on its own, treatment varies from psychotherapy to medication to clinical hypnosis (I <3 hypnosis). 

I can think of multiple occurrences of what seems to be dissociative fugue in TV shows I've watched. But just how common is this disorder in real life? The prevalence rate of dissociative fugue is a mere 0.2% of the population (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Maldonado et al., 2002). So don't worry, friends. Chances are you'll wake up tomorrow morning and still know who you are.