From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



by the occult memory is not affected by the lapse of 

 time. The registration seems indelible. 



The range of latent memories extends from the most 

 insignificant details, even those unconsciously registered, 

 to the most important facts of conscious life. The 

 remembrance, even when it seems to have wholly 

 vanished, and is inaccessible to the normal self, can 

 reappear in its entirety as the foreground of abnormal 

 states, especially in somnambulism or mediumship. 



Cryptomnesia records not only external experiences 

 but internal ones also. It retains not only real impressions 

 but also those of an imaginative order. Imagination, 

 which plays so large a part in normal psychism, creates 

 and realises fictitious positions, and these, as well as 

 real facts, are registered by cryptomnesia. Similarly, 

 of course, all the emotions and states of the soul. 



In fine, everything which has occupied the psychic 

 field, consciously or unconsciously, remains indestructibly 

 even when it seems for ever lost. No matter whether a 

 very long time has elapsed since the sensorial or psychic 

 impression was made, no matter that the cerebral cells, 

 which vibrated synchronously, have doubtless since then 

 been many times renewed, 1 in despite of time and 

 change the remembrance remains integrally and indelibly 

 graven in the Subconscious. 



How ? Why ? To classical physiology the mystery 

 is insoluble. 



The entire subconscious memory seems, therefore, 

 to be independent of cerebral contingencies. Cases have 

 even been quoted in which it has reappeared by flashes, 

 in spite of the loss of normal memory through injuries 

 to the brain. Such is the case of Mr Hanna, a very 

 characteristic one in this respect.* Mr Hanna, by reason 

 of a fall on his head, forgot entirely the whole of his 



1 In any case the impression made on them has been effaced and 

 has disappeared. 



1 Sidy and Goodhart : Multiple Personality. 



126 



