B1217 <=> B1219 (BTG XLVIII From the Author, p. 1218)

And it is this repetition of previously perceived impressions engendering what is called association, and the parts of this repetition which enter the field of a man’s attention, that together condition what is termed “memory.”

The memory of the average man, in comparison with the memory of a man harmoniously perfected, is a very very imperfect adaptation for his utilization, during his responsible life, of his previously perceived store of impressions.

With the aid of memory, the average man from among impressions previously perceived, can make use of and, so to say, keep track of, only a very small part of his whole store of impressions, whereas the memory proper to the real man keeps track of all his impressions without exception, whenever they may have been perceived.

Many experiments have been made, and it has been established with indubitable exactitude, that every man in definite states, as for example, in the state of a certain stage of hypnotism, can remember to the most minute particular everything that has ever happened to him; he can remember all the details of the surroundings and the faces and voices of the people around him even those of the first days of his life, when he was still, according to people’s notions, an unconscious being.

When a man is in one of these states, it is possible, artificially, to make even the reels hidden in the most obscure corners of the mechanism start working; but it often happens that these reels begin to unwind of themselves under the influence of some overt or hidden shock evoked by some experiencing, whereupon there suddenly rise up before the man long-forgotten scenes, picturings, faces, and so on.