ers, stored
below the scene illuminated by consciousness. Yes, I believe indeed that
all our past life is there, preserved even to the most infinitesimal
details, and that we forget nothing, and that all that we have felt,
perceived, thought, willed, from the first awakening of our
consciousness, survives indestructibly. But the memories which are
preserved in these obscure depths are there in the state of invisible
phantoms. They aspire, perhaps, to the light, but they do not even try
to rise to it; they know that it is impossible and that I, as a living
and acting being, have something else to do than to occupy myself with
them. But suppose that, at a given moment, I become _disinterested_ in
the present situation, in the present action--in short, in all which
previously has fixed and guided my memory; suppose, in other words, that
I am asleep. Then these memories, perceiving that I have taken away the
obstacle, have raised the trapdoor which has kept them beneath the floor
of consciousness, arise from the depths; they rise, they move, they
perform in the night of unconsciousness a great dance macabre. They rush
together to the door which has been left ajar. They all want to get
through. But they cannot; there are too many of them. From the
multitudes which are called, which will be chosen? It is not hard to
say. Formerly, when I was awake, the memories which forced their way
were those which could involve claims of relationship with the present
situation, with what I saw and heard around me. Now it is more vague
images which occupy my sight, more indecisive sounds which affect my
ear, more indistinct touches which are distributed over the surface of
my body, but there are also the more numerous sensations which arise
from the deepest parts of the organism. So, then, among the phantom
memories which aspire to fill themselves with color, with sonority, in
short with materiality, the only ones that succeed are those which can
assimilate themselves with the color-dust that we perceive, the external
and internal sensations that we catch, etc., and which, besides, respond
to the affective tone of our general sensibility.[1] When this union is
effected between the memory and the sensation, we have a dream.

In a poetic page of the Enneades, the philosopher Plotinus, interpreter
and continuator of Plato, explains to us how men come to life. Nature,
he says, sketches the living bodies, but sketches them only. Left to her
own