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The current controversy over the importance of real trauma in causing psychopathology has stimulated interest in the nature of memory. Pierre Janet, a contemporary of Freud to whom the latter acknowledged a debt, differentiated narrative and traumatic memories, coined the term "subconscious," and theorized about the mechanisms resulting in dissociation. His work, including a case history, is discussed in this paper. The authors trace "Freud's ambivalent position vis-à-vis trauma and dissociation" from his original belief in the seduction theory to its repudiation as the concepts of repression and the oedipal conflict were elucidated. At times, however, Freud continued to use the term "repression" to mean "dissociated traumatic memories." Hence the issue has become quite confused. The current distinction between "vertical" and "horizontal" repression is noted. Recent thinking about memory processing, freezing, and triggering are discussed from both psychological and neurobiological viewpoints. The authors note that experience must be acted upon to be integrated, citing Oliver Sack's Awakenings to illustrate this point. While psychoanalysis has, in the past, focused on the examination of psychic reality, neuroscience and psychiatry are "beginning to rediscover" how real trauma is "encoded in memory." Janet is credited with presaging the current work, stating that traumatized persons suffer "from a phobia for the traumatic memory." The difficulty of bridging the world of trauma to "current, ordinary life" is discussed. Finally, the authors speculate about potential ethical treatments for traumatized individuals.