Author's Response

The discussants of my “Notes on Memory and Desire” help to make it clear that some of the confusion arises through the ambiguity of the terms “memory” and “desire.” I realize that it would be helpful if I could distinguish between two different phenomena which are both usually and indifferently called “memory.” This I have tried to do by speaking of one as “evolution,” by which I mean the experience where some idea or pictorial impression floats into the mind unbidden and as a whole. From this I wish to distinguish ideas which present themselves in response to a deliberate and conscious attempt at recall; for this last I reserve the term “memory.” “Memory” I keep for experience related predominantly to sensuous impressions: “evolution” I regard as based on experience which has no sensuous background but is expressed in terms which are derived from the language of sensuous experience. For example, I “see,” meaning I “intuit through the medium of a visual impression.”

“Desire” should not be distinguished from “memory,” as I prefer that the terms should represent one phenomenon which is a suffusion of both. I have tried to express this by saying “memory” is the past tense of “desire,” “anticipation” being its future tense.

These definitory hypotheses have a limited value, and I suggest that every psychoanalyst should make up his mind for himself by simple experimentation as to what these terms represent. For example, he should school himself to avoid thinking of the end of the session, week or term (having made previous provision for terminating the session at the correct time as a matter of administration), and when he has

done this for a sufficient period without trying to hurry himself, make up his mind about what he would call “Memory” and “Desire.” When he has done this he can proceed to the next stage of extending his suppressions of the experience he has discovered in this way. I must warn psychoanalysts that I do not think they should extend this procedure hur