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The aim of this work is to trace a certain group of memories that are deeply submerged in the unconscious and that date back to the most archaic periods of the development of the psyche. The existence of these memories can be inferred, with a high degree of probability, from the study of phenomena that indicate that events that are very important in the very first phases of infancy can leave mnemonic traces that, in psychoanalysis, are still able to reveal, in an indirect way, their first origin.
The first study on this subject was published by Otto Isakower (1938). His work has become a classic of psychoanalytical literature. In it the author describes a special category of hypnagogic phenomena that are generally nowadays called Isakower's phenomena after him.
These occur when the patient is lying down, on the point of falling asleep or almost asleep, or sometimes on waking, and particularly in patients with a temperature. They occur more often, but not exclusively, in childhood. In a typical case, the patient has the impression of a large obscure mass, mostly round, that comes