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December 6, 1896
Dear Wilhelm,
Today, after having for once enjoyed the full measure of work and earnings that I need for my well-being (ten hours and a hundred florins), I am dead tired and mentally fresh; I shall try to give you a simple report on the latest bit of speculation.
As you know, I am working on the assumption that our psychic mechanism has come into being by a process of stratification: the material present in the form of memory traces being subjected from time to time to a rearrangement in accordance with fresh circumstances — to a retranscription. Thus what is essentially new about my theory is the thesis that memory is present not once but several times over, that it is laid down in various kinds of indications. I postulated a similar kind of rearrangement some time ago (Aphasia) for the paths leading from the periphery [of the body to the cortex]. I do not know how many of these registrations there are — at least three, probably more. This is shown in the following schematic picture, which assumes that the different registrations are also separated (not necessarily topographically) according to the neurones which are their vehicles. This assumption may not be necessary, but it is the simplest and is provisionally admissible.
W [Wahrnehmungen (perceptions)] are neurones in which perceptions originate, to which consciousness attaches, but which in