“In the psychological model, the mark of a primary event or experience imprints itself in the individual psyche, a process that, as stated, will never become conscious in itself. This impression leaves a memory trace (Gedachtnisspur) behind. As it interacts with other such traces of impressions, it forms the matrix for (belated) significant experiences which shape the individual’s history. Resembling an unconscious text, these marks effect future perceptions of events or experiences in the sense that by being recalled they prefigure their interpretation and significant. Since the event that caused the impression will never become consciousness, it can only be inferred or posited in the analysis of a later element of significance. Even though the spatio-temporal constituents of the second event are different from the first, the event in the subject’s perception is a repetition of the first. Repetition does not suggest a duplication of experience, for the temporal forward displacement of a primary event has changed the latter’s character and significance over time, adapting it to the life-history and circumstances of the subject. The difference here results from the event’s displacement which shifts the assumed originary event into different contexts and onto different levels of signification. This difference in repetition marks the difference between an unconscious structure of significance, based on the unconscious capacity of memory, and conscious understanding in the form of perceivable and interpretable signs.”
—Angelika Rauch, The Hieroglyph of Tradition: Freud, Benjamin, Gadamer, Novalis, Kant, 2000
