EVERYTHING IS SOMEHOW PRESERVED

“This brings us to the more general problem of preservation in the sphere of the mind…

Since we overcame the error of supposing that the forgetting we are familiar with
signified a destruction of the memory-trace

—that is, its annihilation—

we have been inclined to take the opposite view,
that in mental life nothing which has once been formed can perish

—that everything is somehow preserved and that in suitable circumstances
it can once more be brought to light.”

-sigmund freud
(Civilization and Its Discontents)