I want you to do a little grubbing for mind worms.

Like everyone else, probably, you have memories of little incidents which stand out clearly in your mind every time that you allow your thoughts to travel back to your days of childhood. Have you ever won­dered why some little, apparently trivial incident should stand out so prominently and persistently in your juvenile memories?

In your childhood days you had many millions of little daily experiences. But over practically the whole of these daily happenings a curtain of seemingly im­penetrable forgetfulness has fallen. Yet, here and there, an exception occurs; some little incident, often­times seemingly trivial, stands out in clear outline.

There is no element of chance in mental phenom­ena. So, if the comparatively small number of juvenile memories that persist into adult life are in relation to seemingly trivial and apparently commonplace in­cidents, there must be some very definite reasons for such persistences.

There are no innocent memories of childhood's trivial experiences.

I am going to show you how you can find out that, no matter how seemingly innocent or apparently triv­ial an incident may appear, around which a juvenile memory persistently revolves, when such memories are dug into by the psychoanalytic method they are found to contain something of significant interest. They contain mind worms: parasitic influences.

Those seemingly innocent memories of childhood are known as cover-memories; and if you will use the pick and shovel of the free association method, and dig into those cover-memories, you will find that they always serve to cover up something: and something that is unpleasant.

So, take your psychological pick and shovel and do a little bit of digging.

The Shock of Youth

The majority of experiences that mould the con­scious conduct in so many ways, and thereby pro­foundly influence personality, occur in early childhood. It must not be inferred, however, that when these repressions take place the juvenile mind is torn by any conflicting emotions; or that he fights out any psychical battle in his consciousness.

The repressions of childhood occur involuntarily; and are accomplished by means of a shock. The emo­tional reaction that consequently takes place is auto­matic—mechanical. Not only is there no intellectual action involved: there is not any conscious apprehen­sion of what has taken place.

Now, then, what is the difference between a savage and a cultured personality? I don't mean anything in relation to ethics, but concerning principles governing social demands upon personal behavior.

The briefest consideration will show that there are a thousand and one things that a savage may do with propriety which the civilized child must not do.

For the first year or so of life, no personal obliga­tions are imposed upon the child; but a time arrives when such obligations are imposed on the budding personality.

First come questions of personal cleanliness, after which the developing emotions and impulses have to be cared for. The result of all this is that, during the first few years of its life, the child is subjected to a perpetual series of don'ts and mustn'ts.

In course of time the brain of the child becomes sufficiently developed to think and act on its own be­half; with the result that the don'ts and mustn'ts be­come (or should become) less and less in number, and farther and farther between, and personal efforts be­come correspondingly strengthened.

The child comes into the world with the heritage of untold ages of a primitive ancestral pedigree in its psychical instincts; after which it has to develop its own individual status of cultural responsibility.

This cultural development is fraught with many difficulties; so that, in spite of the hedgings of don'ts and mustn'ts, etc., with which it is surrounded, the trail of the child from the plains of primitive im­pulses up to the highlands of individual responsibility is difficult, painful, and often humiliating. Few indeed are those who attain their goal without bearing in their psychical complexion some traces of the grime of their struggles and experiences.

The reader should note that word humiliating, for it is those experiences in which the child has suffered humiliation which constitute the spawn from which mind worms develop.

If we go far enough down in the zoological scale we come across a little chap known by the name of Mr. Protozoan. He is very, very primitive in his ways, and correspondingly simple in his physical constitution— when compared with some of his neighbors higher up on the evolutionary ladder.

He has no head or tail, no legs or arms. He is just— body. And an extremely primitive body at that—as bodies go; for he has neither nervous system nor di­gestive apparatus—considering nervous systems and digestive apparatuses as we generally know them.

Now, although the protozoan has no brain with which to think, nor any nervous system with which to feel, he can nevertheless feel.

He adapts himself to environment largely by rea­son of an inherent generalized sensitiveness. So, al­though he has no nervous system, if any of his im­provised limbs come into contact with some disagree­able substance, he reacts accordingly. He reacts by immediately withdrawing his pseudopodic feelers from the danger zone, and taking them back into his body. In a sense he shrivels up.

I would like you now to try to define in a few words how you would feel if you were subjected to an in­tense humiliation.

I'll tell you how / should define such an experience: I should say that one's self just shrivels up.

In our big, grown-up, supposedly highly evolved mental attitude, we shrivel up when we are intensely humiliated—just like the little protozoan does when in danger. Furthermore, we do this shrivelling up just as instinctively, and therefore just as involuntarily, as does that little protoplasmic body.

Now, if we grown-ups shrivel up when subjected to intense humiliation, how do you suppose a child of four or five years of age feels when he or she is in­tensely humiliated?

Perhaps the powers of mental apprehension are not sufficiently developed in the child to render him ex­posed to as many varieties of humiliating sensations as an adult might be liable to; but always remember that when a child does suffer from humiliation he suf­fers clean through. He suffers from top to bottom; from one side to the other. He quivers with distress in every cell of-his little body. He shrivels up—just as the little protozoa do.

Fortunately, the child, like his minute distant cousin, is an adaptable little animal, and many of his troubles slip off him like drops of water from the duck's back. Nevertheless, whenever he does feel hu­miliation he feels it intensely.

Such a feeling does not last long, however, but it is acute, and the resulting reactions involuntary. Hence, as far as external evidences are concerned, nothing unusual has taken place. Unfortunately, how­ever, it is this involuntary, quickly covered-up aspect of the reaction, that constitutes its dangerous charac­ter. Something has occurred in the psychic life of the child (in its unconscious mental life) which later on may gravely influence the temperamental attitude of the matured personality.

In its struggle to free itself from the bonds of its evolutionary heritage, and in its efforts to attain to an acceptable status of cultural responsibility, the child is forever feeling its way. It is continually endeavor­ing to sense its environment.

And, like the little patch of protozoan slime, while feeling, the child sometimes gets hurt. In this experi­ence, as with its infinitesimal protoplasmic cousin, it shrinks back—withdraws into itself. It shrivels up.

In such shrinking back the child acts instinctively; no intellectual activities are involved; the child sim­ply follows a blind, primitive impulse.

Hereafter it will not make any difference how much the conditions may vary, circumstances differ, or the general contributing influences be dissimilar. Whenever the personality that has been thus wounded in its psychic life comes into contact with an agency which arouses sensations similar to those which were experienced at the time that the hurt was inflicted, it will instinctively shrink, and thereby act as if it were trying to avoid some pending danger.

Thus will it be all through such a person's life down to the grave. Conditions may vary, circumstances dif­fer, and general contributing influences be wholly dis­similar, so that the "danger" from which the mature personality shrinks is no danger at all; that will make no difference. The tendency to shrink, and exagger­atedly to react to such conditions, has become instinc­tive.

This tendency to shrink from and exaggeratedly react to a stimulus which earlier in life aroused pain, is a cardinal principle of the evolutionary mentality in man, and consists in an ability to profit by experi­ence.

Mental Hiding-Places

A psychical shock means an actual hurt; and when the psychic life of the child has undergone such an experience there is an instinctive effort to remedy the injury. In this effort towards remedying the trouble which it has experienced the psychic life does instinc­tively just what a developed intellectual life often-times tries to do designedly—it represses. There is an instinctive effort to forget. And as this instinctive life is blind, and operates irrespective of any actual con­scious activity, it accomplishes its forgetting by the only means at its disposal: it tries to cover up—to bury.

If you wanted to hide something, you would not put that something in a prominent place, or stick up a flag to mark the spot. You would endeavor to cover it up in such a way that the hiding-place would be as seemingly commonplace and natural as possible.

Well, those memories of your early childhood's life are cover-memories—hiding-places. They indicate points in your early life where you covered up some thing, and did so unconsciously—instinctively. They mark the places in your infantile life when the psy­chical activities suffered from some wounding in­fluence.

Some day or other, in relation to something or other, the child is caught indulging in some little primitive action, and instead of the urge of interest sympathetically directed in a direction more suitable to the child's welfare, some form of drastic action is meted out to it. With the result that the child suffers a psychical shock; it is humiliated; it shrivels up.

There then ensues an instinctive effort to remedy the injury that has been inflicted, and this effort takes the form of covering up the memory of the experi­ence; burying it. There is an instinctive effort at re­pression.

As something has to be covered up, something or other has to be utilized in order to do the covering up. And as some particularly significant, painful, and hu­miliating memory is to be buried, the logical material to use for the covering-up process will naturally be some insignificant and non-humiliating memory mate­rial.

There are very good reasons for assuming that many of those covering memories are not actual indi­vidual memories at all, but merely pseudo-memories; that instead of being memories of concrete experi­ences they are of a composite character, built up of fragments of various memories, so that a mental pic­ture becomes constructed which is purely in the in­terest of disguise.

Your Pseudo-Memories

I analyzed my dreams, and applied the psychoana­lytic method to the exaggerated reactions in my daily experiences; and in this work I found that the Freud­ian contentions ran true to form. But when I tried to analyze my "cover-memories" I failed to make much progress. In such efforts almost all that I could accom­plish by means of the free association method was a flitting from memory to memory, hither and thither, round and round, without uncovering any latent moti­vating factors.

One of these early memories is as follows: I am about eight years of age. Am living with my father and mother in a thatched cottage in Cornwall, where I was born. One afternoon I am in front of this cottage and am amusing myself by throwing a small round stone on to the roof, waiting for it to roll down, and then throwing it up again. My mother comes out of the doorway just as the stone is falling, and is struck on the head. The stone happens to strike my mother's head where it is protected by a coil of hair. My mother is not therefore badly hurt; but she puts her hand up to her head and says, "You naughty boy." I am much frightened, but feel very relieved to be let off so easily.

Everything about that mental picture is clear. I can see the cottage now in detail, the relative positions of myself and my mother, the slant of the sun's after­noon's rays, and all such particulars. I can also hear my mother's voice and the words she used. And I carried that mental picture as an actual concrete memory of an individual occurrence for over forty years. Yet I know now that the scene in question is not a memory of some one particular occurrence, but is a mosaic of memories constituting a covering mental picture.

That seeming memory is nothing but a resourceful camouflage to cover over a psychical injury. Such mental pictures are pseudo-memories.

I will tell you how I ascertained the true charac­ter of many such "memories". I had been using the memory which I have described for the purpose of de­veloping flows of free associations of ideas, but with negative results. One day the thought occurred to me to treat those mental pictures as I would a dream— to split them up into their elemental parts, utilize those elements as stimulus ideas for free association efforts.

As soon as I started to apply these methods the secret was out.

After some efforts at analyzing along these new lines, I soon found that the mental pictures of the doorway, my mother's upraised hand, her coil of hair, her head, her face, the stone, the thatched roof, the slanting rays of the afternoon's sun, the words, "You naughty boy," etc., were all symbolical in their nature. I found that they were as symbolical, suggestive, and significant as all elements of an actual dream always are.

Many times, as a boy, I had thrown stones; many times I had seen that thatched roof; many times I had seen that cottage doorway; many times I had seen my mother come out of that doorway; many times I had seen my mother put her hand to her head; many times I had seen that coil of hair on my mother's head; many times I had seen the slanting rays of the after­noon's sun in front of that cottage; many times I had felt relieved at hearing something or other—and at not hearing something or other!; and many times I had heard my mother (and other people) say, "You naughty boy."

But I know now that I never experienced all of those particular incidents grouped into one happening at any one particular time.

I know now that that particular occurrence never really took place.

I eventually analyzed the significance of the mental pictures of the doorway, the coil of hair, the upraised hand, the stone, the thatched roof, the sun's slanting rays, and the words, "You naughty boy." And I there­by found out why I felt particularly relieved when my mother let me off. so easily in that never-occurred memory picture.

I traced the ideas that those mental pictures sym­bolized down to their sources in my unconscious mind, and thereby uncovered the buried memories which they actually represented.

Yes. There were mind worms underneath those memories.

I found out something more. I found out that the real scene, the painful scene, the experience which caused the wound to my psychic life, did not take place on an afternoon when the sun's rays were glis­tening, nor did it occur outside that little thatched cottage. I found out that the real memory pertained to something that occurred inside the cottage, in the dark, and on a winter's morning.

Note the resourceful transpositions of outside to inside, of sunlight to darkness, of afternoon to winter's morning, etc. In addition to which significant details, the skilled psychoanalyst will discern many instances of suggestive unconscious vernacular in the pictorialized ideas in question, and will understand theirsym­bolical import.

I then proceeded to analyze the rest of my "inno­cent" memories of childhood; and with similar re­sults. By thus splitting up all such memories into their elemental parts, and using these as stimulus points for developing free associations of ideas, and resourcefully interpreting symbolical renderings the true character of these memories became revealed.

I have in similar manner interpreted memories re­lating to incidents that occurred at a time when I could only have been about three or four years old; though in most of such cases I have been unable to anchor their happenings to sufficient evidence to make the exact time of their experience definite. One such instance, however, I have definitely identified as having occurred just a month before I was six years of age. It will thus be seen that the "worms" that I uncovered in that particular instance hatched out in my poor little unconscious mind during my fifth year.

It is nearly always thus. The influences that affect the general complexion of the psychic life of the indi­vidual occurred mostly when the child is about five years of age. Psychologists are now agreed upon that conclusion.

When I traced the roots of the pictured ideas of that cottage door, that coil of hair, that thatched roof, the afternoon's sun's slanting rays, the words, "You naughty boy," etc., I uncovered the real memories which were involved. I found out what I did, and what happened to me. I therefore found out what had hurt me.

Now, what I did in that particular case was not so very terrible, when viewed from an adult standpoint. I only did just what countless other kiddies have done, and what countless others will continue to do. I had been just a little sexually curious, and in mani­festing that curiosity had been found out. And the act of being found out was painful.

In my childlike way I shriveled up. My psychic life had been seriously wounded. Something very se­rious consequently happened; for from that point in my life the channel of a certain emotional attribute took on a considerably modified course, and with con­sequent undesirable effects on the subsequent adult personality.

Having experienced a severe wound, my infantile psychic life instinctively commenced to heal it.

This instinctive attempt to heal the wound took the form of burying and covering up all memories in relation to the incident that occurred. Now, there is only one way for any memory to be covered up, and that is to use some other memory for the purpose. And as the memory that is to be covered up is a sig­nificant element, the memory used for the covering purposes must be apparently insignificant, and wholly devoid of any humiliating influences.

In the instance which I have described, my in­stinctive ability to bury a painful experience did quite a good job. It succeeded in burying the memory of that incident which occurred on a winter's morning so effectually that I never had the least suspicion that anything unusual had ever taken place. In fact, I should probably have gone to my grave unaware of the true meaning of a mental picture which I had carried in my mind for over forty years if I had not applied Freud's dream technique of analysis to cover-memories.

Uncover Your Cover-Memories

Self-analyze your own cover-memories.

To do this, treat such mental pictures precisely as you would a dream. Split the "memories" up into their elemental parts, and use those elements as stim­ulus ideas for developing free associations of ideas.

In analyzing the particular "memory" which I have described, I split the composite picture into the fol­lowing elements:

Front of cottage—cottage door—thatched roof— stone—throwing stone—mother's head—mother's hair—mother's upraised hand—coil of hair—after­noon bright sunlight—slanting rays of sunbeams— the words: "you," "naughty," and "boy."

In taking any one element as a stimulus for free as­sociations, simply forget every other element. Act as if you are taking some particular object from a pile of other objects, and taking it away somewhere to in­vestigate and study it by itself. The more simple the particular element which is being used as a stimulus is, the more fertile are the results which may be ex­pected.

It is not necessary to analyze fully the whole of any one cover-memory before proceeding to some other memory. Often you get the most startling re­sults when the mind is permitted to jump from one element in one cover-memory, to some element in some other covering memory, where the conditions, aspects, and general complexion of the two sets of memories and elements are entirely dissimilar and ap­parently unrelated.

In analyzing these memories, in analyzing dream phenomena, the associations often start to become involved, fluctuating, and indefinite, and in other ways are hard to disentangle. Such experiences always indicate the activity of pronounced unconscious resist­ances to the uncovering efforts.

It must be remembered that the unconscious men­tal life operates mechanically. And as, at some time or other, under some condition or other, the psychic life experienced a wound, the memory of that wound was painful. It therefore instinctively tried to heal the wound by the only means within its power: it buried up the memory relating to the painful experience.

Your Built-In Resistance

As the unconscious psychic life acts mechanically, its activities are purely instinctive. And as it acted instinctively in burying the painful memory in ques­tion, it is instinctively going to continue to try to keep it buried. Therefore, as you dig down after the buried memory, that instinctive psychic life is going to try to bury it deeper. For as the unconscious mind cannot reason, it is unable to understand that it will serve the personality's best interest in yielding up its buried secret; it is unable to realize that it is the personality itself which is trying to uncover that which has been buried.

These resistances will assume many forms, and will be disguised in such resourceful ways that the con­sciousness will always be in danger of being side­tracked. For that matter this same instinct did its work so well in my own experience that it blinded me completely in relation to those so-called memories of mine. In fact, I had not the least suspicion of the real character of things until I applied Freud's dream tech­nique to my cover-memories. Hence it is only natural to suppose that this same resourceful influence will continue to operate to the best of its powers. In a struggle between a scientific technique and a blind instinct, however, the outlook is favorable for the former.

These resistances will take the form of a desire to put off analyzing, to incline strenuously to deny that those cover-memories are pseudo-memories, and to assert that they are real memories. They also take the form of mental lethargy and indifference. On top of this there will be a persistent inclination to interpret certain nice and comforting ideas into the pictured symbols of the cover-memories, and in a thousand and one ways to interpose every obstacle to the self-ana­lytic efforts. After a little time, however, when you have experienced a few solutions to some of your memory elements, a feeling of determination to per­sist will develop, so that it will be only a question of time for very definite progress to be discernible.

Go after those seemingly innocent memories of your childhood. Dig into those apparently trivial memories of insignificant incidents which have per­sisted into your adult remembrances.

As soon as this "digging out" has been accomplished the morbid influences of the painful memory become sterilized. That which was a humiliating and extremely painful memory to the tender and susceptible child becomes trivial when brought back into alignment with the adult mental attitude.

Break open the seals which your infant mind in­stinctively placed over the wounds of its early experi­ences. You will find you will drain off poisons which have prevented your personality from developing healthily.


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