A Theory and Treatment of Your Personality. Garry Flint
and basic needs.
Memories included in Memory III depend on the presence of one or more of those common qualities or states of the memories. Therefore, Memory III is called a state-dependent memory. This memory is called Memory III, because there are two other state-dependent memories formed before the age of four, which you will find described in Chapter 5. There are other memory structures in Memory III, which you will learn about in Chapter 8. Our Main Personality and its Ego States are part of the state-dependent Memory III.
The Main Personality, in Memory III, and the subconscious are different in two important ways. The first difference is that the subconscious does not experience sensations such as visual experience, taste, smells, sounds, or “ouches.” The subconscious experiences it without the actual sensory sensations — without the “ouch.” The Main Personality, on the other hand, experiences and remembers all the pain sensations experienced during trauma, such as the pain of verbal and physical abuse. For example, if you pinch yourself, your Main Personality feels the “ouch.” However, the subconscious only has or registers the neural activity leading to the experience of pain and the “ouch.” It’s similar to when you turn on the water at your house. The water meter registers what is happening — water is running. Though the water meter knows water is running, it does not experience the water being wet or squirting. The subconscious, like your water meter, registers the pain without feeling the sensation of pain; therefore, the subconscious experiences the memories of all of your behavior and emotions, but at a different neurological level of involvement and without the experience of physical sensations. The subconscious is not state-dependent and has access to all memories running all neural activity.
The second difference is that the subconscious cannot be damaged or hurt because it does not experience painful sensations. Said another way, the Main Personality and the subconscious handle painful emotions and trauma differently. The Main Personality forms filters and barriers to change or hide painful emotions and trauma to make them more comfortable. Filters and barriers can hide large portions of painful experience or memories from our conscious experience. The absence of painful memories simplifies for the conscious mind the process of creating responses.
On the other hand, the subconscious has no sensory experience in the form of pain and trauma and, therefore, does not have filters and barriers. Hence, it has the capacity to know, without pain, the details of all active memories in the conscious or unconscious experience, even the most painful memories. It also has this same capacity with all memory processes running everything in the brain and body.
It is important to know that active memories are the only memories that can be included in the creation of the next response. A dormant memory is not active and cannot be used. However, if a dormant memory relates in some way to a current active memory, sensation, or emotion, it becomes active and can be used in a response and accessed by the subconscious.
When the subconscious accesses a memory, it has the capacity to know what caused the memory and to treat any emotions associated with it. However, do not expect the information from the subconscious to be easily obtained. Normally, you have to guess with the 20-question procedure to get explanations or information. Once you get the information, the subconscious can then be prompted to detect, review and change memories in the Main Personality.
Content and Emotion Memory
Before we go further, let me tell you more about memory. I make a distinction between Content Memory and Emotion Memory (see Figure 3-3). The Content Memory consists of the movie and memories of other neural activity present when the memory was created — the descending list. The Emotion Memories are shown as the stars associated with the neural memories in the Content Memory. A trauma memory has Content Memory, such as the movie or sensory experience, and other neural activity with which the Emotion Memories associate. This distinction between Content Memory and Emotion Memory becomes clear after treating a trauma memory, because after treatment, the memory — the movie — remains unchanged and has no emotional pain associated with it. In other words, the trauma memory has both content and emotions, which are independent of each other. Sometimes after treatment, the Content Memory may become even more detailed than it was before the treatment. This gives further evidence that the Content and Emotion Memories are independent of each other. Treatment removes the Emotion Memories from the Content Memories of the trauma memory.
Content Memory includes the movie (see Figure 3-3). The movie is a sequence of sensory experiences that occurred during the trauma that can be replayed like a movie. Besides the movie, the Content Memory includes the memory of the activity of some unique massive neural pathways. These massive neural pathways involve all areas of the brain that were active during the trauma. Examples of some of these unique massive pathways are those associated with the heart, the lungs, the forebrain process, the eye movements and so forth. Some academics call these unique massive pathways meridians.
Active memories cause our behavior and experiences. They are collages of previously learned Content and Emotion Memories. For example, when we create a new sentence, the sentence is a collage of memories of words, which are composed, edited and then cause us to say, “What’s up, Doc?” Each word in the sentence is a memory in the collage that runs all of the neural activity needed to say the sentence aloud. These collages are assembled in the Active Experience from active conscious and unconscious memories. For example, when I want to bat a fly, memories are triggered and assembled in the Active Experience to create a collage to do what I intend to do — namely, bat a fly.
The same is true of emotions. Collages of Emotion Memories are created in what I call the Active Experience of the Emotion System. Similar to Content Memories, reusing previously created Emotion Memories is another timesaving adaptation of the brain. We remember our current emotions with a collage of Emotion Memories that we learned earlier in life. However, the reuse of Emotion Memory can be damaging to the person, though it can be seen as a process of self-preservation.
Here is an example of how reusing emotions can be damaging. An Emotion Memory, like a near-death experience, can be elicited repeatedly for use in later experiences when emotions or content of the later experience are slightly similar to the emotions or content of the near-death experience. When this happens, the old emotion associated with the response to the current situation can distort the emotional intensity of the current situation and create a traumatic response out of a non-traumatic situation. We see this in post-traumatic stress disorder and hypersensitivity.
Because our behavior is caused by collages of memories previously learned, there are usually not many new novel responses to create. For example, when we have to scratch an itch, we have a sequence of collages of previously learned muscle memories that run the muscles to scratch an itch. The memories are reused in a collage to cause the active behavior of scratching the itch on our arm. We don’t have to create a new response to scratch the itch. Most of our behavior is caused by collages assembled from previously learned memories.
Here is the way a trauma memory may form. If you walk around a corner and see a dead body, you will take a deep breath and your heart will start pounding. In addition, your forebrain gets very active, trying to deal with all the sensory experiences and the emotions. All of these and other mobilized brain activities will be included in the content of the memory of the trauma. Some of the other events that are remembered in a severe trauma include bruising, organ activity, chemical effects and trance states. When you remember a trauma, some representation of all neural activity going on at the time will be active and possibly experienced.
Emotion Memories, represented by the stars (see Figure 3-3), are connected to major neural pathways that were active in the Active Experience during the trauma. When we recall a traumatic experience, we recall both the Emotion and the Content Memory. We re-experience, in part, the emotions, pictures, and/or sounds from the trauma. In addition, we experience some representation of all the neural activity in the brain and body that was going on during the trauma. This activity could be increased breathing rate, a gasp,