[...] And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses. There is stored up, whatever besides we think, either by enlarging or diminishing, or any other way varying those things which the sense hath come to; and whatever else hath been committed and laid up, which forgetfulness hath not yet swallowed up and buried. When I enter there, I require instantly what I will to be brought forth, and something instantly comes; others must be longer sought after, which are fetched, as it were out of some inner receptacle; others rush out in troops, and while one thing is desired and required, they start forth, as who should say, ‘Is it perchance I?’ These I drive away with the hand of my heart from the face of my remembrance; until what I wish for be unveiled, and appear in sight, out of its secret place. Other things come up readily, in unbroken order, as they are called for; those in front making way for the following; and as they make way, they are hidden from sight, ready to come when I will. All which takes place when I recite a thing by heart.

There are all things preserved distinctly and under general heads, each having entered by its own avenue: as light, and all colours and forms of bodies by the eyes; by the ears all sorts of sounds; all smells by the avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by the sensation of the whole body, what is hard or soft; hot or cold; or rugged; heavy or light; either outwardly or inwardly to the body. All these doth that great harbour of the memory receive in her numberless secret and inexpressible windings, to be forthcoming, and brought out at need; each entering in by his own gate, and there laid up. Nor yet do the things themselves enter in; only the images of the things perceived are there in readiness, for thought to recall. Which images, how they are formed, who can tell, though it doth plainly appear by which sense each hath been brought in and stored up? For even while I dwell in darkness and silence, in my memory I can produce colours, if I will, and discern betwixt black and white, and what others I will: nor yet do sounds break in and disturb the image drawn in by my eyes, which I am reviewing, though they also are there, lying dormant, and laid up, as it were, apart. For these too I call for, and forthwith they appear. And though my tongue be still, and my throat mute, so can I sing as much as I will; nor do those images of colours, which notwithstanding be there, intrude themselves and interrupt, when another store is called for, which flowed in by the ears. So the other things, piled in and up by the other senses, I recall at my pleasure. Yea, I discern the breath of lilies from violets, though smelling nothing; and I prefer honey to sweet wine, smooth before rugged, at the time neither tasting nor handling, but remembering only.

These things do I within, in that vast court of my memory. For there are present with me, heaven, earth, sea, and whatever I could think on therein, besides what I have forgotten. There also meet I with myself, and recall myself, and when, where, and what I have done, and under what feelings. There be all which I remember, either on my own experience, or other’s credit. Out of the same store do I myself with the past continually combine fresh and fresh likenesses of things which I have experienced, or, from what I have experienced, have believed: and thence again infer future actions, events and hopes, and all these again I reflect on, as present. “I will do this or that,” say I to myself, in that great receptacle of my mind, stored with the images of things so many and so great, “and this or that will follow.” “O that this or that might be!” “God avert this or that!” So speak I to myself: and when I speak, the images of all I speak of are present, out of the same treasury of memory; nor would I speak of any thereof, were the images wanting.

Great is this force of memory, excessive great, O my God; a large and boundless chamber! who ever sounded the bottom thereof? yet is this a power of mine, and belongs unto my nature; nor do I myself comprehend all that I am. Therefore is the mind too strait to contain itself. And where should that be, which it containeth not of itself? Is it without it, and not within? how then doth it not comprehend itself? A wonderful admiration surprises me, amazement seizes me upon this. And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by; nor wonder that when I spake of all these things, I did not see them with mine eyes, yet could not have spoken of them, unless I then actually saw the mountains, billows, rivers, stars which I had seen, and that ocean which I believe to be, inwardly in my memory, and that, with the same vast spaces between, as if I saw them abroad. Yet did not I by seeing draw them into myself, when with mine eyes I beheld them; nor are they themselves with me, but their images only. And I know by what sense of the body each was impressed upon me.

In certain favourable moods, memories –what one has forgotten– come to the top. Now if this is so, is it not possible –I often wonder– that things that we have felt with great intensity have an existence independent of our minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? I see it –the past– as an avenue lying behind; a long ribbon of scenes, emotions. There at the end of the avenue still, are the garden and the nursery. Instead of remembering here a scene and there a sound, I shall fit a plug into the wall; and listen in to the past. I shall turn up August 1890. I feel that strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves again attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start.

/kənˌfæbjuˈleɪʃən/

A fabricated memory believed to be true.

Confabulation is the formation of false memories, perceptions, or beliefs about the self or the environment as a result of neurological or psychological dysfunction. When it is a matter of memory, confabulation is the confusion of imagination with memory, or the confused application of true memories. It is a plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered, or ‘the emergence of memories of events and experiences that never took place’ which can occur also among healthy people. Confabulations are difficult to differentiate from delusions and from lying.

Confabulations might have have organic causes, such as brain damage, amnesia, dementia or the use of certain drugs. Patiens with Korsakoff’s syndrome tipically confabulate by guessing an answer or imagining an event and then mistaking their guess or imagination for an actual memory.

A number of studies point as well psychological causes, e.g. the constructivist view of memory maintains that reasoning influences memory, in contrast to the idea that memory supports reasoning.

There are two main types of confabulations:

1) “momentary” (or “provoked”) confabulations, fleeting, and invariably provoked by questions probing the subject’s memory, sometimes consisting of “real” memories displaced in their temporal context.
2) “fantastic” (or “spontaneous”) confabulations, characterised by the spontaneous irrelevant associations, sometimes bizarre ideas, which may be held with firm conviction.

Confabulation was not introduced to the medical literature until around 1900 and has intrigued psychiatrists and neurologists for more than a century as a potential key to unlocking the mysteries of human memory and imagination.

In Spellbound, directed by Aldred Hitchcock in 1945, featuring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, a female psychoanalyst protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory. The set for the dream scene was designed by Salvador Dalí.

Leaving behind the babble of the plaza, I enter the Library. I feel, almost physically, the gravitation of the books, the enveloping serenity of order, time magically dessicated and preserved. Left and right, absorbed in their shining dreams, the readers’ momentary profiles are sketched by the light of their officious lamps, to use Milton’s hypallage. I remember having remembered that figure before in this place, and afterwards that other epithet that also defines these environs, the arid camel of the Lunario, and then that hexameter from the Aeneid that uses the same artifice and surpasses artifice itself:

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbras.

These reflections bring me to the door of your office. I go in; we exchange a few words, conventional and cordial, and I give you this book. If I am not mistaken, you were not disinclined to me, Lugones, and you would have liked to like some piece of my work. That never happened; but this time you turn the pages and read approvingly a verse here and there— perhaps because you have recognized your own voice in it, perhaps because deficient practice concerns you less than solid theory.

At this point my dream dissolves, like water in water. The vast library that surrounds me is on Mexico Street, not on Rodríguez Peña, and you, Lugones, died early in ‘38. My vanity and nostalgia have set up an impossible scene. Perhaps so (I tell myself), but tomorrow I too will have died, and our times will intermingle and chronology will be lost in a sphere of symbols. And then in some way it will be right to claim that I have brought you this book, and that you have accepted it.

J.L.B.

Buenos Aires, August 9, 1960

Los rumores de la plaza quedan atrás y entro en la Biblioteca. De una manera casi física siento la gravitación de los libros, el ámbito sereno de un orden, el tiempo disecado y conservado mágicamente. A izquierda y a derecha, absortos en su lúcido sueño, se perfilan los rostros momentáneos de los lectores, a la luz de las lámparas estudiosas, como en la hipálage de Milton. Recuerdo haber recordado ya esa figura, en este lugar, y después aquel otro epíteto que también define por el contorno, el árido camello del Lunario, y después aquel hexámetro de la Eneida, que maneja y supera el mismo artificio:

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram.

Estas reflexiones me dejan en la puerta de su despacho. Entro; cambiamos unas cuantas convencionales y cordiales palabras y le doy este libro. Si no me engaño, usted no me malquería, Lugones, y le hubiera gustado que le gustara algún trabajo mío. Ello no ocurrió nunca, pero esta vez usted vuelve las páginas y lee con aprobación algún verso, acaso porque en él ha reconocido su propia voz, acaso porque la práctica deficiente le importa menos que la sana teoría.

En este punto se deshace mi sueño, como el agua en el agua. La vasta biblioteca que me rodea está en la calle México, no en la calle Rodríguez Peña, y usted, Lugones, se mató a principios del treinta y ocho. Mi vanidad y mi nostalgia han armado una escena imposible. Así será (me digo) pero mañana yo también habré muerto y se confundirán nuestros tiempos y la cronología se perderá en un orbe de símbolos y de algún modo será justo afirmar que yo le he traído este libro y que usted lo ha aceptado.

J.L.B.

Buenos Aires, 9 de agosto de 1960

Nor even now am I awake
Since such thoughts my memory fill,
That it seems I’m dreaming still:
Nor is this a great mistake;

Since if dreams could phantoms make
Things of actual substance seen,
I things seen may phantoms deem.
Thus a double harvest reaping,
I can see when I am sleeping,
And when waking I can dream.

Ni aun agora he despertado;
que según, Clotaldo, entiendo,
todavía estoy durmiendo,
y no estoy muy engañado;
porque si ha sido soñado
lo que vi palpable y cierto,
lo que veo será incierto;
y no es mucho que, rendido,
pues veo estando dormido,
que sueñe estando despierto.