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A [[screen ]] memory (like [[forgetting ]] and amnesia) is a compromise between [[repressed ]] elements and [[defense ]] against [[them]]. A paradoxical feature of recollections of this kind is they are less [[childhood ]] [[memories ]] than memories [[about ]] childhood, characterized typically by their [[singular ]] clarity and the [[apparent ]] insignificance of their [[content]]. Important facts are not retained; instead, their [[psychic ]] [[significance ]] is [[displaced ]] onto closely associated but less important details. [[Displacement ]] is indeed the main [[mechanism ]] here, as it is in the [[case ]] of mnemic [[symbols ]] or in the forgetting of a proper [[name]], although to some degree [[condensation ]] may also be [[present]].

The [[notion ]] of screen memories was first presented by [[Freud ]] in his paper so named (1899a), an extension of his [[work ]] on mnemic symbols and the [[recollection ]] of [[trauma ]] in [[hysteria]], a paper written as he was beginning to develop the [[idea ]] of [[unconscious ]] [[fantasy]]. Later, he concluded that such memories, so long as one knew how to [[interpret ]] them, supplied the best available source of [[knowledge ]] about the "forgotten" childhood years (1914g, p. 148). Any memory could be a [[screen memory ]] inasmuch as one aspect of it screened out something unacceptable to the ego.

In the "[[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]" (1950c [1895]), Freud told of Emma, who attributed her [[phobia ]] to an insignificant [[scene ]] [[recalled ]] from adolescence while repressing a more important childhood [[event]]. The scene from adolescence, described by Freud as pseudos, was in effect a screen memory serving to negate the unacceptable fact of the [[traumatic ]] [[seduction ]] of a [[child ]] by an [[adult]], the memory of which was transformed into age-appropriate amorous [[feelings ]] of adolescence (pp. 352-54). Freud clarified his notion of the defensive and idealizing falsification of memories in his account of the "[[Rat Man]]" case, where he noted "that [[people]]'s 'childhood memories' are only consolidated at a later period, usually at the age of [[puberty]], and that this involves a complicated [[process ]] of remodeling, analogous in every way to the process by which a [[nation ]] constructs legends about its early [[history]]. It at once becomes evident that in his phantasies about his infancy the [[individual ]] as he grows up "endeavours to efface the recollection of his auto-[[erotic ]] activities" (1909d, p. 206n). The adolescent's memories concerning his or her childhood thus sought to negate an [[infantile ]] [[sexuality ]] incapable of [[oedipal ]] victory and replaced it with more heroic [[ideas ]] by means of a process that Freud compared to the creation of legends and [[myths]].

In "[[Remembering]], [[Repeating ]] and [[Working]]-Through" (1914g), Freud compared screen memories and [[dreams]], observing that their common [[trait ]] of [[visual ]] representability enabled them to contain mnemic traces, albeit in the [[form ]] of "[[dream]]-[[thoughts]]." He added that the [[analysis ]] of dreams and screen memories facilitated access to the [[reality ]] of the direct [[experience ]] of the [[past ]] just as effectively as the analysis of simple memories: screen memories, he wrote, retained "all of what is essential. . . . They [[represent ]] the forgotten years of childhood as adequately as the [[manifest ]] content of a dream represents the dream-thoughts" (p. 148). Could screen memories conceivably be considered a more faithful [[representation ]] than memories per se? A note added in 1920 to the [[Three ]] Essays on the [[Theory ]] of Sexuality drew an analogy between screen memories and the [[fetish ]] which conceals [[female ]] [[castration ]] (1905d, p. 154n); and in [[Leonardo ]] [[da Vinci ]] and a Memory of his Childhood, memory covers up a fantasy of the [[mother ]] with a [[penis ]] (1910c, p. 98). This [[fetishistic ]] aspect of screen memories, as likewise of sensorily intense mnemic symbols and [[images]], clearly foreshadows Freud's later view of [[fetishism]].

The key reference here nevertheless remains "Screen Memories" (1899a). In this paper Freud evoked one of his own memories of childhood (though he ascribed it to someone else), in which he saw himself playing with [[other ]] [[children ]] in a very green meadow across which vivid yellow flowers were sprinkled; analysis led to a later memory, from adolescence, in which he was in [[love ]] with a [[girl ]] in a yellow dress. Thus the childhood memory was in this case screening off a later [[sexual ]] [[wish]]: "there was no childhood memory, but only a [[phantasy ]] put back into childhood" (p. 315). The displacement was flagged by the intensity of sensory representability (a gauge of the persistence of the wish). Sensory representability was not always primary, however: figurative elements could sometimes reflect wishful [[verbal ]] connections, as, in the present context, when the delicious taste of bread in memory could be [[interpreted ]] as reflecting the adolescent wish to "earn one's bread" like an adult.

As early as 1899, then, Freud suspected that any memory that presented itself to [[consciousness ]] with great intensity might be a screen, so creating a theory of memory as a realm deeply affected by elements of fantasy: "There is in general no [[guarantee ]] of the data produced by our memory" (p. 315). Without such a guarantee, [[psychoanalytical ]] [[interpretation ]] would [[place ]] its hopes in the study of [[repetition ]] (1914g) or on the evidence from [[analytic ]] constructions (1937d).

Inasmuch as screen memories cover up that which is unacceptable to the ego, they may be considered essentially defensive in [[nature]]. Their [[illusory ]] aspect tends to infect all remembering, which thus may always be suspected of having a screen function. The notion tends to subvert the idea of historical reality, for it prompts the question whether such a reality is the outcome of creative interpretation or of genuine access to mnemic traces. In analyzing his own screen memories, therefore, Freud developed an idea that implied a new [[epistemology ]] of [[time ]] and of the complexity of reality: "as though a memory-trace from childhood had here been translated back . . . at a later date" (p. 321). "The [[recognition ]] of this fact must diminish the [[distinction ]] we have drawn between screen memories and other memories derived from our childhood" (p. 322).

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1899a). Screen memories. SE, 3: 299-322.

# ——. (1909d). [[Notes ]] upon a case of [[obsessional ]] [[neurosis]]. SE, 10: 151-318.# ——. (1910c). [[Leonardo da Vinci ]] and a memory of his childhood. SE, 11: 57-137.# ——. (1914g). Remembering, repeating and [[working-through ]] (Further recommendations on the [[technique ]] of [[psycho]]-analysis II). SE, 12: 145-156.