Dissociation : Volume 10, No. 1 (March 1997)

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Dissociation : Volume 10, No. 1, p. 044-053: The intrusion of early implicit memory into adult consciousness
(Ridgeview Institute and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, 1997-03) Cozolino, Louis J.
Through the first few years of life the central and peripheral nervous systems grow in an exuberant, non-linear progression through a series of structures, organizations, and reorganizations. Evolving sensory, memory, and appraisal systems result in transitory modes of processing which are incorporated, superseded, and/or inhibited by later developing systems. Because of these complexities, little is understood about the phenomenology of early experience and its impact on adult functioning. The present paper hypothesizes about some aspects of early experience and memory and their possible intrusion into adult awareness, using, as an example, reported alien abduction experiences. These experiences are explained as the reinstatement of primordial memories of early caretaking which are misperceived as occurring in the present and interpreted by later developing, socially influenced cortical mechanisms of language and memory.