The unconscious is our historical past. In reality the past is preserved automatically. In its entirety probably it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside. =Spontaneous Outbursts.= "How do we know all this?" some one says. "What is the evidence for these sweeping statements? If we cannot remember, how can we discover these strange memories that are so powerful but so elusive? If they are below the level of consciousness, are they not, in the very nature of the case, forever hidden from view, in the sphere of the occult rather than that of science?" The answer to these questions is determined by one important fact; the line between the conscious and subconscious minds does not always remain in the same place; the "threshold of consciousness" is sometimes displaced, automatically allowing these buried memories to come to the surface. In sleep and delirium, in trance and hallucination, in hysteria and intoxication, the tables are turned; the restraining hand of the conscious mind is loosened and the submerged self comes forth with all its ancient memories. It is a common experience to have a patient in delirium repeat long-forgotten verses or descriptions of events that the "real man" has lost entirely. The renowned servant-girl, quoted by Hudson, who in delirium recited passage after passage of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, which she had heard her one-time master repeat in his study, is typical of many such instances.[20] [Footnote 20: Hudson: _The Law of Psychic Phenomena_, p. 44. Quoted from _Coleridge's Biographia Literaria_, Vol. I, p. 117 (edit. 1847).]