"This spontaneous recollection, which is masked by the acquired recollection, may flash out at intervals, but it disappears at the least movement of the voluntary memory.
The faculty of mental photography...belongs rather to subconsciousness than to consciousness; it answers with difficulty the summons of the will. In order to exercise it, we should accustom ourselves to reatining, for instance, several arrangements of points at once, without even thinking of counting them: we must imitate in some sort the instantaneity of this memory in order to attain its mastery.
Even so it remains capricious in its manifestations; as the recollections which it brings are akin to dreams, its more regular intrusion into the life of the mind may seriously disturb intellectual equillibrium."
H. Bergson, Matière et Mémoire, 7th printing, Zone Books, 2002, pp. 87-88.
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