Abstract

The concept Deckerinnerung (en. screen-memory), which appeared in Freud’s work in 1899, points towards the important epistemological question about the possibility of adequation or coincidence (Deckung) between past experience and the current act that is being presentified. This can take the form of remembering as such or be conceived as fantasy. In order to clarify the differences between fantasy and memory, or rather their interconnection in the Deckerinnerung, they need to be looked at phenomenologically, and in doing so various aspects should be analysed, such as: the character of positional and neutralised acts of presentification; the interference of conscious attention and the phenomenon of inhibition in the act of presentification; the state of memories in the unconscious and the possibilities of their association between themselves or modification by other current acts. While Freud introduces the subject without further analysing it, Husserl’s theories offer a valuable contribution here. In this context, there is first a need to outline the way in which Husserl’s investigations into memory come close to Freud’s discourse, in the sense that they lead to a “Phenomenology of the Unconscious” (Hua XI; Mat. VIII).