This is an example of an engram: A woman is knocked down by a blow to the face. She is rendered “unconscious.” She is kicked in the side and told she is a faker, that she is no good, that she is always changing her mind. A chair is overturned in the process. A faucet is running in the kitchen. A car is passing in the street outside.

The engram contains a running record of all these perceptions.

The problem with the reactive mind is that it “thinks” in identities, one thing identical to another. The equation is A=A=A=A=A. A reactive mind computation about this engram would be: the pain of the kick equals the pain of the blow equals the overturning chair equals the passing car equals the faucet equals the fact that she is a faker equals the fact that she is no good equals the fact that she changes her mind equals the voice tones of the man who hit her equals the emotion equals a faker equals a faucet running equals the pain of the kick equals organic sensation in the area of the kick equals the overturning chair equals changing one’s mind equals . . . But why continue? Every single perception in this engram equals every other perception in this engram.

In the future, when this woman’s present environment contains enough similarities to the elements found in the engram, she will experience a reactivation of the engram. For example, if one evening the faucet were running and she heard the sound of a car passing outside and, at the same time her husband (the man in her engram) was scolding her about something in a similar tone of voice as used in the original engram, she could experience a pain in the side (where she was kicked earlier). And the words spoken in the engram could also become commands in the present: She might feel that she was no good, or get the idea that she was always changing her mind. The reactive mind is telling the woman that she is in dangerous quarters. If she stays, the pain in the areas where she was abused could become a predisposition to illness or a chronic illness in themselves. This phenomenon of “awakening” the old engram is called restimulation.

The reactive mind is not an aid to a person’s survival for the excellent reason that though it is sturdy enough to hold up during pain and “unconsciousness,” it is not very intelligent. Its attempts to “prevent a person from getting himself into danger,” by enforcing its engram content, can cause unevaluated, unknowing and unwanted fears, emotions, pains and psychosomatic illnesses that one would be much better off without.