A past event retained in long-term memory needs a process of recall, it needs to be indexed in some way. When it is hard to remember a certain name, say one that goes with the face of a certain cinema actor, you are aware of lodging a request with the librarian of memory, you pay for this request by making efforts to bring up any associations you can find with the idea of the name, and then after a certain time the name itself is delivered to you - as if it were like a book that was stored off-site. All long-term personal memory seems to be subject to a similar process of retrieval and possibly what you receive back from the librarian is not a recording of the event but only a text, a script which enables you to activate the memory as if it were a scene to be played, and you are naturally vague about parts of the setting and need to make further requests if there is a need to clarify them. Such memories are distinct from spontaneous or Proustian memories, which may be more vivid and integrated, but in the normal course of things it is only the ownership and indexing of these memories that is spontaneous - which means that they are already incorporated in your self-system. Most of this self-system is unconscious; if parts of it are broken off, as can doubtless happen for various reasons, you are likely to not notice until you go looking for them. It is as if certain rarely-visited wings in your mental mansion have been sealed off. The possession of yourself in short-term memories seems to be different, these are parts of your current workspace. Consider the difference between listening to an unfamiliar and complex musical work when you are tired and when you are refreshed. You know that it can be construed but in the former case you are aware of your want of power to do so, you lack the abundance of self that enables you to retain a direct connection to the immediate past, as if this connection were made out of still living but attenuated versions of yourself, ontological reverberations. What is you generates ripples in the stuff of mind, and that stuff can vary in quality from moment to moment.