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Various functions of memory are discussed one by one in order to show how a particularly talented and sensitive individual can be obsessed by recollections. The author follows Lacan in developing a conception of the unconscious that has a linguistic structure and operates on significant forms that are the source of meanings. Consciousness on the other hand is preoccupied with reduction of meanings and strives to acquire unambiguous understanding of linguistic contents. Consequently every understanding is tentative and imaginative, while at the same time a persistent unambiguous interpretation of linguistic contents becomes an obsession. Proust refers to such processes when he speaks of being 'bewitched by day-dreaming'. His creative work is composed of three phases: day-dreaming, recollecting and reflecting. But he does not seem to be in full command of these phases, and it is justified to say that as a writer Proust was a victim of his own memory.