The Past (n.) never ages in the hysteric: the experiences of earliest childhood stay recent, in the strict sense, right up to today.
The Past (n.) is a shadow dragged around like a ghost: the famous author still sat nightly in the tailor's workshop, sewing without wages.
The Past (n.) is unpicturable as the mind holds it: the same space cannot have two contents, yet in the psyche it does.
The Past (n.) rules the mind from two sides: the id carries what we inherited, the super-ego what we took over from others; only the ego lives on its own experience.
The Past (n.) clings: what has once come to life holds on to its existence, and one may doubt whether the old dragons are ever truly extinct.
The Past (n.) is never absorbed in the mind by what grows from it — unlike the historic past, it persists alongside its derivatives.
The Past (n.) holds neurotics so tightly that for its sake they neglect what is real and present.