Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition of our existence. If the lore of the transmigration of souls is a true one, then these, between their exchange of bodies, must pass through the sea of forgetfulness.
Sholem AschAn illness is like a journey into a far country; it sifts all one's experience and removes it to a point so remote that it appears like a vision.
Sholem Asch