Where does a thought go when it's forgotten?

In this way the ego detaches itself from the external world. It is more correct to say: Originally the ego includes everything, later it detaches from itself the external world. The ego-feeling we are aware of now is thus only a shrunken vestige of a far more extensive feeling - a feeling which embraced the universe and expressed an inseparable connection of the ego with the external world.

I can imagine that the oceanic feeling could become connected with religion later on. That feeling of oneness with the universe which is its ideational content sounds very like a first attempt at the consolations of religion, like another way taken by the ego of denying the dangers it sees threatening it in the external world.

When a love-relationship is at its height there is no room left for any interest in the environment; a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves

Every one has wishes which he would not like to tell to others, which he does not want to admit even to himself.

It is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it.