An engram, as used in Dianetics and Scientology, is a detailed mental image or memory of a traumatic event from the past that occurred when an individual was partially or fully unconscious. It is considered to be pseudoscientific and is different from the meaning of "engram '' in cognitive psychology. According to Dianetics and Scientology, from conception onwards, whenever something painful happens while the "analytic mind '' is unconscious, engrams are supposedly being recorded and stored in an area of the mind Scientology calls the "reactive mind ''.
in the vocabulary of scientologists engrams are defined as
is a detailed mental image or memory of a traumatic event from the past that occurred when an individual was partially or fully unconscious