When "holograms" are mentioned, images of sci fi and floating pictures made of light spring to mind. But what really is a hologram? What does it have to do with us or the "self" besides?
A hologram can be understood as the pattern created by interference of waves. Imagine now tossing a stone into still water, and the pattern of waves that spreads outwards.
As these waves meet shore, or the hull of a boat, or other obstacles in the water, they are reflected. In the process of reflecting, the shape of the wave is changed, preserving in it the shape of what it's reflected from.
When this reflection meets the original wave, the interference between the two carries in it the information necessary to recreate the shape of the reflected surface.
A hologram is created by a similar process but with light. The interference pattern is captured on a photographic plate, capturing the difference between a reference beam and the reflections of a subject. After the intereference pattern has been captured, an image of the subject can be reproduced by shining the reference beam through/against the photgraphic plate.
One of the defining features of a hologram is that all parts contain the whole image. If a hologram stored on a glass photographic plate were broken into smaller pieces, each piece would still keep the whole image but at a reduced resolution. The resolution of each remaining piece is limited by it's size in proportion to the original whole.
I believe that each piece of us contains (even if at a low resolution) a whole image of the rest of our being. For each choice, behavior, habit, or action; these things are not only parts of who we are but carry the reflections of all that we are. In some ways metaphorically or poetically, but in others specifically and literally. For each action of an individual also carries a frame, a set of values and beliefs, and reverberations of their experience carried through. As the waves of life are reflected against us we change and change them in turn, the interference between the two carrying in it the pattern that might uniquely be the self.
If the holography of self is something you would like to learn more about, I highly recommend "Probing Pribram's Brain" by Dan Shanahan