After much brainstorming I finally settled on the idea of the brain as container for so much personal baggage.  I think this is perhaps because I believed  that if I was leaving my birthplace that the most important belonging of mine would be my brain.  Here I house (and hide) many thoughts, emotions, memories, opinions and ideas which I believe have created my soul.  No matter what I know that these will always remain with me whatever journeys I take through life and they can never be lost or damaged in transit. 

I researched a lot of psychology books (way too many) and came up with many theories for personality construction.  I also researched how the brain functions physically and how different  sections of it performs certain actions.  Most of this was relevant to my project and the early theory of Phrenology, the idea that the human mind consisted of various "faculties" located in particular areas of the brain, most interested me which gave me the initial idea to create a brain with many doors, holes and secret compartments which would hold symbolic objects which were relative to my characteristics. This idea soon evolved.