Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud - Chapter 12 - Determinism, Chance, and Superstitious Beliefs, part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Section thirteen of Psychopathology of Everyday Life, translated by A.
A Brille Determinism, Chance and Superstitious Beliefs, Part two, s three.
Although conscious thought must be altogether ignorant of the motivation
of the faulty actions described above, yet it would be

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desirable to discover a psychological proof of its existence. Indeed,
reasons obtained through a deeper knowledge of the unconscious make
it probable that such proofs are to be discovered somewhere.
As a matter of fact, phenomena can be demonstrated in
two spheres which seem to correspond to an unconscious and
hence to a displaced knowledge of those motives a. It

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is a striking and generally to be recognized feature in
the behavior of paranoiacs that they attach the greatest significance
to the trivial details in the behavior of others, details
which are usually overlooked by others. They interpret and utilize
as the basis of far reaching conclusions. For example, the

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last paranoiac seen by me concluded that there was a
general understanding among people of his environment because at his
departure from the railway station, they made a certain motion
with one hand. Another noticed how people walked on the street,
how they brandished their walking sticks, and the like. The
category of the accidental requiring no motivation, which the normal

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person lets pass as a part of his own psychic
activities and faulty actions, is thus rejected by the paranoiac
in the application to the psychic manifestations to others. All
that he observes in others is full of meaning, all
is explainable. But how does he come to look at
it in this manner? Probably here, as in many other cases,

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he projects into the mental life of others what exists
in his own unconscious activity. Many things ob trude themselves
on consciousness in paranoia, which in normal and neurotic persons
can only be demonstrated through psychoanalysis as existing in their
unconscious In a certain sense, the paranoiac is here justified.

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He perceives something that escapes the normal person. He sees
clearer than one of normal intellectual capacity. But his knowledge
becomes worthless when he imputes to others the state of affairs.
He thus recognizes, I hope that I shall not be
expected to justify every paranoiac interpretation. But the point which

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we grant to paranoia in this conception of chance actions
will facilitate for us the psychologic understanding of the conviction
which the paranoiac attaches to all these interpretations, there is
certainly some truth to it. Even our errors of judgment,
which are not designated as morbid, acquire their feeling of

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conviction in the same way. This feeling is justified for
a certain part of the erroneous train of thought, or
for the source of its origin, and we shall later
extend it to the remaining relationships b The phenomena of
superstition furnish another indication of the unconscious motivation in chance

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and faulty actions. I will make myself clear through the
discussion of a simple experience which gave me the starting
point to these reflections. Having returned from vacation, my thoughts
immediately turned to the patients with whom I was to
occupy myself in the beginning of my year's work. My
first visit was to a very old woman for whom

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I had twice daily performed the same professional services for
many years. Owing to this monotony, unconscious thoughts have often
found expression on the way to the patient, and during
my occupation with her, she was over ninety years old,
was therefore pertinent to ask oneself at the beginning of
each year how much longer she was likely to live.

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On the day of which I speak, I was in
a hurry and took a carriage to her house. Every
coachman at the cab stand near my house knew the
old woman's address, as each of them had often driven
me there. This day, it happened that the driver did
not stop in front of her house, but before one
of the same number in a near by and really
similar looking parallel street. I noticed the mistake and reproached

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the coachman, who apologized for it. Is it of any
significance when I am taken to a house where the
old woman is not to be found, certainly not to me.
But were I superstitious, I should see an omen in
this incident, a hint of fate that this would be
the last year for the old woman. A great many
omens which have been preserved by history have been founded

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on no better symbolism. Of course, I explained the incident
as an accident without further meaning. The case would have
been entirely different had I come on foot and absorbed
in thought or through distraction, I had gone to the
house on the parallel street instead of the correct one.
I would not explain that as an accident, but as

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an action with unconscious intent requiring interpretation. My explanation of
this lapse in walking would probably be that I expected
that the time would soon come when I should not
meet the old woman any longer. I therefore differ from
a superstitious person in the following manner. I do not
believe that an occurrence in which my mental life takes

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no part can teach me anything hidden concerning the future
shaping of reality. But I do believe that an unintentional
manifestation of my mental activity surely contains something concealed which
belongs only to my mental life. That is, I believe
in outer real chance, but not in inner s accidents.

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With the superstitious person, the case is reversed. He knows
nothing of the motive of his chance and faulty actions.
He believes in the existence of psychic contingencies. He is
therefore inclined to attribute meaning to external chance, which manifests
itself in actual occurrence, and to see in the accident

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a means of expression for something hidden outside of him.
There are two differences between me and the superstitious person. First,
he projects the motive to the outside while I look
for it in myself. Second, he explains the accident by
an event which I trace to a thought. What he

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considers hidden corresponds to the unconscious with me and the
compulsion not to let chance pass as chance, but to
explain it as common to both of us. Thus, I
admit that this conscious ignorance and unconscious knowledge of the
motivation of psychic accidentalness is one of the psychic roots
of superstition. Because the superstitious person knows nothing of the

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motivation of his own accidental actions, and because the fact
of this motivation strives for a place in his recognition,
he is compelled to dispose of them by displacing them
into the outer world. If such a connection exists, it
can hardly be limited to this single case. As a
matter of fact, I believe that a large portion of

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the mythological conception of the world, which reaches far into
the most modern religions, is nothing but psychology projected into
the outer world. The dim perception, the endopsychic perception, as
it were, of psychic factors and relations of the unconscious,
was taken as a model in the construction of a

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transcendental reality which is destined to be changed again by
science into psychology of the unconscious. It is difficult to
express it in other terms. The analogy to paranoia must
come to our aid. We venture to explain in this
way the myths of paradise and the fall of man,

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of God, of good and evil, of immortality, and the like,
that is to transform metaphysics into metapsychology. The gap between
the paranoiac's displacement and that of superstition is narrower than
appears at first sight. When human beings began to think,
they were obviously compelled to explain the outer world in

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an anthropomorphic sense by a multitude of personalities in their
own image. The accidents which they explained superstitiously were thus
actions and expressions of persons. In that regard, they behaved
just like paranoiacs, who draw conclusions from insignificant signs which

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others give them, and like all normal persons who justly
din take the unintentional actions of their fellow beings as
a basis for the estimation of their characters. Only in
our modern philosophical but by no means finished views of
life does superstition seem so much out of place in

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the view of life of the pre scientific times and nations,
it was justified and consistent. The Roman who gave up
an important undertaking because he cited an ill omened flock
of birds was relatively right. His action was consistent with
his principles. But if he withdrew from an undertaking because

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he had stumbled on his threshold, he was absolutely superior,
even to us unbelievers. He was a better psychologist than
we are striving to become, For his stumbling could demonstrate
to him the existence of a doubt, an internal counter current,
the force of which could weaken the power of his
intention at the moment of its execution. For only by

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concentrating all psychic powers on the desired aim can one
be assured of perfect success. How does Schillers tell, who
hesitated so long to shoot the apple from his son's head,
answer the bailiff's question why he had provided himself with
a second arrow. With the second arrow, I would have

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pierced you had I struck my dear child, And truly
I should not have failed to reach you. Four. Whoever
has had the opportunity of studying the concealed psychic feelings
of persons by means of psychoanalysis can also tell something
new concerning the quality of unconscious motives which express themselves

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in superstition. Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive thinking and compulsive states,
who are often very intelligent, show very plainly that superstition
originates from repressed, hostile and cruel impulses. The greater part
of superstition signifies fear of impending evil, and he who

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has frequently wished evil to others, but because of a
good bringing up, has repressed the same into the unconscious,
will be particularly apt to expect punishment for such unconscious evil,
in the form of a misfortune threatening him from without.
If we concede that we have by no means exhausted

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the psychology of superstition in these remarks, we must, on
the other hand, at least touch upon the question whether
real roots of superstition should be altogether denied, whether there
are really no omens, prophetic dreams, telepathic experiences, manifestations of
supernatural forces, and the like. I am now far from

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willing to repudiate without anything further all these phenomena concerning
which we possess so many minute observations, even from men
of intellectual prominence, and which should certainly form a basis
for further investigation. We may even hope that some of
these observations will be explained by our present knowledge of

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the unconscious psychic processes without necessitating radical changes in our
present aspect. If still other phenomena, as for example, those
maintained by the spiritualists, should be proven, we should then
consider the modification of our laws as demanded by the
new experience. Without becoming confused in regard to the relation

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of things of this world in the sphere of these analyzes,
I can only answer the questions here proposed subjectively, that is,
in accordance with my personal experience. I am sorry to
confess that I belong to that class of unworthy individuals
before whom the spirits cease their activities and the supernatural disappears,

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so that I have never been in position to experience
anything personally that would stimulate belief in the miraculous. Like
everybody else, I have had forebodings and experienced misfortunes, but
the two evaded each other, so that nothing followed the
foreboding and the misfortune struck me unannounced. When as a

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young man I lived alone in a strange city, I
frequently heard my name suddenly pronounced by an unmistakable, dear voice,
and I then made a note of the exact moment
of the hallucination in order to inquire carefully of those
at home what had occurred. At that time, there was
nothing to it. On the other hand, I later worked

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among my patients calmly and without foreboding, while my child
almost bled to death. Nor have I ever been able
to recognize as unreal phenomena any of the forebodings reported
to me by my patients. The belief in prophetic dreams
numbers many adherents because it can be supported by the

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fact that some things really so happen in the future
as they were previously foretold by the wish of the dream.
But in this there is little to be wondered at,
as many far reaching deviations may be regularly demonstrated between
a dream and the fulfillment, which the credulity of the

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dreamer prefers to neglect. A nice example, one which may
be justly called prophetic, was once brought to me for
exhaustive analysis by an intelligent and truth loving patient. She
related that she once dreamed that she had met a
former friend and family physician in front of a certain

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store in a certain street, and the next morning, when
she went downtown, she actually met him at the place
named in the I may observe that the significance of
this wonderful coincidence was not proven to be due to
any subsequent event, that is, it could not be justified

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through future occurrencies. Careful examination definitely established the fact that
there was no proof that the woman recalled the dream
in the morning following the night of the dream, that is,
before the walk and before the meeting. She could offer
no objection when this state of affairs was presented in

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a manner that robbed this episode of everything miraculous, leaving
only an interesting psychologic problem. One morning, she had walked
through this very street, had met her old family physician
before that certain store, and on seeing him, received the
conviction that during the preceding night she had dreamed of

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this meeting at this place. The analysis then showed with
great probability how she came to this conviction, to which,
in accordance with the general rule, we cannot deny a
certain right to credence a meeting at a definite place
following the previous expectation really describes the fact of a

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rendezvous the old family physician awakened her memory of old
times when meetings with a third person, also a friend
of the physician, were of marked significance to her. Since
that time she had continued her relations with this gentleman,
and the day before the mentioned dream, she had waited

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for him in Vain. If I could report in greater
detail the circumstances here before us, I could easily show
that the illusion of the prophetic dream at the sight
of the friend of former times is perchance equivalent to
the following speech. Ah, doctor, you now remind me of
my bygone times when I never had to wait in

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Vain for n when we had arranged a meeting. I
have observed in myself a simple and easily explained example,
which is probably a good model for similar occurrences of
those familiar, remarkable coincidences, wherein we meet a person of
whom we were just thinking during a walk through the

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inner city a few days after the title of professor
was bestowed on me, which carries with it a great
deal of prestige even in monarchical cities. My thoughts suddenly
merged into a childish revenge fantasy against a certain married couple.
Some months previous, they had called me to see their

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little daughter, who suffered from an interesting convulsive manifestation following
the appearance of a dream. I took a great interest
in the case, the genesis of which I believed I
could surmise. But the parents were unfavorable to my treatment
and gave me to understand that they thought of applying
to a foreign authority who cured by means of hypnotism.

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I now fancied that after the failure of this attempt,
the parents begged me to resume my treatment, that they
now had full confidence in me, et cetera. But I answered,
now that I have become a professor, you have confidence
in me. The title has made no change in my ability.
If you could not use me when I was instructor,

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you can get along without me now that I am professor.
At this point, my fantasy was interrupted by a loud
good morning, Professor, and as I looked up, there passed
me the same couple on whom I had just taken
this imaginary vengeance. The next reflection destroyed the semblance of
the miraculous I was walking towards this couple on a straight,

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almost deserted street, glancing up hastily at a distance of
perhaps twenty steps from me. I had spied and realized
their stately personality. But this perception, following the model of
a negative hallucination, was set aside by certain emotionally accentuated
motives and then asserted itself in the apparently spontaneous emerging fantasy.

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A similar experience is related by Brill, which also throws
some light on the nature of telepathy. While engrossed in
conversation during our customary Sunday evening dinner at one of
the large New York restaurants, I suddenly stopped and irrelevantly
remarked to my wife, I wonder how doctor R is

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doing in Pittsburgh. She looked at me much astonished and said, why,
that is exactly what I have been thinking for the
last few seconds. Either you have transferred this thought to
me or I have transferred it to you. How can
you otherwise explain this strange phenomenon? I had to admit
that I could offer no solution. Our conversation throughout the

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day showed not the remotest association to doctor R, nor
so far as our memories went, had we heard or
spoken of him for some time. Being a skeptic, I
refused to admit that there was anything mysterious about it,
although inwardly I felt quite uncertain. To be frank, I

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was somewhat mystified. But we did not remain very long
in this state of mind, for on looking toward the cloakroom,
we were surprised to see doctor R. Though closer inspection
showed our mistake. We were both struck by the remarkable
resemblance of this stranger to doctor R. From the position

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of the cloak room, we were forced to conclude that
this stranger had passed our table. Absorbed in our conversation,
we had not noticed him consciously, but the visual image
had stirred up the association of this double doctor R.
That we should both have experienced the same thought is

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also quite natural. The last word from our friend was
to the effect that he had taken up private practice
in Pittsburgh, and being aware of the vicissitudes that beset
the beginner, it was quite natural to wonder how fortune
smiled upon him what promised to be a supernatural manifestation
was thus easily explained on a normal basis. But had

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we not noticed the stranger before he left the restaurant,
it would have been impossible to exclude the mysterious. I
venture to say that such simple mechanisms are at the
bottom of the most complicated telepathic manifestations. At least such
has been my experience in all cases accessible to investigation.

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Another solution of an apparent foreboding was reported by Otto
Rank some time ago. I had experienced a remarkable variation
of that peculiar coincidence wherein one meets a person who
has just been occupying one's thoughts. Shortly before Christmas, I

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went to the Austro Hungarian bank in order to obtain
ten new silver crown pieces destined for Christmas gifts, absorbed
in ambitious fantasies which dealt with the contrast of my
meager means to the enormous suns in the banking house.
I turned into the narrow street to the bank. In

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front of the door, I saw an automobile and many
people going in and out. I thought to myself, the
officials will have plenty of time for my new crowns. Naturally,
I shall be quick about it, I shall put down
the paper notes to be exchanged, and say, please give
me gold. I realized my mistake at once, I was

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to have said for silver, and awoke from my fantasies.
I was now only a few steps from the entrance,
and noticed a young man coming towards me, who looked familiar,
but whom I could not identify definitely on account of
my short sightedness. As he came nearer, I recognized him
as a classmate of my brother, whose name was Gold,

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and from whose brother a well known journalist. I had
great expectations in the beginning of my literary career, but
these expectations had not materialized, and with them had vanished
the hope for material success with which my fantasies were
occupying themselves. On my way to the bank, thus engrossed,

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I must have unconsciously perceived the approach of mister Gold,
who impressed himself on my conscience while I was dreaming
on material success, and thereby caused me to ask the
cashier for gold instead of the inferior silver. But on
the other hand, the paradoxical fact that my unconscious was

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able to perceive an object long before it was wrecked
recognized by the eye, might in part be explained by
the complex readiness of Bluler, For my mind was attuned
to the material, and contrary to my better knowledge, it
guided my steps from the very beginning to buildings where
gold and paper money were exchanged to the category of

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the wonderful and uncanny. We may also add that strange
feeling we perceive in certain moments and situations when it
seems as if we have already had exactly the same
experience or had previously found ourselves in the same situation.
Yet we are never successful in our efforts to recall

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clearly those former experiences and situations. I know that I
follow only the loose colloquial expression when I designate that
which stimulates us in such moments as a feeling. We
undoubtedly deal with the judgment, and in indeed with a
judgment of cognition. But these cases nevertheless have a character

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peculiar to themselves. And besides, we must not ignore the
fact that we never recall what we are seeking. I
do not know whether this phenomenon of deja vu was
ever seriously offered as a proof of a former psychic
existence of the individual, but it is certain that psychologists

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have taken an interest in it and have attempted to
solve the riddle in a multitude of speculative ways. None
of the proposed tentative explanations seem right to me, because
none takes account of anything but the accompanying manifestations and
the favoring conditions of the phenomenon. Those psychic processes, which,

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according to my observation, are alone responsible for the explanation
of the deja vu, namely, the unconscious fantasies, are generally
neglected by psychologist even today. I believe that it is
wrong to designate the feeling of having experienced something before

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as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments, something
is really touched that we have already experienced, only we
cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious.
In short, the feeling of deja vous corresponds to the
memory of an unconscious fantasy. There are unconscious fantasies or

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day dreams, just as there are similar conscious creations which
everyone knows from personal experience. I realize that the object
is worthy of most minute study, but I will here
give the analysis of only one case of deja vus.
In which the feeling was characterized by particular intensity and persistence.

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A woman of thirty seven years asserted that she most
distinctly remembered that, at the age of twelve and a half,
she paid her first visit to some school friends in
the country, and as she entered the garden, she immediately
had the feeling of having been there before. This feeling
was repeated as she went through the living rooms, so

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that she believed she knew beforehand how big the next
room was, what views one could have on looking out
of it, et cetera. But the belief that this feeling
of recognition might have its source in a previous visit
to the house and garden, perhaps a visit paid in
earliest childhood, was absolutely excluded and disproved by statements from

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her parents. The woman who related this sought no psychologic explanation,
but saw in the appearance of this feeling a prophetic
reference to the importance which these friends later assumed in
her emotional life. On taking into consideration, however, the circumstance
under which this phenomenon presented itself to her, we found

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the way to another conception. When she decided upon this visit,
she knew that these girls had an only brother who
was seriously ill. In the course of the visit, she
actually saw him. She found him looking very badly and
thought to herself that he would soon die. But it
happened that her own only brother had had a serious

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attack of diphtheria some months before, and during his illness
she had lived for weeks with relatives far from her
parental home. She believed that her brother was taking part
in this visit to the country, imagined even that this
was his first long journey since his illness. Still, her
memory was remarkably indistinct in regard to these points, whereas

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all other details, and particularly the dress which she wore
that day, remained most clearly before her eyes. To the initiated,
it will not be difficult to conclude from these suggestions
questions that the expectation of her brother's death had played
a great part in the girl's mind at that time,
and that either it never became conscious or it was

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more energetically repressed after the favorable issue of the illness.
Under other circumstances, she would have been compelled to wear
another dress, namely morning clothes. She found the analogous situation
in her friend's home. Their only brother was in danger
of an early death, an event that really came to

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pass a short time after. She might have consciously remembered
that she had lived through a similar situation a few
months previous, but instead of recalling what was inhibited through repression,
she transferred the memory feeling to the locality, to the
garden and the house, and merged into it the faux

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reconnaissance that she had already seen everything exactly as it was.
From the fact of the repression, we may conclude that
the former expectation of the death of her brother was
not far from evincing the character of a wish fantasy.
She would then have become the only child. In her

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later neurosis, she suffered in the most intense manner from
the fear of losing her parents, behind which the analysis disclosed,
as usual, the unconscious wish of the same content. My
own experience of deja vus I can trace in a
similar manner to the emotional constellation of the moment. It

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may be expressed as follows. That would be another occasion
for awakening certain fantasies, unconscious and unknown, which were formed
in me at one time or another as a wish
to improve my situation. Five recently, when I had occasion
to recite to a colleague of a philosophical turn of

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mind some examples of name forgets with their analyzes, he
hastened to reply, that is all very well, but with me,
the forgetting of a name proceeds in a different manner. Evidently,
one cannot dismiss this question as simply as that. I
do not believe that my colleague had ever thought of
an analysis for the forgetting of a name, nor could

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he say how the process differed in him. But his
remark nevertheless touches upon a problem which many would be
inclined to place in the foreground. Does the solution given
for faulty and chance actions apply in general or only
in particular cases, And if only in the latter, what

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are the conditions under which it may also be employed
in the explanation of the other phenomena. In answer to
this question, my experiences leave me in the lurch. I
can only urge against considering the demonstrated connections as rare.
For as often as I have made the test in
myself and with my patience, it was always definitely demonstrated

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exactly as in the examples reported, or there were at
least good reasons to assume this. One should not be surprised, however,
when one does not succeed every time in finding the
concealed meaning of the symptomatic action, as the amount of
inner resistances ranging themselves against the solution must be considered

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a deciding factor. Also, it is not always possible to
explain every individual dream of one's self or of patience
to substantiate the general validity of the theory. It is
enough if one can penetrate only a certain distance into
the hidden associations. The dream, which proves refractory when the

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solution is attempted on the following day, can often be
robbed of its secret a week or a month later,
when the psychic factors combating one another have been reduced
as a consequence of a real change that has meanwhile
taken place. The same applies to the solution of faulty
and symptomatic actions. It would therefore be wrong to affirm,

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of all cases which resist analysis, that they are caused
by another psychic mechanism than that here revealed. Such assumption
requires more than negative proofs. Moreover, the readiness to believe
in a different explanation of faulty and symptomatic actions, which

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probably exists universally in all normal persons, does not prove anything.
It is obviously an expression of the same psychic forces
which produced the secret, which therefore strives to protect and
struggle against its elucidation. On the other hand, we must
not overlook the fact that the repressed thoughts and feelings

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are not independent in attaining expression in symptomatic and faulty actions.
The technical possibility for such an adjustment of the innervations
may be furnished independently of them, and this is then
gladly utilized by the intention of the repressed material to
come to conscious expression. In the case of linguistic faulty actions,

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an attempt has been made by philosophers and philologists to
verify through minute observations what structural and functional relations enter
into the service of such intention. If in the determinations
of faulty and symptomatic actions, we separate the unconscious motive

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from its coactive physiological and psychophysical relations, the question remains
open whether there are still other factors within normal limits which,
like the unconscious motive, and in its place can produce
faulty and symptomatic ac actions on the road of the relations.

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It is not my task to answer this question. Six.
Since the discussion of speech blunders, we have been content
to demonstrate that faulty actions have a concealed motive, and
through the aid of psychoanalysis, we have traced our way
to the knowledge of their motivation, the general nature and

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peculiarities of the psychic factors brought to expression in these
faulty actions. We have hitherto left almost without consideration. At
any rate, we have not attempted to define them more accurately,
or to examine into their lawfulness. Nor will we now
attempt a thorough lucidation of the subject, as the first

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steps have already taught us that it is more feasible
to enter this structure from another side. Here we can
put before ourselves certain questions, which I will cite in
their order. One what is the content and the origin
of the thoughts and feelings which show themselves through faulty
and chance actions. Two? What are the conditions which force

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a thought or a feeling to make use of these
occurrences as a means of expression and place it in
a position to do so? Three? Can constant and definite
associations be demonstrated between the manner of the faulty action
and the qualities brought to expression through it. I shall

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begin by bringing together some material for answering the last question.
In the discussion of the examples of speech blunders, we
found it necessary to go beyond the contents of the
intended speech, and we had to seek the cause of
the speech disturbance outside the intention. The latter was quite
clear in a series of cases, and was known to

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the consciousness of the speaker. In the example that seemed
most simple and transse parent, it was a similar sounding,
but different conception of the same thought, which disturbed its expression,
without anyone being able to say why the one succumbed
and the other came to the surface. In a second
group of cases, one conception succumbed to a motive which

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did not, however, prove strong enough to cause complete submersion.
The conception which was withheld was clearly presented to consciousness.
Only of the third group can we affirm unreservedly that
the disturbing thought differed from the one intended, And it
is obvious that it may establish an essential distinction. The

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disturbing thought is either connected with the disturbed one through
a thought association disturbance through inner contradiction, or it is
substantially strange to it, and just the disturbed word is
connected with the disturbing thought through a surprising outer association,

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which is frequently unconscious. In the examples which I have
given from my psychoanalysis, it is found that the entire
speech is either under the influence of thoughts which have
become active simultaneously, or under the absolutely unconscious thoughts which
betray themselves, either through the disturbance itself, or which events

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an indirect influence by making it possible for the individual
parts of the unconsciously intended speech to disturb one another.
The retained or unconscious thoughts from which the disturbances in
speech emanate are of most varied origin. A general survey
does not reveal any definite direction. Comparative examinations of examples

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of mistakes in reading and writing lead to the same conclusions.
Isolated cases, as in speech, blunders, seem to owe their
origin to an unmotivated work of condensation. But we should
be pleased to know whether special conditions must not be
fulfilled in order that such condensation, which is considered regular

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in the dream work and faulty in our waking thoughts
should take place. No information concerning this can be obtained
from the examples themselves. But I merely refuse from this
to draw the conclusion that there are no such conditions as,
for instance, the relaxation of conscious attention. For I have

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learned elsewhere that automatic actions are especially characterized by correctness
and reliability. I would rather emphasize the fact that here,
as so frequently in biology, it is the normal relations
or those approaching the normal, that are less favorable objects
for investigation than the pathological. What remains obscure in the

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explanation of these most simple disturbances, will, according to my expectation,
be made clear through the explanation of more serious disturbances. Also,
mistakes in reading and writing do not lack examples in
which more remote and more complicated motivation can be recognized.

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There is no doubt that the disturbances of the speech
functions occur more easily and make less demand on the
disturbing forces than other psychic acts. But one is on
different ground when it comes to the examination of forgetting
in the literal sense, that is, the forgetting of past experiences.

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To distinguish this forgetting from the others, we designate sensustrictori,
the forgetting of proper names and foreign words as in
Chapters one and two, as slips, and the forgetting of
resolutions as omissions. The principal conditions of the normal process
of forgetting are unknown. We are also reminded of the

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fact that not all is forgotten, which we believe to be.
Our explanation here deals only with those cases in which
the forgetting arouses our astonishment in so far as it
infringes the rule that the unimportant is forgotten while the
important matter is guarded by memory. Analysis of these examples

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of forgetting, which seem to demand a special explanation, shows
that the motive of forgetting is always an unwillingness to
recall something which may evoke painful feelings. We come to
the conjecture that this motive universally strives for expression in
psychic life, but is inhibited through other and contrary forces,

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from regularly manifesting itself. The extent and significance of this
dislike to recall painful impressions seems worthy of the most
painful taking psychologic investigation. The question as to what special
conditions render possible the universally resistant forgetting in individual cases

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cannot be solved. Through this added association. A different factor
steps into the foreground. In the forgetting of resolutions, the
supposed conflict resulting in the repression of the painful memory
becomes tangible, and in the analysis of the examples one
regularly recognizes a counter will which opposes but does not

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put an end to the resolution. As in previously discussed
faulty acts, we here also recognize two types of the
psychic process. The counter will either turns directly against the
resolution in intentions of some consequence, or it is substantially
foreign to the resolution itself and establishes its connection with

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it through an outer association. In almost indifferent resolutions, the
same conflict governs the phenomena of erroneously carried out actions.
The impulse which manifests itself in the disturbances of the
action is frequently a counter impulse, still oftener, it is

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altogether a strange impulse which only utilizes the opportunity to
express itself through a disturbance in the execution of the action.
The cases in which the disturbance is the result of
an inner contradiction are the most significant ones and also
deal with the more important activities. The inner conflict in

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the chance or symptomatic actions then merges into the background.
Those motor expressions, which are least thought of or are
entirely overlooked by consciousness serve as the expression of numerous
unconscious or restraint and feelings. For the most part, they
represent symbolically wishes and phantoms. The first question as to

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the origin of the thoughts and emotions which find expression
in faulty actions, we can answer by saying that in
a series of cases, the origin of the disturbing thoughts
can be readily traced to repressed emotions of the psychic life.
Even in healthy persons, egotistic, jealous, and hostile feelings and

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impulses burdened by the pressure of moral education often utilize
the path of faulty actions to express in some way
their undeniably existing force, which is not recognized by the
higher psychic instances. Allowing these faulty and chance actions to
continue corresponds in great part to a comfortable toleration of

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the unmorl The manifold sexual currents play no insignificant part
in these rears pressed feelings that they appear so seldom
in the thoughts revealed by the analyses of my examples
is simply a matter of coincidence. As I have undertaken
the analysis of numerous examples from my own psychic life.

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The selection was partial from the first and aimed at
the exclusion of sexual matters. At other times, it seems
that the disturbing thoughts originated from the most harmless objection
and consideration. We have now reached the answer to the
second question, that is, what psychologic conditions are responsible for

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the fact that a thought must seek expression not in
its complete form, but as it were, in parasitic form,
as a modification and disturbance of another. From the most
striking examples of faulty actions, it is quite obvious that
this determinant should be sought in a relation to conscious

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capacity or in the more or less firmly pronounced character
of the repressed material. But an examination of this series
of examples shows that this character consists of many indistinct elements.
The tendency to overlook something because it is wearisome or
because the concerned thought does not really belong to the

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intended matter. These feelings seem to play the same role
as motives for the suppression of a thought which later
depends for expression on the disturbance of another, as the
moral condemnation of a rebellious emotional feeling, or as the
origin of absolutely unconscious trains of thought. An insight into

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the general nature of the condition of faulty and chance
actions cannot be gained in this way. However, this investigation
gives us one single significant fact. The more harmless the
motivation of the faulty act, the less obnoxious, and hence
the less incapable of consciousness, the thought to which it

(47:07):
gives expression is the easier. Also becomes the solution of
the phenomenon, after we have turned our attention toward it.
The simplest cases of speech blunders are immediately noticed and
spontaneously corrected. Where one deals with motivation through actually repressed feelings,

(47:27):
the solution requires a painstaking analysis, which may sometimes strike
against difficulties or turn out unsuccessful. One is therefore justified
in taking the result of this last investigation as an
indication of the fact that the satisfactory explanation of the
psychologic determinations of faulty and chance actions is to be

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acquired in another way, and from another source. The indulgent
reader can therefore see in these discussions the demonstration of
the surfaces of fracture in which this theme was quite
artificially evolved from a broader connection. Seven just a few
words to indicate the direction of this broader connection. The

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mechanism of the faulty and chance actions, as we have
learned to know it through the application of analysis, shows
the most essential points in agreement with the mechanism of
dream formation, which I have discussed in the chapter the
dream Work of my Book and the Interpretation of Dreams.
Here as there one finds the condensation and compromise formation contamination.

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In addition, the situation is much the same, since unconscious
thoughts find expression as modifications of other thoughts in unusual
ways and through outer associations. The incongruities, absurdities and errors
in the dream content by virtue of which the dream
is scarcely recognized as a psychic achievement, originate in the

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same way, to be sure, through freer usage of the
existing material as the common error of our everyday life.
Here as there, the appearance of the incorrect function is
explained through the peculiar interference of two or more correct actions.
An important conclusion can be drawn from this combination. The

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peculiar mode of operation, whose most striking function we recognize
in the dream content, should not be adjudged only to
the sleeping state of the psychic life, when we possess
abundant proof of its activity during the waking state in
the form of faulty actions. The same connection also forbids

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us assuming that these psychic processes which impress us as
abnormal and strange, are determined by deep seated DEAs ka
of psychic activity or by morbid state of function. The
correct understanding of this strange psychic work, which allows the
faulty actions to originate like the dream pictures, will only

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be possible after we have discovered that the psycho neeurotic symptoms,
particularly the psychic formations of hysteria and compulsion neurosis, repeat
in their mechanisms all the essential features of this mode
of operation. The continuation of our investigation would therefore have

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to begin at this point. There is still another special
interest for us in considering the faulty chance and the
symptomatic actions in the light of this last analogy, if
we compare them to the function of the psychoneuroses and
the neurotic symptoms too frequently, recurring statements gain in sense

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and support, namely that the border line between the nervous
normal and abnormal states is indistinct, and that we are
all slightly nervous regardless of all medical experience. One may
construe various types of such barely suggested nervousness, the four

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mas frust stays of the neuroses. There may be cases
in which only a few symptoms appear, or they may
manifest themselves rarely or in mild forms. The extenuation may
be transferred to the number, intensity, or to the temporal
outbreak of the morbid manifestation. It may also happen that

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just this type, which forms the most frequent transition between
health and disease, may never be discovered. The transition type,
whose morbid manifestations come in the form of faulty and
symptomatic actions, is characterized by the fact that the symptoms
are transformed to the least important psychic activities, while everything

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that can lay claim to a higher psychic value remains
free from disturbance. When the symptoms are disposed of in
a reverse manner, that is, when they appear in the
most important individual and social activities in a manner to
disturb the functions of nourishment and sexual relations, professional and

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social life. Such disposition is found in the severe cases
of neurosis, and is perhaps more characteristic of the latter
than the multiformity or vividness of the morbid manifestations. But
the common characteristic of the mildest as well as the
severest cases to which the faulty and chance actions contribute,

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lies in the ability to refer the phenomena to unwelcome,
repressed psychic material, which, though pushed away from consciousness, is
nevertheless not robbed of all capacity to express itself. That
is the end of the psychopathology of everyday life.