Freud - Complete Works (231 page)

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1308

   (8)
Forgetting and error
.
‘One morning, in very fine weather, a girl went to the
Rijksmuseum to draw some plaster-casts there. Though she would have
preferred to go for a walk, as the weather was so fine, she
nevertheless made up her mind to be industrious for once and to do
some drawing. First she had to buy some drawing paper. She went to
the shop (about ten minutes’ walk from the museum), and
bought some pencils and other materials for sketching, but quite
forgot to buy the drawing paper. Then she went to the museum, and
as she was sitting on her stool ready to begin, she found she had
no paper and had to go back to the shop. After fetching some paper
she began to draw in earnest, made good progress and, after some
time, heard the clock in the museum tower strike a large number of
times. "That will be twelve o’clock", she thought,
and continued working until the clock in the tower struck the
quarter ("that", she thought, "will be a quarter
past twelve"), packed up her drawing materials and decided to
walk through the Vondelpark to her sister’s house and have
coffee there (which, in Holland, is equivalent to luncheon). At the
Suasso Museum she saw to her astonishment that it was only twelve
o’clock, not half past! The temptingly fine weather had got
the better of her industriousness, and in consequence she had not
recalled, when the clock struck twelve times at half past eleven,
that belfry clocks strike the hour at the half hour as
well.’

   (9) As some of the above
instances have already shown, the unconsciously disturbing purpose
can also achieve its aim by obstinately repeating the same kind of
parapraxis. I borrow an amusing example of this from a small
volume,
Frank Wedekind und das Theater
, which has been
published in Munich by the Drei Masken Verlag; but I must leave the
responsibility for the anecdote, which is told in Mark
Twain’s manner, to the author of the book.

   ‘In Wedekind’s one
act play
Die Zensur
[The Censorship] there occurs at its
most solemn moment the pronouncement: "The fear of death is an
intellectual error [‘
Denkfehler
’]." The
author, who set much store by the passage, asked the performer at
rehearsal to make a slight pause before the word
"
Denkfehler
". On the night, the actor entered
wholeheartedly into his part, and was careful to observe the pause;
but he involuntarily said in the most solemn tones: "The fear
of death is a
Druckfehler
[a misprint]." In reply to
the actor’s enquiries at the end of the performance, the
author assured him that he had not the smallest criticism to make;
only the passage in question did not say that the fear of death is
a misprint but that it is an intellectual error. - When
Die
Zensur
was repeated on the following night, the actor, on
reaching the same passage, declared, and once again in the most
solemn tones: "The fear of death is a
Denkzettel
[a
memorandum]." Wedekind once more showered unstinted praise on
the actor, only remarking incidentally that what the text said was
not that the fear of death was a memorandum but that it was an
intellectual error. - Next night
Die Zensur
was given again,
and the actor, with whom the author had meanwhile struck up a
friendship and had exchanged views on artistic questions, declared
when he came to the passage, with the most solemn face in the
world: "The fear of death is a
Druckzettel
[a printed
label]." The actor received the author’s unqualified
appreciation, and the play was given many more performances; but
the author had made up his mind that the notion of an
"intellectual error" was a lost cause for good and
all.’

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1309

   Rank (1912 and 1915
b
) has
also given attention to the very interesting relations between
‘Parapraxes and Dreams’, but they cannot be followed
without a thorough analysis of the dream which is linked to the
parapraxis. I once dreamt, as part of a longish dream, that I had
lost my purse. In the morning while I was dressing I found that it
was really missing. While undressing the night before I had the
dream, I had forgotten to take it out of my trouser pocket and put
it in its usual place. I was therefore not ignorant of my
forgetfulness and it was probably meant to give expression to an
unconscious thought which was prepared for making its appearance in
the content of the dream.¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1924:] It is not so
rare an event for a parapraxis like losing or mislaying something
to be undone by means of a dream  - by one’s learning in
the dream where the missing object is to be found; but this has
nothing about it in the nature of the occult, so long as dreamer
and loser are the same person. A young lady writes: ‘About
four months ago at the bank I lost a very beautiful ring. I hunted
in every nook and cranny of my room without finding it. A week ago
I dreamt it was lying beside the cupboard by the radiator.
Naturally the dream gave me no rest, and next morning I did in fact
really find it in that very spot.’ She is surprised at this
incident, and maintains that it often happens that her thoughts and
wishes are fulfilled in this way, but omits to ask herself what
change had occurred in her life between the loss and the recovery
of the ring.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1310

   I do not mean to assert that
cases of combined parapraxes like these can teach us anything new
that could not already be observed in the simple cases. And yet
this situation, of there being a change in the form taken by the
parapraxis while the outcome remains the same, gives a vivid
impression of a will striving for a definite aim, and contradicts
in a far more energetic way the notion that a parapraxis is a
matter of chance and needs no interpretation. We may also be struck
by the fact that a conscious intention should in these examples
fail so completely to prevent the success of the parapraxis. My
friend failed in spite of everything to attend the meeting of the
society, and the lady found it impossible to part from the medal.
The unknown factor that opposed these intentions found another
outlet after the first path had been barred to it. For what was
required to overcome the unconscious motive was something other
than a conscious counter-intention; it called for a piece of
psychical work, which could make what was unknown known to
consciousness.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1311

CHAPTER XII

DETERMINISM, BELIEF IN CHANCE AND SUPERSTITION - SOME POINTS OF
VIEW

The general conclusion that emerges from the
previous individual discussions may be stated in the following
terms.
Certain shortcomings in our psychical functioning
-
whose common characteristics will in a moment be defined more
closely -
and certain seemingly unintentional performances
prove, if psycho-analytic methods of investigation are applied to
them, to have valid motives and to be determined by motives unknown
to consciousness
.

   In order to be included in the
class of phenomena explicable in this way, a psychical parapraxis
must fulfil the following conditions:

   (
a
) It must not exceed
certain dimensions fixed by our judgement, which we characterize by
the expression ‘within the limits of the normal’.

   (
b
) It must be in the
nature of a momentary and temporary disturbance. The same function
must have been performed by us more correctly before, or we must at
all times believe ourselves capable of carrying it out more
correctly. If we are corrected by someone else, we must at once
recognize the rightness of the correction and the wrongness of our
own psychical process.

   (
c
) If we perceive the
parapraxis at all, we must not be aware in ourselves of any motive
for it. We must rather be tempted to explain it by
‘inattentiveness’, or to put it down to
‘chance’.

   There thus remain in this group
the cases of forgetting [‘
Vergessen
’], the
errors in spite of better knowledge, the slips of the tongue
[‘
Versprechen
’], misreadings
[‘
Verlesen
’], slips of the pen
[‘
Verschreiben
’], bungled actions
[‘
Vergreifen
’] and the so-called ‘chance
actions’. Language points to the internal similarity between
most of these phenomena: they are compounded alike [in German] with
the prefix ‘
ver
-'.¹

   The explanation of the psychical
processes which are defined in this way leads on to a series of
observations which should in part excite a wider interest.

  
¹
[The prefix ‘
ver
-' in
German corresponds closely to the English prefix
‘
mis
-' in such words as ‘mis-hear’,
‘mis-lay’ and ‘mis-read’.]

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1312

   (A) If we give way to the view
that a part of our psychical functioning cannot be explained by
purposive ideas, we are failing to appreciate the extent of
determination in mental life. Both here and in other spheres this
is more far-reaching than we suspect. In an article in
Die
Zeit
by R. M. Meyer, the literary historian, which I came
across in 1900, the view was put forward and illustrated by
examples that it is impossible intentionally and arbitrarily to
make up a piece of nonsense. I have known for some time that one
cannot make a number occur to one at one’s own free choice
any more than a name. Investigation of a number made up in an
apparently arbitrary manner - one, let us say, of several digits
uttered by someone as a joke or in a moment of high spirits -
reveals that it is strictly determined in a way that would really
never have been thought possible. I will begin by briefly
discussing an instance of an arbitrarily chosen first name, and
then analyse in some detail an analogous example of a number
‘thrown out without thinking’.

   (1) With a view to preparing the
case history of one of my women patients for publication I
considered what first name I should give her in my account. There
appeared to be a very wide choice; some names, it is true, were
ruled out from the start - the real name in the first place, then
the names of members of my own family, to which I should object,
and perhaps some other women’s names with an especially
peculiar sound. But otherwise there was no need for me to be at a
loss for a name. It might have been expected - and I myself
expected - that a whole host of women’s names would be at my
disposal. Instead, one name and only one occurred to me - the name
‘Dora’.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1313

   I asked myself how it was
determined. Who else was there called Dora? I should have liked to
dismiss with incredulity the next thought to occur to me
- that it was the name of my sister’s nursemaid; but I
have so much self-discipline or so much practice in analysing that
I held firmly to the idea and let my thoughts run on from it. At
once there came to my mind a trivial incident from the previous
evening which provided the determinant I was looking for. I had
seen a letter on my sister’s dining-room table addressed to
‘Fräulein Rosa W.’. I asked in surprise who there
was of that name, and was told that the girl I knew as Dora was
really called Rosa, but had had to give up her real name when she
took up employment in the house, since my sister could take the
name ‘Rosa’ as applying to herself as well. ‘Poor
people,’ I remarked in pity, ‘they cannot even keep
their own names!’ After that, I now recall, I fell silent for
a moment and began to think of a variety of serious matters which
drifted into obscurity, but which I was now easily able to make
conscious. When next day I was looking for a name for someone
who could not keep her own
, ‘Dora’ was the only
one to occur to me. The complete absence of alternatives was here
based on a solid association connected with the subject-matter that
I was dealing with: for it was a person employed in someone
else’s house, a governess, who exercised a decisive influence
on my patient’s story, and on the course of the treatment as
well.

   Years later this little incident
had an unexpected sequel. Once, when I was discussing in a lecture
the long since published case history of the girl now called Dora,
it occurred to me that one of the two ladies in my audience had the
same name Dora that I should have to utter so often in a whole
variety of connections. I turned to my young colleague, whom I also
knew personally, with the excuse that I had not in fact remembered
that that was her name too, and added that I was very willing to
replace it in my lecture by another name. I was now faced with the
task of rapidly choosing another one, and I reflected that I must
at all costs avoid selecting the first name of the other lady in
the audience and so setting a bad example to my other colleagues,
who were already well grounded in psycho-analysis. I was therefore
very much pleased when the name ‘Erna’ occurred to me
as a substitute for Dora, and I used it in the lecture. After the
lecture I asked myself where the name Erna could possibly have come
from, and I could not help laughing when I noticed that the
possibility I had been afraid of when I was choosing the substitute
name had nevertheless come about, at least to some extent. The
other lady’s family name was Lucerna, of which Erna is a
part.