174

XII

DETERMINISM—CHANCE—AND SUPER-
STITIOUS BELIEFS

POINTS OF VIEW.

As the general result of the preceding separate discussions
we must put down the following principle: Certain inade-
quacies of our psychic capacities—whose common character
will soon be more definitely determined—and certain perform-
ances which are apparently unintentional prove to be well
motivated when subjected to the psychoanalytic investigation,
and are determined through the consciousness of unknown
motives.

In order to belong to this class of phenomena thus ex-
plained a faulty psychic action must satisfy the following
conditions:—

(a) It must not exceed a certain measure, which is firmly
established through our estimation, and is designated by the
expression “within normal limits.”

(b) It must evince the character of the momentary and
temporary disturbance. The same action must have been
previously performed more correctly or we must always
rely on ourselves to perform it more correctly; if we are
corrected by others we must immediately recognize the truth
of the correction and the incorrectness of our psychic action.

(c) If we at all perceive a faulty action, we must not
perceive in ourselves any motivation of the same, but must
attempt to explain it through “inattention” or attribute it
to an “accident.”

Thus there remain in this group the cases of forgetting
and the errors, despite better knowledge, the lapses in
speaking, reading, writing, the erroneously carried-out
actions, and the so-called chance actions. The explanations of

175

these so definite psychic processes are connected with a series
of observations which may in part arouse further interest.

I. By abandoning a part of our psychic capacity as
unexplainable through purposive ideas we ignore the realms
of determinism in our mental life. Here, as in still other
spheres, determinism reaches farther than we suppose. In
the year 1900 I read an essay published in the Zeit written
by the literary historian R. M. Meyer, in which he main-
tains, and illustrates by examples, that it is impossible to
compose nonsense intentionally and arbitrarily. For some
time I have been aware that it is impossible to think of a
number, or even of a name, of one’s own free will. If one
investigates this seeming voluntary formation, let us say, of
a number of many digits uttered in unrestrained mirth, it
always proves to be so strictly determined that the deter-
mination seems impossible. I will now briefly discuss an
example of an “arbitrarily chosen” first name, and then
exhaustively analyse an analogous example of a “thought-
lessly uttered” number.

While preparing the history of one of my patients for
publication I considered what first name I should give her
in the article. There seemed to be a wide choice; of course,
certain names were at once excluded by me, in the first
place the real name, then the names of members of my
family to which I would have objected, also some female
names having an especially peculiar pronunciation. But,
excluding these, there should have been no need of being
puzzled about such a name. It would be thought, and I
myself supposed, that a whole multitude of feminine names
would be placed at my disposal. Instead of this only one
sprang up, no other besides it; it was the name Dora.

I enquired as to its determination: “Who else is called
Dora?” I wished to reject the next idea as incredulous;
it occurred to me that the nurse of my sister’s children was
named Dora. But I possess so much self-control, or practice
in analysis, if you like, that I held firmly to the idea and

176

proceeded. Then a slight incident of the previous evening
soon flashed through my mind which brought the looked-
for determination. On my sister’s dining-
room table I
noticed a letter bearing the address, “Miss Rosa W.”
Astonished, I asked whose name this was, and was informed
that the right name of the supposed Dora was really Rosa,
and that on accepting the position she had to lay aside her
name, because Rosa would also refer to my sister. I said
pityingly, “Poor people! They cannot even retain their
own names!” I now recall that on hearing this I became
quiet for a moment and began to think of all sorts of serious
matters which merged into the obscure, but which I could
now easily bring into my consciousness. Thus when I
sought a name for a person who could not retain her own
name no other except “Dora” occurred to me. The ex-
clusiveness here is based, moreover, on firmer internal
associations, for in the history of my patient it was a stranger
in the house, the governess, who exerted a decisive influence
on the course of the treatment.

This slight incident found its unexpected continuation
many years later. While discussing in a lecture the long-
since published history of the girl called Dora it occurred
to me that one of my two women pupils had the very name
Dora which I was obliged to utter so often in the different
associations of the case. I turned to the young student,
whom I knew personally, with the apology that I had really
not thought that she bore the same name, and that I was
ready to substitute it in my lecture by another name.

I was now confronted with the task of rapidly choosing
another name, and reflected that I must not now choose
the first name of the other woman student, and so set a
poor example to the class, who were already quite con-
versant with psychoanalysis. I was therefore well pleased
when the name “Erna” occurred to me as the substitute
for Dora, and Erna I used in the discourse. After the lecture
I asked myself whence the name “Erna” could possibly

177

DETERMINISM

have originated, and had to laugh as I observed that the
feared possibility in the choice of the substitutive name had
come to pass, in part at least. The other lady’s family name
was Lucerna, of which Erna was a part.

In a letter to a friend I informed him that I had finished
reading the proof-
sheets of The Interpretation of Dreams, and that I did not intend to make any further changes in
it, “even if it contained 2,467 mistakes.” I immediately
attempted to explain to myself the number, and added this little
analysis as a postscript to the letter. It will be best to quote it
now as I wrote it when I caught myself in this transaction:—

“I will add hastily another contribution to the Psycho-
pathology of Everyday Life. You will find in the letter the
number 2,467 as a jocose and arbitrary estimation of the
number of errors that may be found in the dream-
book. I meant to write: no matter how large the number might
be, and this one presented itself. But there is nothing
arbitrary or undetermined in the psychic life. You will
therefore rightly suppose that the unconscious hastened to
determine the number which was liberated by consciousness.
Just previous to this I had read in the paper that General
E. M. had been retired as Inspector-
General of Ordnance. You must know that I am interested in this man. While
I was serving as military medical student he, then a colonel,
once came into the hospital and said to the physician: ‘You
must make me well in eight days, as I have some work to
do for which the Emperor is waiting.’

“At that time I decided to follow this man’s career, and
just think, to-
day (1899) he is at the end of it—Inspector-
General of Ordnance and already retired. I wished to figure
out in what time he had covered this road, and assumed
that I had seen him in the hospital in 1882. That would
make 17 years. I related this to my wife, and she remarked,
‘Then you, too, should be retired.’ And I protested, ‘The
Lord forbid!’ After this conversation I seated myself at
the table to write to you. The previous train of thought

178

continued, and for good reason. The figuring was incor-
rect; I had a definite recollection of the circumstances in
my mind. I had celebrated my coming of age, my 24^th
birthday, in the military prison (for being absent without
permission). Therefore I must have seen him in 1880,
which makes it 19 years ago. You then have the number
24 in 2,467! Now take the number that represents my
age, 43, and add 24 years to it and you get 67! That is, to
the question whether I wished to retire I had expressed the
wish to work 24 more years. Obviously I am annoyed that
in the interval during which I followed Colonel M. I have
not accomplished much myself, and still there is a sort of
triumph in the fact that he is already finished, while I still
have all before me. Thus we may justly say that not even
the unintentionally thrown-
out number 2,467 lacks its
determination from the unconscious.”

Since this first example of the interpretation of an
apparently arbitrary choice of a number I have repeated a
similar test with the same result; but most cases are of such
intimate content that they do not lend themselves to report.

It is for this reason that I shall not hesitate to add here
a very interesting analysis of a “chance number” which
Dr. Alfred Adler (Vienna) received from a “perfectly healthy”
man.¹⁾ A. wrote to me: “Last night I devoted myself to
the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and I would have
read it all through had I not been hindered by a remarkable
coincidence. When I read that every number that we
apparently conjure up quite arbitrarily in our consciousness
has a definite meaning, I decided to test it. The number
1,734 occurred to my mind. The following associations then
came up: 1,734 ÷ 17 = 102; 102 ÷ 17 = 6. I then separ-
ated the number into 17 and 34. I am 34 years old. I believe
that I once told you that I consider 34 the last year of youth,
and for this reason I felt miserable on my last birthday.

¹⁾Alfred Adler, “Drei Pscyhoanalysen von Zahlen einfällen und
obsedierenden Zahlen,” Psych. Neur. Wochenschr., No. 28, 1905.

179

The end of my 17th year was the beginning of a very nice
and interesting period of my development. I divide my life
into periods of 17 years. What do the divisions signify?
The number 102 recalls the fact that volume 102 of the
Reclam Universal Library is Kotzebue’s play Menschenhass
und Reue (Human. Hatred and Repentance).

“My present psychic state is ‘human hatred and repent-
ance.’ No. 6 of the U. L. (I know a great many numbers
by heart) is Mullner’s ‘Schuld’ (Fault). I am constantly
annoyed at the thought that it is through my own fault that
I have not become what I could have been with my abilities.

“I then asked myself, ‘What is No. 17 of the U. L.?’
But I could not recall it. But as I positively knew it before,
I assumed that I wished to forget this number. All reflection
was in vain. I wished to continue with my reading, but I
read only mechanically without understanding a word,
for I was annoyed by the number 17. I extinguished the
light and continued my search. It finally came to me that
number 17 must be a play by Shakespeare. But which one?
I thought of Hero and Leander. Apparently a stupid attempt
of my will to distract me. I finally arose and consulted the
catalogue of the U. L. Number 17 was Macbeth ! To my
surprise I had to discover that I knew nothing of the play,
despite the fact that it did not interest me any less than
any other Shakespearean drama. I only thought of: murder,
Lady Macbeth, witches, ‘nice is ugly,’ and that I found
Schiller’s version of Macbeth very nice. Undoubtedly I also
wished to forget the play. Then it occurred to me that 17
and 34 may be divided by 17 and result in 1 and 2. Numbers
1 and 2 of the U. L. is Goethe’s Faust. Formerly I found
much of Faust in me.”

We must regret that the discretion of the physician did
not allow us to see the significance of ideas. Adler remarked
that the man did not succeed in the synthesis of his analysis.
His association would hardly be worth reporting unless their
continuation would bring out something that would give us

180

the key to the understanding of the number 1,734 and the
whole series of ideas.

To quote further: “To be sure this morning I had an
experience which speaks much for the correctness of the
Freudian conception. My wife, whom I awakened through
my getting up at night, asked me what I wanted with the
catalogue of the U. L. I told her the story. She found it
all pettifogging but—very interesting. Macbeth, which
caused me so much trouble, she simply passed over. She
said that nothing came to her mind when she thought of
a number. I answered, ‘Let us try it.’ She named the
number 117. To this I immediately replied: ‘17 refers to
what I just told you; furthermore, I told you yesterday that
if a wife is in the 82nd year and the husband is in the 35th
year it must be a gross misunderstanding.’ For the last few
days I have been teasing my wife by maintaining that she
was a little old mother of 82 years. 82 + 35 = 117.”

The man who did not know how to determine his own
number at once found the solution when his wife named
a number which was apparently arbitrarily chosen. As a
matter of fact, the woman understood very well from which
complex the number of her husband originated, and chose
her own number from the same complex, which was surely
common to both, as it dealt in his case with their relative
ages. Now, we find it easy to interpret the number that
occurred to the man. As Dr. Adler indicates, it expressed
a repressed wish of the husband which, fully developed,
would read: “For a man of 34 years as I am, only a woman
of 17 would be suitable.”

Lest one should think too lightly of such “playing,” I
will add that I was recently informed by Dr. Adler that a
year after the publication of this analysis the man was
divorced from his wife.¹

Adler gives a similar explanation for the origin of obsessive

¹ As an explanation of Macbeth, No. 17 of the U. L., I was
informed by Dr. Adler that in his seventeenth year this man

181

numbers. Also the choice of so-called “favourite numbers”
is not without relation to the life of the person concerned,
and does not lack a certain psychologic interest. A gentle-
man who evinced a particular partiality for the numbers
17 and 19 could specify, after brief reflection, that at the
age of 17 he attained the greatly longed-
for academic free-
dom by having been admitted to the university, that at 19
he made his first long journey, and shortly thereafter made
his first scientific discovery. But the fixation of this prefer-
ence followed later, after two questionable affairs, when the
same numbers were invested with importance in his “love-
life.”

Indeed, even those numbers which we use in a particular
connection extremely often and with apparent arbitrari-
ness can be traced by analysis to an unexpected meaning. Thus,
one day it struck one of my patients that he was particu-
larly fond of saying, “I have already told you this from 17 to 36
times.” And he asked himself whether there was any motive
for it. It soon occurred to him that he was born on the
27th day of the month, and that his younger brother was
born on the 26th day of another month, and he had grounds
for complaint that Fate had robbed him of so many of the
benefits of life only to bestow them on his younger brother.
Thus he represented this partiality of Fate by deducting 10
from the date of his birth and adding it to the date of his
brother’s birthday. I am the elder and yet am so “cut short.”

I shall tarry a little longer at the analysis of chance
numbers, for I know of no other individual observation
which would so readily demonstrate the existence of highly
organized thinking processes of which consciousness has no
knowledge. Moreover, there is no better example of analysis
in which the suggestion of the position, a frequent accusa-
tion, is so distinctly out of consideration. I shall therefore

had joined an anarchistic society whose aim was regicide. Prob-
ably this is why he forgot the content of the play Macbeth. The
same person invented at that time a secret in which code numbers
substituted letters.

182

report the analysis of a chance number of one of my patients
(with his consent), to which I will only add that he is the
youngest of many children and that he lost his beloved
father in his young years.

While in a particularly happy mood he let the number
426,718 come to his mind, and put to himself the question,
“Well, what does it bring to your mind?” First came a
joke he had heard: “If your catarrh of the nose is treated
by a doctor it lasts 42 days, if it is not treated it lasts—
6 weeks.” This corresponds to the first digit of the number
(42 = 6 × 7). During the obstruction that followed this first
solution I called his attention to the fact that the number of six
digits selected by him contains all the first numbers except 3 and
5. He at once found the continuation of this solution:—

“We were altogether 7 children, I was the youngest.
Number 3 in the order of the children corresponds to my
sister A., and 5 to my brother L.; both of them were my
enemies. As a child I used to pray to the Lord every night that
He should take out of my life these two tormenting spirits.
It seems to me that I have fulfilled for myself this wish: ‘3’
and ‘5,’ the evil brother and the hated sister, are omitted.”

“If the number stands for your sisters and brothers, what
significance is there to 18 at the end? You were altogether
only 7.”

“I often thought if my father had lived longer I should
not have been the youngest child. If one more would have
come, we should have been 8, and there would have been
a younger child, toward whom I could have played the
rôle of the older one.”

With this the number was explained, but we still wished
to find the connection between the first part of the interpre-
tation and the part following it. This came very readily
from the condition required for the last digits—if the father
had lived longer. 42 = 6 × 7 signifies the ridicule directed
against the doctors who could not help the father, and in
this way expresses the wish for the continued existence of

183

DETERMINISM

the father. The whole number really corresponds to the
fulfilment of his two wishes in reference to his family circle
—namely, that both the evil brother and sister should die
and that another little child should follow him. Or, briefly
expressed: If only these two had died in place of my father!¹⁾
Another analysis of numbers I take from Jones.²⁾ A
gentleman of his acquaintance let the number 986 come to
his mind, and defied him to connect it to anything of special
interest in his mind. “Six years ago, on the hottest day he
could remember, he had seen a joke in an evening news-
paper, which stated that the thermometer had stood at
98·6° F., evidently an exaggeration of 98·6° F. We were at
the time seated in front of a very hot fire, from which he
had just drawn back, and he remarked, probably quite
correctly, that the heat had aroused his dormant memory.
However, I was curious to know why this memory had
persisted with such vividness as to be so readily brought
out, for with most people it surely would have been for-
gotten beyond recall, unless it had become associated with
some other mental experience of more significance.

“He told me that on reading the joke he had laughed
uproariously, and that on many subsequent occasions he
had recalled it with great relish. As the joke was obviously
of an exceedingly tenuous nature, this strengthened my
expectation that more lay behind. His next thought was
the general reflection that the conception of heat had always
greatly impressed him, that heat was the most important
thing in the universe, the source of all life, and so on. This
remarkable attitude of a quite prosaic young man certainly
needed some explanation, so I asked him to continue his
free associations. The next thought was of a factory stack
which he could see from his bedroom window. He often stood
of an evening watching the flame and smoke issuing out of it,

¹For the sake of simplicity I have omitted some of the not less
suitable thoughts of the patients.

²Loc. cit., p. 36.

184

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
and reflecting on this deplorable waste of energy. Heat, flame,
the source of life, the waste of vital energy issuing from an up-
right, hollow tube—it was not hard to divine from such
associations that the ideas of heat and fire were unconsciously
linked in his mind with the idea of love, as is so frequent in
symbolic thinking, and that there was a strong masturbation
complex present, a conclusion that he presently confirmed.”

Those who wish to get a good impression of the way the
material of numbers becomes elaborated in the unconscious
thinking, I refer to two papers by Jung¹ and Jones.²

In personal analysis of this kind two things were especially
striking. First, the absolute somnambulistic certainty with
which I attacked the unknown objective point, merging into
a mathematical train of thought, which later suddenly
extended to the looked-
for number, and the rapidity with which
the entire subsequent work was performed. Secondly, the fact
that the numbers were always at the disposal of my uncon-
scious mind, when as a matter of fact I am a poor mathe-
matician and find it very difficult to consciously recall years,
house numbers, and the like. Moreover, in these unconscious
mental operations with figures I found a tendency to super-
stition, the origin of which had long remained unknown to me.

It will not surprise us to find that not only numbers but
also mental occurrences of different kinds of words regularly
prove on analytic investigation to be well determined.

Brill relates: “While working on the English edition of
this book I was obsessed one morning with the strange
word ‘Cardillac.’ Busily intent on my work, I refused at
first to pay attention to it, but, as is usually the case, I simply
could not do anything else. ‘Cardillac’ was constantly in
my mind. Realizing that my refusal to recognize it was only
a resistance, I decided to analyse it. The following associa-
tions occurred to me: Cardillac, cardiac, carrefour, Cadillac.

¹⁾“Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Zahlentraumes,” Zentralb.
f. Psychoanalyse, i. 12.
²⁾“Unconscious Manipulation of Numbers” (ibid., ii. 5, 1912).

185

“Cardiac recalled cardialgia—heartache—a medical friend
who had recently told me confidentially that he feared that
he had some cardiac affection because he had suffered some
attacks of pain in the region of his heart. Knowing him so
well, I at once rejected his theory, and told him that his attacks
were of a neurotic character, and that his other apparent
physical ailments were also only the expression of his neurosis.

“I might add that just before telling me of his heart
trouble he spoke of a business matter of vital interest to
him which had suddenly come to naught. Being a man of
unbounded ambitions, he was very depressed because of
late he had suffered many similar reverses. His neurotic
conflicts, however, had become manifest a few months
before this misfortune. Soon after his father’s death had
left a big business on his hands. As the business could be
continued only under my friend’s management, he was
unable to decide whether to enter into commercial life or
continue his chosen career. His great ambition was to
become a successful medical practitioner, and although he
had practised medicine successfully for many years, he was
not altogether satisfied with the financial fluctuations of his
professional income. On the other hand, his father’s business
promised him an assured, though limited, return. In brief,
he was ‘at a crossing and did not know which way to turn.’

“I then recalled the word carrefour, which is the French
for ‘crossing,’ and it occurred to me that while working
in a hospital in Paris I lived near the ‘Carrefour St. Lazarre.’
And now I could understand what relation all these associa
tions had for me.

“When I resolved to leave the State Hospital I made the
decision, first, because I desired to get married, and, secondly,
because I wished to enter private practice. This brought up
a new problem. Although my State hospital service was an
absolute success, judging by promotions and so on, I felt
like a great many others in the same situation, namely,
that my training was ill suited for private practice. To

186

specialize in mental work was a daring undertaking for one
without money and social connections. I also felt that the
best I could do for patients should they ever come my way
would be to commit them to one of the hospitals, as I had
little confidence in the home treatment in vogue. In spite
of the enormous advances made in recent years in mental
work, the specialist is almost helpless when he is confronted
with the average case of insanity. This may be partially
attributed to the fact that such cases are brought to him after
they have fully developed the psychosis when hospital treat-
ment is imperative. Of the great army of milder mental
disturbances, the so-called border-line cases, which make
up the bulk of clinic and private work and which rightfully
belong to the mental specialist, I knew very little, as those
patients rarely, or never, came to the State hospital, and
what I did know concerning the treatment of neurasthenia
and psychasthenia was not conducive to make me more
hopeful of success in private practice.

“It was in this state of mind that I came to Paris, where
I hoped to learn enough about the psychoneuroses to enable
me to continue my specialty in private practice, and yet feel
that I could do something for my patients. What I saw in
Paris did not, however, help to change my state of mind.
There, too, most of the work was directed to dead tissues.
The mental aspects, as such, received but scant attention.
I was, therefore, seriously thinking of giving up my mental
work for some other specialty. As can be seen, I was con-
fronted with a situation similar to the one of my medical
friend. I, too, was at a crossing and did not know which
way to turn. My suspense was soon ended. One day I
received a letter from my friend Professor Peterson, who,
by the way, was responsible for my entering the State
hospital service. In this letter he advised me not to give
up my work, and suggested the psychiatric clinic of Zurich,
where he thought I could find what I desired.

“But what does Cadillac mean? Cadillac is the name of

187

a hotel and of an automobile. A few days befo
place my medical friend and I had been trying to hire an
automobile, but there was none to be had. We both ex-
pressed the wish to own an automobile—again an unrealized
ambition. I also recalled that the ‘Carrefour St. Lazarre’
always impressed me as being one of the busiest thorough-
fares in Paris. It was always congested with automobiles.
Cadillac also recalled that only a few days ago on the way
to my clinic I noticed a large sign over a building which
announced that on a certain day ‘this building was to be
occupied by the Cadillac,’ etc. This at first made me think
of the Cadillac Hotel, but on second sight I noticed that
it referred to the Cadillac motor car. There was a sudden
obstruction here for a few moments. The word Cadillac
reappeared and by sound association the word catalogue
occurred to me. This word brought back a very mortifying
occurrence of recent origin, the motive of which is again
blighted ambition.

“When one wishes to report any auto-
analysis he must be prepared to lay bare many intimate affairs of his own
life. Any one reading carefully Professor Freud’s works
cannot fail to become intimately acquainted with him and
his family. I have often been asked by persons who claim
to have read and studied Freud’s works such questions as:
‘How old is Freud?’ ‘Is Freud married?’ ‘How many
children has he?’ etc. Whenever I hear these or similar
questions I know that the questioner has either lied when
he made these assertions, or, to be more charitable, that he
is a very careless and superficial reader. All these questions
and many more are answered in Freud’s works. Auto-
analyses are autobiographies par excellence; but whereas
the autobiographer may for definite reasons consciously
and unconsciously hide many facts of his life, the auto-
analyst not only tells the truth consciously, but perforce
brings to light his whole intimate personality. It is for
these reasons that one finds it very unpleasant to report

188

his own auto-
analyses. However, as we often report our
patients’ unconscious productions, it is but fair that we
should sacrifice ourselves on the altar of publicity when
occasion demands. This is my apology for having thrust
some of my personal affairs on the reader, and for being
obliged to continue a little longer in the same strain.

“Before digressing with the last remarks I mentioned that
the word Cadillac brought the sound association catalogue.
This association brought back another important epoch in
my life with which Professor Peterson is connected. Last
May I was informed by the secretary of the faculty that I
was appointed chief of clinic of the department of psychiatry.
I need hardly say that I was exceedingly pleased to be so
honoured—in the first place because it was the realization
of an ambition which I dared entertain only under special
euphoric states; and, secondly, it was a compensation for
the many unmerited criticisms from those who are blindly
and unreasonably opposing some of my work. Soon there
after I called on the stenographer of the faculty and spoke
to her about a correction to be made in my name as it was
printed in the catalogue. For some unknown reason (per-
haps racial prejudice) this stenographer, a maiden lady, must
have taken a dislike to me. For about three years I repeatedly
requested her to have this correction made, but she had
paid no attention to me. To be sure she always promised
to attend to it, but the mistake remained uncorrected.

“When I saw her last May I again reminded her of this
correction, and also called her attention to the fact that as
I had been appointed chief of clinic I was especially anxious
to have my name correctly printed in the catalogue. She
apologized for her remissness and assured me that every
thing should be as I requested. Imagine my surprise and
chagrin when on receiving the new catalogue I found that
while the correction had been made in my name I was not
listed as chief of clinic. When I asked her about this she
was quite puzzled; she said she had no idea that I had

189

DETERMINISM

been appointed chief of clinic. She had to consult the
minutes of the faculty, written by herself, before she was
convinced of it. It should be noted that as recorder to the
faculty it was her duty to know all these things as soon as
they transpired.¹⁾ When she finally ascertained that I was
right she was very apologetic and informed me that she
would at once write to the superintendent of the clinic to
inform him of my appointment, something which she should
have done months before. Of course I gained nothing by
her regrets and apologies. The catalogue was published and
those who read it did not find my name in the desired place.
I am chief of clinic in fact but not in name. Moreover, as
the appointments are made only for one year, it is quite
likely that my great ambition will never be actually realized.

“Thus the obsessive neologism cardillac, which is a
condensation of cardiac, Cadillac, and catalogue, contains
some of the most important efforts of my medical experi-
ence. When I was almost at the end of this analysis I sud-
denly recalled a dream containing this neologism cardillac
in which my wish was realized. My name appeared in its
rightful place in the catalogue. The person who showed it
to me in the dream was Professor Peterson. It was when
I was at the first ‘crossing’ after I had graduated from the
medical college that Professor Peterson urged me to enter
the hospital service. About five years later while I was
in the state of indecision which I have described, it was
Professor Peterson who advised me to go to the clinic of
psychiatry at Zurich where through Bleuler and Jung I first
became acquainted with Professor Freud and his works,
and it was also through the kind recommendation of Dr.
Peterson that I was elevated to my present position.”

I am indebted to Dr. Hitschman for the solution of
another case in which a line of poetry repeatedly obtruded

¹⁾This is another excellent example showing how a conscious
intention was powerless to counteract an unconscious resist-
ance.

190

itself on the mind in a certain place without showing any
trace of its origin and relation.

Related by Dr. E.: “Six years ago I travelled from Biarritz
to San Sebastian. The railroad crosses over the Bidassao—a
river which here forms the boundary between France and
Spain. On the bridge one has a splendid view, on the one
side of the broad valley and the Pyrenees and on the other of
the sea. It was a beautiful, bright summer day; everything
was filled with sun and light. I was on a vacation and pleased
with my trip to Spain. Suddenly the following words came
to me: ‘But the soul is already free, floating on a sea of light.’

“At that time I was trying to remember where these lines
came from, but I could not remember; judging by the
rhythm, the words must be a part of some poem, which,
however, entirely escaped my memory. Later when the verse
repeatedly came to my mind, I asked many people about
it without receiving any information.

“Last year I crossed the same bridge on my return journey
from Spain. It was a very dark night and it rained. I looked
through the window to ascertain whether we had already
reached the frontier station and noticed that we were on the
Bidassao bridge. Immediately the above-cited verse returned
to my memory and again I could not recall its origin.

“At home many months later I found Uhland’s poems.
I opened the volume and my glance fell upon the verse: ‘But
the soul is already free, floating on a sea of light,’ which were
the concluding lines of the poem entitled ‘The Pilgrim.’ I read
the poem and dimly recalled that I had known it many
years ago. The scene of action is in Spain, and this seemed
to me to be the only relation between the quoted verse and
the place on the railroad journey described by me. I was only
half satisfied with my discovery and mechanically continued
to turn the pages of the book. On turning the next page I
found a poem the title of which was ‘Bidassao Bridge.’

“I may add that the contents of this poem seemed even
stranger to me than that of the first, and that its first verse read:

191

DETERMINISM

““On the Bidassao bridge stands a saint grey with age,
he blesses to the right the Spanish mountain, to the left he
blesses the French land.””

II. This understanding of the determination of apparently
arbitrarily selected names, numbers, and words may perhaps
contribute to the solution of another problem. As is known,
many persons argue against the assumption of an absolute
psychic determinism by referring to an intense feeling of
conviction that there is a free will. This feeling of convic-
tion exists, but is not incompatible with the belief in
determinism. Like all normal feelings, it must be justified
by something. But, so far as I can observe, it does not
manifest itself in weighty and important decisions; on these
occasions one has much more the feeling of a psychic com-
pulsion and gladly falls back upon it. (Compare Luther’s
“Here I stand, I cannot do anything else.”)

On the other hand, it is in trivial and indifferent decisions
that one feels sure that he could just as easily have acted
differently, that he acted of his own free will, and without
any motives. From our analyses we therefore need not
contest the right of the feeling of conviction that there is
a free will. If we distinguish conscious from unconscious
motivation, we are then informed by the feeling of convic-
tion that the conscious motivation does not extend over all
our motor resolutions. Minima non curat prætor. What is
thus left free from the one side receives its motive from the
other side, from the unconscious, and the determinism in
the pschyic realm is thus carried out uninterruptedly.¹

¹These conceptions of strict determinism in seemingly arbitrary
actions have already borne rich fruit for psychology—perhaps
also for the administration of justice. Bleuler and Jung have in
this way made intelligible the reaction in the so-called association
experiments, wherein the test person answers to a given word with
one occurring to him (stimulus-word reaction), while the time
elapsing between the stimulus word and answer is measured
(reaction-time). Jung has shown in his Diagnostishe Assozia-
tionsstudien, 1906, what fine reagents for psychic occurrences we
possess in this association-experiment. Three students of crimin-
 

192

III. Although conscious thought must be altogether
ignorant of the motivation of the faulty actions described
above, yet it would be desirable to discover a psychologic
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 these motives.

(a) It is a striking and generally to be recognized feature
in the behaviour of paranoiacs, that they attach the greatest
significance to the trivial details in the behaviour of others.
Details which are usually overlooked by others they inter-
pret and utilize as the basis of far-reaching conclusions.
For example, the 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.²

The category of the accidental, requiring no motivation,
which the normal 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 so many other cases, he
projects into the mental life of others what exists in his own
unconscious activity. Many things obtrude themselves on
consciousness in paranoia which in normal and neurotic

ology, H. Gross, of Prague, and Wertheimer and Klein, have
developed from these experiments a technique for the diagnosis
of facts (Tatbestands-Diagnostik) in criminal cases, the examination
of which is now tested by psychologists and jurists.

² Proceeding from other points of view, this interpretation of
the trivial and accidental by the patient has been designated as
“delusions of reference.”

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DETERMINISM

persons can only be demonstrated through psychoanalysis
as existing in their unconscious.¹⁾ In a certain sense the
paranoiac is here justified, 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 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 judg-
ment, which are not designated as morbid, acquire their
feeling of 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 to it the
remaining relationships.

(b) The phenomena of superstition furnish another indica-
tion of the unconscious motivation in chance and faulty actions.
I will make myself clear through the discussion of a simple ex-
perience 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 (see above) for whom 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; it was
therefore pertinent to ask oneself at the beginning of each
year how much longer she was likely to live.

¹⁾For example, the fantasies of the hysterical regarding sexual
and cruel abuse which are made conscious by analysis often corres-
pond in every detail with the complaints of persecuted paranoiacs.
It is remarkable but not altogether unexpected that we also meet
the identical content as reality in the contrivances of perverts for the
gratification of their desires.

194

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

On the day of which I speak I was in a hurry and took
a carriage to her house. Every coachman at the cabstand
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
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 on no better symbolism. Of course,
I explain 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 distrac-
tion,” I had gone to the house in the parallel street instead
of the correct one. I would not explain that as an accident,
but as an action with unconscious intent requiring inter-
pretation. 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 no part can teach me anything hidden concerning
the future shaping of reality; but I do believe that an un-
intentional manifestation of my own 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 (psychic) accidents. With the superstitious per-
son 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

195

DETERMINISM

occurrence, and to see in the accident a means of expression
for something hidden outside of him. There are two differ-
ences 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 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 super-
stitious person knows nothing of the 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 por-
tion of 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 percep-
tion (the endo-psychic perception, as it were) of psychic
factors and relations¹⁾ of the unconscious was taken as a
model in the construction of a 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 here come to our aid. We venture to explain
in this way the myths of paradise and the fall of man, of
God, of good and evil, of immortality, and the like—that
is, to transform metaphysics into meta-psychology. The gap
between the paranoiac’s displacement and that of super-
stition is narrower than appears at first sight. When human
beings began to think, they were obviously compelled to
explain the outer world in an anthropomorphic sense by a

¹Which naturally has nothing of the character of perception.

196

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 others give them, and like all normal persons
who justly 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 the view of life of pre-
scientific times and nations it was
justified and consistent.

The Roman who gave up an important undertaking
because he sighted an ill-
omened flock of birds was relatively
right; his action was consistent with his principles. But if
he withdrew from an undertaking because he had stumbled
on his threshold (un Romain retournerait), 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 concentrating all psychic forces on the desired aim can
one be assured of perfect success. How does Schiller’s 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 pierced you had I
struck my dear child—and truly, I should not have failed to
reach you.”

IV. Whoever has had the opportunity of studying the
concealed psychic feelings of persons by means of psycho-
analysis can also tell something new concerning the quality
of unconscious motives, which express themselves in super-
stition. Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive thinking
and compulsive states, who are often very intelligent, show

197

very plainly that superstition originates from repressed
hostile and cruel impulses. The greater part of superstition
signifies fear of impending evil, and he who has frequently
wished evil to others, but because of a good bringing-up
has repressed the same into the unconscious, will be par-
ticularly 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 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, tele-
pathic experiences, manifestations of supernatural forces,
and the like. I am now far from 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 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 of things of this world.

In the sphere of these analyses 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 disap-
pears, 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

198

misfortune struck me unannounced. When as a 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 hallucina-
tion 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 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 fact that some things
really so happen in the future as they were previously fore-
told 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 fulfilment
which the credulity of the dreamer prefers to neglect.

A nice example, one which may be justly called prophetic,
was once brought to me for exhaustive analysis by an in-
telligent 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 store in a certain street, and
next morning when she went down town she actually met
him at the place named in the dream. 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 through future occurrences.

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 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

199

seeing him received the conviction that during the preceding
night she had dreamed of 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 a previous expecta-
-
tion really describes the fact of a 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 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 bygone times, when I never
had to wait in 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 occur-
-
rences of those familiar “remarkable coincidences” wherein
we meet a person of whom we were just thinking. During
a walk through the 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 little daughter who suffered from an
interesting compulsive manifestation following the appear-
-
ance of a dream. I took a great interest in the case, the
genesis of which I believed I could surmise, but the parents
were unfavourable to my treatment, and gave me to under-
-
stand that they thought of applying to a foreign authority
who cured by means of hypnotism. 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

200

me, etc. 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 you can get along without me now that I
am a professor.” At this point my fantasy was interrupted
by a loud “Good evening, 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 miracu-
-
lous. I was walking towards this couple on a straight, almost
deserted street; glancing up hastily at a distance of perhaps
twenty steps from me, I had spied and realized their stately
personalities; but this perception, following the model of a
negative hallucination, was set aside by certain emotionally
accentuated motives and then asserted itself in the appar-
ently spontaneous emerging fantasy.

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 Dr. R. is doing in Pittsburg.’
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 dinner
showed not the remotest association to Dr. R., nor, so
far as our memories went, had we heard or spoken of him
for some time. Being a sceptic, I refused to admit that
there was anything mysterious about it, although inwardly I
felt quite uncertain. To be frank, I was somewhat mystified.

“But we did not remain very long in this state of mind,
for on looking toward the cloak-room we were surprised
to see Dr. R. Though closer inspection showed our mistake,

201

we were both struck by the remarkable resemblance of this
stranger to Dr. R. From the position 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 his double, Dr. R. That we should both
have experienced the same thought is also quite natural.
The last word from our friend was to the effect that he
had taken up private practice in Pittsburg, 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 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.”

Another “solution of an apparent foreboding” was
reported by Otto Rank¹⁾:—

“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 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 meagre means to the enormous sums in
the banking-house, I turned into the narrow street to the
bank. In 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 to have asked for silver—and
awoke from my fantasies.

¹Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse, ii. 5.

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PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

“I was now only a few steps from the entrance, and
noticed a young man coming toward me who looked familiar,
but whom I could not definitely identify on account of my
short-sightedness. As he came nearer I recognized him as
a classmate of my brother whose name was Gold and from
whose brother, a well-known journalist, I had great expecta-
tions in the beginning of my literary career. But these
expectations had not materialized, and with them had
vanished the hoped-for material success with which my
fantasies were occupying themselves on my way to the
bank. Thus engrossed I must have unconsciously perceived
the approach of Mr. Gold, who impressed himself on my
conscience while I was dreaming of 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 able to perceive an object long
before it was recognized by the eye might in part be explained
by the complex readiness (Komplexbereitschaft) of Bleuler.
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 the wonderful and uncanny we may
also add that strange feeling we perceive in certain moments
and situations when it seems as if we had 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 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 a judgment and, indeed,
with a judgment of cognition; but these cases, nevertheless,
have a character 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 Déjà 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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DETERMINISM

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 seems right to me, because
none takes account of anything but the accompanying
manifestations and the favouring conditions of the phe-
nomenon. Those psychic processes which, according to
my observation, are alone responsible for the explanation
of the Déjà vu—namely, the unconscious fantasies—are
generally neglected by the psychologists even to-day.

I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling of having
experienced something before 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 Déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious
fantasy. There are unconscious fantasies (or day dreams)
just as there are similar conscious creations, which every
one 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 Déjà vu
in which the feeling was characterized by particular intensity
and persistence. 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 that she believed she knew beforehand how big
the next room was, what views one could have on looking
out of it, etc. 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 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

204

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

later assumed in her emotional life. On taking into considera-
tion, however, the circumstance under which this phenomenon
presented itself to her, we found 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
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
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 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
more energetically repressed after the favourable issue of
the illness. Under other circumstances she would have been
compelled to wear another dress—namely, mourning clothes.
She found the analogous situation in her friends’ home;
their only brother was in danger of an early death, an event
that really came to 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 it into the fausse 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

205

would then have become the only child. In her 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 Déjà vu I can trace in a similar
manner to the emotional constellation of the moment. It
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.”¹⁾

V. Recently when I had occasion to recite to a colleague
of a philosophical turn of mind some examples of name-
forgetting, with their analyses, 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 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
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 demon-
strated connections as rare, for as often as I have made the

¹Thus far this explanation of Déjà vu has been appreciated by
only one observer. Dr. Ferenczi, to whom the third edition of
this book is indebted for so many contributions, writes to me con-
cerning this: “I have been convinced, through myself as well as
others, that the inexplicable feeling of familiarity can be referred to
unconscious fantasies of which we are unconsciously reminded in
an actual situation. With one of my patients the process was
apparently different but in reality it was quite analogous. This
feeling returned to him very often, but showed itself regularly as
originating in a forgotten (repressed) portion of a dream of the
preceding night. Thus it appears that the Déjà vu can „originate
not only from day dreams but also from night dreams.”

206

test in myself and with my patients it was always definitely
demonstrated 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 them-
selves against the solution must be considered a deciding
factor. Also it is not always possible to explain every
individual dream of one’s self or of patients. 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 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 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 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 are not independent in
attaining expression in symptomatic and faulty actions. The
technical possibility for such an adjustment of the innerva-
tions must 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 an attempt has been made by
philosophers and philologists to verify through minute
observations what structural and functional relations

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DETERMINISM

enter into the service of such intention. If in the deter-
minations of faulty and symptomatic actions we separate
the unconscious motive from its co-active 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 actions on the road of the relations.
It is not my task to answer this question.

VI. 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 the 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
elucidation of the subject, as the first 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. (1) What is the
content and the origin of the thoughts and feelings which
show themselves through faulty and chance actions? (2)
What are the conditions which force 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? (3) Can constant and definite
associations be demonstrated between the manner of the faulty
action and the qualities brought to expression through it?

I shall 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 the consciousness of the speaker. In the example that
seemed most simple and transparent it was a similar sound-

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ing but different conception of the same thought, which
disturbed its expression without any one being able to say
why the one succumbed and the other came to the surface
(Meringer and Mayers’ Contaminations).

In a second group of cases one conception succumbed to
a motive which 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 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, which is
frequently unconscious.

In the examples which I have given from my psycho-
analyses it is found that the entire speech is either under
the influence of thoughts which have become active simul-
taneously, or under absolutely unconscious thoughts which
betray themselves either through the disturbance itself, or
which evince 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 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 (e.g., the Apel). But
we should be pleased to know whether special conditions
must not be fulfilled in order that such condensation, which
is considered regular in the dream-work and faulty in our
waking thoughts, should take place. No information con-
cerning this can be obtained from the examples themselves.

209

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 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 favourable
objects for investigation than the pathological. What
remains obscure in the 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.

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–
i.e., the forget-
ting of past experiences. (To distinguish this forgetting from
the others we designate sensu strictiori the forgetting of
proper names and foreign words, as in Chapters I and II,
as “slips”; and the forgetting of resolutions as “omissions.”)
The principal conditions of the normal process in forgetting
are unknown.¹ We are also reminded of the fact that not
all is forgotten which we believe to be. Our explanation
here deals only with those cases in which the forgetting

I can perhaps give the following outline concerning the
mechanism of actual forgetting. The memory material suc-
cumbs in general to two influences, condensation and disfigure-
ment. Disfigurement is the work of the tendencies dominating
the psychic life, and directs itself above all against the affective
remnants of memory traces which maintain a more resistive atti-
tude towards condensation. The traces which have grown indif-
ferent merge into a process of condensation without opposition;
in addition it may be observed that tendencies of disfigurement
also feed on the indifferent material, because they have not been
gratified where they wished to manifest themselves. As these
processes of condensation and disfigurement continue for long

210

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
of forgetting which seem to demand a special explanation
shows that the motive of forgetting is always an unwilling-
ness 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 from regularly manifesting itself.
The extent and significance of this dislike to recall painful
impressions seem worthy of the most painstaking psychologic
investigation. The question as to what special conditions
render possible the universally resistant forgetting in indivi-
dual cases cannot be solved through this added association.

A different factor steps into the foreground in the forget-
ting 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 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 it through
an outer association (in almost indifferent resolutions).

periods during which all fresh experiences act upon the trans-
formation of the memory content, it is our belief that it is time
that makes memory uncertain and indistinct. It is quite probable
that in forgetting there can really be no question of a direct function
of time. From the repressed memory traces it can be verified
that they suffer no changes even in the longest periods. The
unconscious, at all events, knows no time limit. The most impor-
tant as well as the most peculiar character of psychic fixation
consists in the fact that all impressions are on the one hand retained
in the same form as they were received, and also in the forms that
they have assumed in their further development. This state of
affairs cannot be elucidated by any comparison from any other
sphere. By virtue of this theory every former state of the memory
content may thus be restored, even though all original relations
have long been replaced by newer ones.

211

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 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 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 uncon-
scious or restrained feelings. For the most part they represent
symbolically wishes and phantoms.

The first question (as to 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 ego-
istic, jealous and hostile feelings and 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 tolera-
tion of the unmoral. The manifold sexual currents play no
insignificant part in these repressed 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 analyses of numerous examples from my
own psychic life, the selection was partial from the first,
and aimed at the exclusion of sexual matters. At other
times it seemed that the disturbing thoughts originated from
the most harmless objection and consideration.

We have now reached the answer to the second question

212

—that is, what psychologic conditions are responsible for
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
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 intended matter—these feelings seem
to play the same rôle as motives for the suppression of a thought
(which later depends for expression on the disturbance of an
other), as the moral condemnation of a rebellious emotional
feeling, or as the origin of absolutely unconscious trains of
thought. An insight into 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 conscious-
ness, the thought to which it 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
the solution requires a painstaking analysis, which may some-
times 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 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.

213

VII. Just a few words to indicate the direction of this
broader connection. The mechanism of the faulty and
chance actions, as we have learned to know it through the
application of analysis, shows in the most essential points
an agreement with the mechanism of dream formation,
which I have discussed in the chapter “The Dream Work”
of my book on the interpretation of dreams. Here, as there,
one finds the condensation and compromise formation
(“contaminations”); 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 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 com-
bination: the 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 us assuming that these psychic
processes which impress us as abnormal and strange are
determined by deep-
seated decay of psychic activity or by
morbid state of function.¹

The correct understanding of this strange psychic work
which allows the faulty actions to originate like the dream
pictures will only be possible after we have discovered that
the psychoneurotic symptoms, particularly the psychic
formations of hysteria and compulsion neurosis, repeat in
their mechanisms all the essential features of this mode

¹Cf. here The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 483. Macmillan:
New York; and Allen: London.

214

of operation. The continuation of our investigation would
therefore have to begin at this point.

There is still another special interest for us in consider-
ing the faulty, chance, and symptomatic actions in the light
of this last analogy. If we compare them to the function
of the psychoneuroses and the neurotic symptoms, two
frequently recurring statements gain in sense 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 formes frustes 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 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 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 social
life—such disposition is found in the severe cases of neuroses,
and is perhaps more characteristic of the latter than the
multiformity or vividness of the morbid manifestations.

But the common character of the mildest as well as the
severest cases, to which the faulty and chance actions contri-
bute, 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.