Issue 44, April 2002
Freudian Sleeps ...oops .. Slips
©Jane Teresa Anderson, April 2002
Have you ever been exposed by a slip of your tongue or found yourself desperately trying to keep a straight face when someone else's lips have tripped?
Try your hand with these recently heard Freudian slips. What did each person set out to say and what deeper truth did their actual words betray?
"He drenches my thirst."
"She's past her use me date."
"I'm waiting with baited breast."
"I have to deal with huge clouds of people in my job."
"It's like time is sticking by."
Freudian slips like these happen when your unconscious mind speaks louder than your conscious mind, finding opportunity in tiny changes (transmuting words or re-arranging cliches) to sneak past editing. Why? Because your unconscious mind is always seeking freedom of expression: through Freudian slips, through dreams, through the way you move your body, through physical disease and through the way you respond to your life.
Your conscious mind likes to think it's in control, keeping the lid on its unconscious counterpart. It controls by presenting the 'right' image of yourself to others, editing your responses and monitoring your feelings - the feelings you are comfortable with monitoring, that is. The feelings you're less okay with get shunted straight into your unconscious mind where they are hidden away until ... jailbreak. When the control slips you are presented with a gift: a glimpse of your unconscious mind. Understanding this is the key to understanding yourself and your life. What you can understand you can change for the better.
Some of the best Freudian slips come up when people are describing or discussing their dreams. Dreams tell their stories in the language of the unconscious so when you are talking about a dream or describing its symbols the language of your unconscious is already on your lips. Talking about dreams provides the best of slippery conditions for birthing a telling Freudian slip, making interpretation easier.
How did you get on with interpreting the examples above? Here's how they related:
"He drenches my thirst."
This woman was describing her lover. She meant to say, "He quenches my thirst". There's a big difference between quenching (satisfying) and drenching (drowning) a person's needs. Her unconscious mind revealed that she sometimes feels drowned rather than satisfied with her lover.
"She's past her use me date."
A classic! This guy thought he said, "She's past her use-by-date", meaning the relationship was over as far as he was concerned. His unconscious mind made a clearer statement. The relationship had faltered because he was feeling used by his girlfriend.
"I'm waiting with baited breast."
Of course this was intended as, "I'm waiting with baited breath" but the unconscious mind revealed a more sexual agenda and an active rather than passive expectation.
"I have to deal with huge clouds of people in my job."
This man's unconscious tricked his tongue into saying "clouds" instead of "crowds". When this was pointed out he was ready to look at why he felt he was dealing with clouds in his job.
"It's like time is sticking by."
This one was a very subtle trip, a slithering extension of the s sound from the intended, "It's like time is ticking by" to deliver quite a different message. This person went on to examine what and why he felt he was "sticking by" and why he felt this was eating away at time.
Good fun, aren't they? But how can you apply this insight as an extra tool for interpreting your dreams? There are three main ways.
First is the spoken word. Tell your dream to someone (or to a tape recorder) and listen to yourself. Listen both to the words you choose and to the words and phrases that slip out. Try telling the dream fast to create a really slippery surface for your tongue. Write down any Freudian slips and ask yourself what your unconscious mind was really saying.
Second is the written word. The trick here is to write your dream in your dream journal as fast as you can, more in touch with your free-flowing gut instincts than with your editing mind. Then go back and read what you have written. As well as the occasional Freudian slip of the pen, you'll probably see some unintended telling spelling 'mistakes'. For example, you might have written 'care' instead of 'car', 'plain' instead of 'plane' or 'heal' instead of 'heel'. Instead of flicking these off as silly spellings, ask yourself what your unconscious mind was really saying.
Third is the insight a Freudian slip can give you on a dream symbol. For example, the man who slipped that he had to deal with "clouds" of people in his job realised that he had had several dreams featuring clouds. He was able to go back and consider the clouds in his dreams as his beliefs about dealing with large numbers of people at work.
Enjoy sleuthing your Freudian sleeps .. oops, slips ... it's time for my tired little brain to sleep and chance a dream.
Jane Teresa Anderson
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