'Infectious' Parapraxes

Freud has more than once drawn attention to the familiar fact that parapraxes are highly 'infectious'.1 I hope to contribute a little to the understanding of this phenomenon of 'infection'2 by describing and explaining two cases of the kind.

I was invited one evening to the house of a certain Herr B. This man is a conceited person, of a petty disposition, who sets great store upon being regarded as a man of culture although he is not in fact very well-informed. When I arrived at his house, a number of guests had already assembled, but others were still to come. In the course of conversation it suddenly occurred to me that I had left my pocket-book in my overcoat pocket. I got up unobtrusively and went into the room where we had left our coats, but it was in darkness and I could not find the electric switch. I was much surprised that the light had already been turned off, when other guests were still expected. I thought to myself: 'Really, this is a mean sort of economy'. (B.'s meanness, which we often ridiculed, had played a part in my forgetting of my pocket-book, but I will not go into the analysis of this parapraxis.) I went back to the other room; the master of the house had observed my absence and came to meet me, asking if I were looking for something. I said: 'I have left something in the other room. Would you show me where the switch is? It is quite mean [German: kleinlich ] out there—er—that is to say, there is no light' [German: kein Licht.] I was horrified at my slip of the tongue, but B.'s expression reassured me; evidently he had noticed nothing and, even if he had noticed, he certainly could not have understood my slip, for he knew nothing whatever about psycho-analysis and would put the whole thing down to chance. To my great astonishment, however, in the course of the evening B. himself made several slips, all of which were obviously a response to my own slip. In giving me a light for my cigarette he