You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Traditionally slips of the tongue have been understood clinically and theoretically as reflecting opposing mental trends that are ascertainable through associations to their component words. In two recent papers (4), (5) I have demonstrated that this is not always true and that in some slips, associations to the component words may be of secondary or little importance. Moreover, in some cases the very process of 'slip formation' becomes defensively instinctualized and assumes value for a symbolic discharge. The ego can unconsciously use the technique of formation of a slip for the symbolic expression of oral, anal, phallic, and genital drives and fantasies as well as certain ego identifications and superego demands.
No papers in the literature deal specifically with slips of the tongue in dreams. This may be due not only to a lack of active attention to the subject over the years, but also to the apparent rarity of the phenomenon. Despite my interest in the subject, I have encountered slips of the tongue in dreams on only five occasions. In personal communications, some analysts have reported similar clinical experience; others reported that they could not recall a single instance of slips in dreams. Richardson (2), in his discussion of this paper, drew attention to two dreams reported by Freud in which there were slips in the manifest content (1, p. 421 and p. 455). Freud did not give associations sufficiently 'in depth' to permit assessment of the slips in terms of the propositions to be offered here.
Of the five slips in dreams encountered, one was in the context of the resistive reporting of a flurry of dreams, and was not analyzable. The other four permitted extensive analysis and revealed psychodynamic consistency. In each instance, the process of slip formation had been regressively instinctualized