'CUSE ME MAM, DO YOU HAVE A FREUDIAN SLIP IN A SIZE SMALL?

          Good Morning. I'm welcoming myself back from vacation which is why I have been silent for a week. We paid for the package for unlimited Wi-Fi, but the ship had internet problems the first day, and then we couldn't get our phones online etc. Bummer.
 I wanted to blog from the Caribbean, but the Universe shut me down.  * AD (digression)

  For those of you who have been reading these, you will have noticed that all sorts of things can come out of my mouth. Actually, it's from my brain channeled to my fingers onto the blog, but since I think of it as a conversation, to me, it's coming out of my mouth.

  For those of you who do actually know me, you, are already very aware of the things that I utter. ADHD can be cruel, as my censors, unlike those on radio or TV do not have a time delay. I therefore blurt out some things that I find myself having to explain (mostly to my husband, which now that I think about it ,is curious because most of the time he isn't listening, so why does he hear the things that I have to end up defending myself for?)

   Dr. Sigmund Freud, who I believe was a genius has been debunked, defrocked and derided over the past century. Both during, and  after his life time.

    No one gets it correct all the time, but to throw out an entire life's work over some probably erroneous theories, well that's just dumb.
 
     I will stick (or make a brave attempt) to the theory on Freudian slips. Everyone uses the term and hopefully knows what it means.

      Freud believed that an unconscious thought or feeling could pop into ones conscious mind and slip through the filters  of our thoughts, therefore giving voice to an innermost feeling.
 
        I don't know how many of you can relate.  Saying something you didn't mean to say and then not being able to take it back. I'm not talking about saying things you know you want to say and letting them slip, but things you didn't know you were feeling that came out in what you said.     


       Scientists who are now able to map the brain and understand cognition in ways Freud couldn't, have pretty much said that slips are not what Freud thought. Instead, neural connections fail, cross one another or possibly just errors that occur that are of no significance. I'm sure that they are mostly correct and even Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Although I believe that he may have written that because he was in denial about how much phallic symbols were on his brain, and in his mouth.

      I have, however, over the course of my lifetime experienced those slips of the tongue that were definitely not crossed wires and, if I were someone who blushed, would have been bright red. Instead, I wanted to crawl into a hole or ended up defending what was said.
     Fortunately my errors often came out when speaking to a male, so he wasn't listening and didn't pick up on it.
  
     I suppose I remember this one because it was super embarrassing. I was in my twenties and had recently lost my job. A friend took me out and I met a guy at a bar on Hudson Street. We danced, and he took my number and actually called.

      We were on our first date and were asking the usual questions about what do you do, where did you go to school and other background information topics.

       He asked about my job, which as I mentioned, I had just lost. What came out of my mouth was a part of what I thought I was going to say.  "Oh, I just got laid".  Somehow the word "off" never made it out.

        So, were my neural connections crossed or was I thinking about sex?  I can't remember the rest of the conversation other than my  finishing the phrase and feeling like an overexposed photograph.  And yes, of course I was thinking about sex. It was a date. Duh???

        It's a wonderful human trait to be able to choose what you hear or see based on your believe system and change it depending upon situation and your feelings about it.

        People in the public eye have had to deal with this issue for ages.  Saying things taken out of context, photos when caught off guard.  All because of freedom of the press.  Which is essential to democracy.  It got worse once live broadcasts became possible, and there wasn't time to call the reporter and beg to  him or her to leave out a particular quote or photo.

        George W. said many things that I'm sure he wished he could take back. Were they Freudian slips?  Stupid remarks? Or failure of neural connections? This is America and you can decide for yourself depending upon how you feel about the man. I will say that he ones I can recall were probably not slips. 

         And what came into my mind when I wrote that?  You probably have to have a conscience to have an unconscious.  That was a nasty thought which is possibly why I didn't think they were slips. It wasn't what I was thinking when I wrote it, but it just popped up. That's the way my mind works.   ( I was leaning towards stupid, but also believe the possibility that he damaged his brain during his drinking years). No offense to people who like/love him. Just my opinion.

       Then, is it a Freudian slip if it makes no sense. Or at least not in a usual way?  Recently I was talking to someone about my overworked sense of responsibility and said " I feel obligated to start what I finished."  Something felt wrong.  I had reversed the usual statement of finishing what I start.

        On the bright side, I really liked this statement, so I wrote it down or I would forget it. You do recall that I have short term memory problems, right?  Just refer back to older blogs if you have memory problems too.

       The beauty of this "slip" is that you had to have started it because it's finished.  How ridiculous is that?
     Right now some of you are thinking at this moment. When is this going to be finished?
soon.

       The most recent occurrence which brought this ridiculous idea to mind was while on the cruise I said something that my husband got upset about. I wish I could say it was because I was drunk, which is a distinct possibility since it was a cruise, but it wasn't. Well, at least not drunk enough.  It also wasn't from my unconscious.

       It was more along the lines of daydreams and fantasy and imagination. I consider those areas to be private like the unconscious, but you are aware of them and in control of them.  Except when they accidentally spill out of your mouth in a conversation where your partner is actually listening.

      The content isn't important. It's the concept. Walking down the never ending hall to our room, I found myself defending my imagination.  I'm not Catholic. I don't expect to go to pre-purgatory for sins I think about, and have no intention of committing.
      Yet there I was, pleading my case so my husband would understand and not worry about my acting on a word. 

     True, if they are private or unconscious thoughts, we are supposed to keep them to ourselves. I get the principle.  My run away mouth does not. I can be at a get together with a group of friends and find myself calling out something I think is funny at an inappropriate moment. I don't apologize anymore because if you read my blog on apologies you'll understand.

     So, my theory is.............. Slips of the tongue happen. We often say things we don't want to say, but they slip out. Conscious or not, it doesn't matter. How it affects the someone who hears, it does. And us of course. My request in the title holds.  If I have to make a slip, please, let it be a little one.

keep scrolling to get to the comment section. pretty please with sugar on top.
Or I'll beat the crap out of you.   oops that was just a slip of the tongue. I meant to say tar. LOL