(e) Another case of mislaying merits our interest on account of the conditions under which the mislaid object was rediscovered. A younger man narrates as follows: “Several years ago there were some misunderstandings between me and my wife. I found her too cold, and though I fully appreciated her excellent qualities, we lived together without evincing any tenderness for each other. One day on her return from a walk she gave me a book which she had bought because she thought it would interest me. I thanked her for this mark of ‘attention,’ promised to read the book, put it away, and did not find it again. So months passed, during which I occasionally remembered the lost book, and also tried in vain to find it.
“About six months later my beloved mother, who was not living with us, became ill. My wife left home to nurse her mother-in-law. The patient’s condition became serious and gave my wife the opportunity to show the best side of herself. One evening I returned home full of enthusiasm over what my wife had accomplished, and felt very grateful to her. I stepped to my desk and, without definite intention but with the certainty of a somnambulist, I opened a certain drawer, and in the very top of it I found the long-missing, mislaid book.”
The following example of “misplacing” belongs to a type well known to every psychoanalyst. I must add that the patient who experienced this misplacing has himself found the solution of it.
This patient, whose psychoanalytic treatment had to be interrupted through the summer vacation when he was in a state of resistance and ill-health, put away his keys in the evening in their usual place, or so he thought. He then remembered that he wished to take some things from his desk, where he also had put the money which he needed on the journey. He was to depart the next day, which was the last day of treatment and the date when the doctor’s fee was due. But the keys had disappeared.
He began a thorough and systematic search through his small apartment. He became more and more excited over it, but his search was unsuccessful. As he recognized this “misplacement” as a symptomatic act—that is, as being intentional—he aroused his servant in order to continue his search with the help of an “unprejudiced” person. After another hour he gave up the search and feared that he had lost the keys. The next morning he ordered new keys from the desk factory, which were hurriedly made for him. Two acquaintances who had been with him in a cab even recalled hearing something fall to the ground as he stepped out of the cab, and he was therefore convinced that the keys had slipped from his pocket. They were found lying between a thick book and a thin pamphlet, the latter a work of one of my pupils, which he wished to take along as reading matter for his vacation; and they were so skilfully placed that no one would have supposed that they were there. He himself was unable to replace the keys in such a position as to render them invisible. The unconscious skill with which an object is misplaced on account of secret but strong motives reminds one of “somnambulistic sureness.” The motive was naturally ill-humour over the interruption of the treatment and the secret rage over the fact that he had to pay such a high fee when he felt so ill.
(f) Brill relates:[31] “A man was urged by his wife to attend a social function in which he really took no interest. Yielding to his wife’s entreaties, he began to take his dress-suit from the trunk when he suddenly thought of shaving. After accomplishing this he returned to the trunk and found it locked. Despite a long, earnest search the key could not be found. A locksmith could not be found on Sunday evening, so that the couple had to send their regrets. On having the trunk opened the next morning the lost key was found within. The husband had absent-mindedly dropped the key into the trunk and sprung the lock. He assured me that this was wholly unintentional and unconscious, but we know that he did not wish to go to this social affair. The mislaying of the key therefore lacked no motive.”
Ernest Jones noticed in himself that he was in the habit of mislaying his pipe whenever he suffered from the effects of over-smoking. The pipe was then found in some unusual place where it did not belong and which it normally did not occupy.
If one looks over the cases of mislaying it will be difficult to assume that mislaying is anything other than the result of an unconscious intention.
(g) In the summer of 1901 I once remarked to a friend with whom I was then actively engaged in exchanging ideas on scientific questions: “These neurotic problems can be solved only if we take the position of absolutely accepting an original bi-sexuality in every individual.” To which he replied: “I told you that two and a half years ago while we were taking an evening walk in Br. At that time you wouldn’t listen to it.”
It is truly painful to be thus requested to renounce one’s originality. I could neither recall such a conversation nor my friend’s revelation. One of us must be mistaken; and according to the principle of the question cui prodest? I must be the one. Indeed, in the course of the following weeks everything came back to me just as my friend had recalled it. I myself remembered that at that time I gave the answer: “I have not yet got so far, and I do not care to discuss it.” But since this incident I have grown more tolerant when I miss any mention of my name in medical literature in connection with ideas for which I deserve credit.