Sigmund Freud Was Bit By A Tiger

Or so you would think if you read a conversation quoted on “Overheard in New York” on that site (plus the usual dot com). It’s a wonderful place to learn all sorts of ditzy things people come up with.

Just to be on the safe side, I did a quick search for “Freud” and “Tiger,” coming up with nothing. Could be he was; you never know. But I found nothing. I do know he had quite a fascination for putting long round things in his mouth and you can make of that what you wish.

He definitely did not say, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Unlike the stogie, which he did himself, someone put this one in his mouth. Was it Yogi Berra who complained that, “A lot of things I said, I never said”?

Dr. Sigmund is supposed to have said that he would not have his dreams psychoanalyzed because, to paraphrase his words (that means I can’t find the exact quote), it would diminish his standing in the psychiatric community.

Ah! To know what the famous shrink dreamed about. His clients? Their deepest hang-ups? Where to find the perfect cigar? Possibly his fear of being bitten by a tiger? No; that last one existed only in the mind of a ditzy person here in the States and long after he left this world but not going to a better place (he was an atheist – lying there in the funeral parlor, all dressed up and no place to go).