Misreading brings us to a mental situation which is clearly different from that of slips of the tongue or the pen. One of the two conflicting tendencies is here replaced by a sensory excitation and is perhaps therefore less tenacious. What one is reading is not a product of one’s own mind, as is that which one is going to write. In the large majority of cases, therefore, misreading consists in complete substitution. A different word is substituted for the word to be read, without there necessarily being any connection in the content between the text and the effect of the mistake, and usually by means of a resemblance between the words. Lichtenberg’s example of this, “_Agamemnon_” instead of “_angenommen_,” is the best of this group. To discover the interfering tendency which causes the mistake one may put aside the original text altogether; the analytic investigation may begin with two questions: What is the first idea occurring in free association to the effect of the misreading (the substitute), and in what circumstances did the misreading occur? Occasionally a knowledge of the latter is sufficient in itself to explain the misreading, as, for instance, when someone wandering about a strange town, driven by urgent needs, reads the word “_Closethaus_” on a large sign on the first storey. He has just time to wonder that the board has been fixed at that height when he discovers that the word on it is actually “_Corsethaus_.” In other cases where there is a lack of connection in content between the text and the slip a thorough analysis is necessary, which cannot be accomplished without practice in psycho-analytic technique and confidence in it. But it is not usually so difficult to come by the explanation of a case of misreading. In the example “_Agamemnon_,” the substituted word betrays without further difficulty the line of thought from which the disturbance arose. In this time of war, for instance, it is very common for one to read everywhere names of towns, generals, and military expressions, which are continually in one’s ears, wherever one sees a word at all resembling them. Whatever interests and occupies the mind takes the place of what is alien and as yet uninteresting. The shadows of thoughts in the mind dim the new perceptions. Another kind of misreading is possible, in which the text itself arouses the disturbing tendency, whereupon it is usually changed into its opposite. Someone is required to read something which he dislikes, and analysis convinces him that a strong wish to reject what is read is responsible for the alteration.