What was the point of Norman pretending that he got electrocuted in the bath tub?

While trying to drown Claire, he said to her:

"I almost froze to death laying here, wet, naked, pretending to be electrocuted."

That seems like a completely random/arbitrary thing to do. What was he trying to accomplish? Before he revealed that he faked it, it made sense in the story line, i.e., as Claire said, it seemed that Madison's ghost had tried to kill him. But once we know he faked it, it makes no sense at all, in fact, it was counterproductive, because all it did was fuel Claire's obsession with the Madison mystery, which is exactly the opposite of what Norman wanted (he wanted her to forget about the whole Madison thing). And he would have obviously known that a hairdryer mysteriously hopping into the tub with him in a house where she had been reporting ghost activity would fuel her obsession with the ghost. Was this part of some abandoned plot element or something?