Article
On Not Being Able to Dream
In this paper Ogden addresses the inability to dream, which he distinguishes from simply failing to remember one's dreams. Following Bion, he holds that it is the work of dreaming that creates the differentiation of conscious and unconscious mind, not the reverse; a person who cannot dream therefore cannot generate distinct conscious and unconscious experience, and cannot tell sleeping from waking or dreaming from perceiving. He approaches the problem from three directions: theoretically, through Bion's ideas; through a story by Borges that renders, with unusual artistry, what it is like to be unable to dream; and clinically, through a long analysis in which the patient at first produced a profusion of 'psychic noise' the analyst could not use. Over years this left the analyst deprived of reverie and subject to brief episodes of countertransference psychosis. Ogden discusses two sessions in which the analytic work strengthened the capacity of both patient and analyst for genuine dreaming, in sleep and in reverie.
Main ideas
- Being unable to dream is distinct from not remembering one's dreams.
- Following Bion, dreaming creates the differentiation of conscious and unconscious mind; without it a person cannot distinguish sleeping from waking, or dreaming from perceiving.
- A story by Borges conveys with unusual artistry the experience of being unable to dream.
- A patient's proliferation of unusable 'psychic noise' can leave the analyst deprived of reverie and prone to brief countertransference psychosis.
- Analytic work can enlarge the capacity of both patient and analyst for genuine dreaming, in sleep and in reverie.
What it shows
- 2003
Thomas H. Ogden introduced Dreaming oneself into existence
The 2003 paper introduces undreamt and interrupted dreams; the 2005 book frames the analyst's task as dreaming the patient's undreamt dreams so that the patient can dream themselves more fully into existence.
- 2003
Thomas H. Ogden developed Alpha function
Following Bion, Ogden treats dreaming as the work that alpha function makes possible, in waking as in sleep. He builds his clinical idea of undreamt dreams on the failure of that work.
Wilfred Bion influenced Thomas H. Ogden
Bion's theories of reverie, container-contained, alpha function and dreaming are the main foundation of Ogden's work from the late 1990s on.
- 2003
Dreaming oneself into existence derives from Alpha function
Undreamt dreams are experience that alpha function has not been able to transform into material for dreaming.