On Talking-as-Dreaming

Ogden describes a form of waking dreaming for patients who cannot dream in the analytic session, whether through free association or otherwise. In what he calls talking-as-dreaming, analyst and patient engage in loosely structured conversation, often marked by primary-process thinking and apparent non sequiturs, about matters such as books, films, the origins of words, baseball, the taste of chocolate or the structure of light. Such talk may seem unanalytic, but it can allow the patient to begin dreaming experience that was previously undreamable; in an analysis that is a going concern, the talk moves unobtrusively into and out of talk about dreams. Two detailed clinical accounts are given: in one, a patient for the first time dreamed her own, and in a sense her father's, previously unthinkable experience; in the other, a patient who had felt invisible began to dream himself into existence. Ogden sets out three cautions: the difference between the analyst's and the patient's roles must remain continuously felt, the therapeutic aims must be kept firmly in mind, and the patient must dream himself into existence rather than be dreamt up by the analyst.