ABSTRACT
The author reflects on the question of the presence, quality and function of dreams in psychotic states. In light of his clinical experience the author deduces that when the psychotic process is not in an acute phase and has not invaded the entire psychic structure, dreaming is possible. In these cases, notwithstanding the partial or total failure of dream work, due to a deficit in symbol formation and to concrete thinking, the function of the dream of representation of the Self and of its attempts to integrate current and past emotional experiences is preserved. It is a question, in these cases, of representations that derive in large part from the reactivation, carried out by the psychosis, of that pictographic register (Aulagnier, 1975) which mirrors the oldest experiences related to the primary relationship. In this way, the analyst is offered a possibility of representation and consequent symbolic construction of dissociated and split emotional truths, buried in implicit, somatic memory.
