ABSTRACT
In sleep, stimuli start mainly from the memory system, but the activity of dreaming does not entail reorganising an archive of generic, abstract, and purposeless memories and not even, as has been suggested, a method that, like applying varnish to paint on a canvas, only serves to fix them—because a new meaning is created. To preserve sleep, in the dream the specific action that transforms the internal environment must be performed in order to return to a state of balance. By preserving sleep, dreams carry out their function of regulating the homeostasis of the body, while actions remain on a virtual plane. The importance of the dream in analysis arises from the fact that the problem lies precisely at the point where β becomes α and the body is transformed into the mind and less.
