ABSTRACT
Bion’s extension of Freud’s theory of dreaming had been quietly germinating in his earlier works. Bion, as we shall soon see, agrees with this rationale and with its obverse as well: that dream-work must also protect the unconscious from being overwhelmed by external stimuli. Dreaming and/or a-function occur throughout the day and night. The emotional vocabulary furnished by a-function is used in dreaming to construct imaginative, preponderantly visual narratives as truthful “archival fictions”, which contain emotions that have emerged from transformed and transduced ß-elements. The relationship in Bion’s scheme between consciousness and the unconscious is exemplified by all three of the above models. Dreaming begins as a sequential function so as to induce a normal state of simultaneous and parallel activity in consciousness and the unconscious.
