No sonhário dos sonhadores: por uma história conceitual dos sonhos e do aparelho psíquico

Des rêveurs en leur “rêvoir”: pour une histoire conceptuelle des rêves et de l‘appareil

Abstract

This essay proposes a reconstruction of the trajectory of some of the theories of dreaming and of the psychic apparatus that exerted significant influence from Freud in the 1930s through Ogden, Bollas, and Ferro, including Ferenczi, M. Klein, E. Sharpe, Meltzer, Lacan, and Bion. The study highlights the progressive amplification of conflicts of interpretation among different readings of the final chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams, while nevertheless seeking to detect within it a certain dialectical logic. This undertaking is situated within the field of conceptual history and therefore articulates epistemological critique with an analysis of the concrete historical conditions under which these concepts were employed. The investigation arrives at two main results: it underscores the growing importance of the problems posed by borderline states in the post-Freudian transformations of psychoanalytic dream theory, and it points to the still unresolved uncertainty affecting its most recent variants. This is due to the fact that, as psychoanalytic theory moves away from Freud’s original mechanistic model, the psychic apparatus, as conceived in its more recent variants, appears to be suspended in a kind of intrapsychic “space” that is difficult to grasp.

Keywords: Dream; Dream Interpretation; Psychic Apparatus; History of Psychoanalysis; Sonhário.