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To the Editor:
Following a discussion with Donald Meltzer, I have thought through some issues with regard to my paper, "Who is the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream and Who is the Dreamer Who Understands It?", Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 15 1, 1979. I especially wish to expand on Bion's conception of alpha function and should desire to add the following to my discussion of that important theme.
IT IS TO BION'S ALPHA FUNCTION that we must look for the ultimate, irreducible element of creativity for it unites the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream, the Dreamer Who Understands the Dream, the Dreamer Who Makes the Dream Understandable etc. (Bion, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1970). Bion believes that alpha function, which corresponds to Freud's primary process but is more extensive, processes the data of experience (beta elements) which confront the sense organs and cause them to undergo an "alpha-betization" in order to become capable of mental digestion as elements of thought. This "alpha-betization" also accounts for the transformation of the sense-ible experience into sensual imagery (via image-ination) which then qualify as dream images which can be dreamed and stored. It is my impression that the transformations of the sense impression into imagery are facilitated by alpha function's access to inherent and acquired preconceptions, that is, to archetypes, which are always pressuring to surface but require a sense-ible experience for a vehicle. Alpha function seems able to link up the experience