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To call an affliction a disorder of thought is to shift the emphasis away from what is thought – the content of the thought – to that which contains the thought; on the other hand, from the architecture to the theme is to shift the emphasis from the container of what is thought, to the content of the thought.
Envy contributes to the belief that external objects are the patient's thought. Since he cannot admit dependence on an external object, he claims (in order ultimately to escape feeling envy) that he is, like the breast that feeds itself, the producer as well as the consumer of that on which he depends for this life.
Since it is essential that the creative worker should keep his α-function unimpaired, it is clear that the analyst must be able to dream the session. But if he is to do this without sleeping, he must have plenty of sleep. The need for this now becomes apparent as a way by which α-function can be preserved for the sake of analysis, i.e. neither for waking up nor for going to sleep, but for a special and entirely new function, and not – as has hitherto been supposed – because the capacity for judgement is peculiar in being easily and rapidly fatigued. It is because α-function is by nature intended to make sense impressions or an emotional experience available either to the unconscious or to the conscious, or to make wakefulness or consciousness available to the emotional experience – as, for example, in learning a skill, from walking to fighting. Making oblivion available is not the same as repressing, but if the analyst has not had enough sleep, α-function may produce oblivion.