This article argues that Freud's concept of primary narcissism includes an object. This object is differentiated from later objects, which are paired with ego and object drives that are defined by “motor efforts” or action towards them, by the ego merely having a wishful relation to it. By the end of primary narcissism the object is discoverable in 3d, in color presentations through which the ego can be conscious of its single unity or individual particularity. This is also contrasted with the earlier era of absolute narcissism in which the constant conscious awareness of space and the ability to direct one's attention and wishes to an object is lost in dreamless sleep. This economics of attention also encompasses objects in one's internal space of phantasy or imagination, including one's own self-representation or bodily ego. Because the ego only has a wishful relation to objects in primary narcissism it is a matter of indifference whether one wishes towards an external object or imagined one. Freud terms this functional equivalence an unreal object and in his study of animism he also sets it up as the site of splitting between mind and body in both the ego and the object.