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figurative and symbolic scenes, fruits of the operation of the (Bionian) alpha function. This function creates symbols embodied in an image that becomes present in dream thought, serving as a foundation and a first step for thought processes, without, however, yet constituting as such. The initial form is usually non-discursive and contains powerful expressive-evocative elements. They also believe that this initial form is very similar to what Kristeva (2000) calls ‘analogical representations,’ which are neither pure experiences nor pure abstraction, but rather something that exists between both forms. The term pictogram was used before by other authors (Aulagnier, 1975; Ferro, 1995), but Rocha Barros’ notion is inspired by these analysts, while developing it into a somewhat different meaning, given the emphasis on its intrinsically affective character. It is, for example, an image structurally constituted by affect that becomes the center of its expressivity. And thus, it constitutes a representation. The affective pictogram potentially contains, in the process of its constitution and in its own figuration, hidden meanings (resulting from repression), potential meanings (i.e., pregnant with possibilities), and also absent meanings those yet to be created by a new configuration. This absence of meaning is not reduced to the hiding of a presence. It is a state of suspension, a reference to the absent, or even a discontinuity, which constantly leads the psyche to expand its instruments of representation. The analyst's reverie brings this possibility, from which its extreme importance derives: to recover both repressed meanings and these potential and absent meanings. It is the instrument present at the heart of reverie. This affective pictogram expresses not only a relational moment but also contains within itself a structural aspect representing a history . This is expressive and shaped by a context, just like a dream scene. The constitution of such an affective pictogram is an imagistic representation that acquires drive force. Emphasizing that images permeate all mental processes, a conclusion supported by both psychoanalysis and neurosciences, Elizabeth Rocha Barros (in: Levine & de Staal 2021) cites neuroscientist António Damásio (2018)’s statement "Our perceptions and the ideas they evoke continuously generate a parallel description based on language constructed with images. All the words we use in any language—spoken, written, or perceived by touch, as in Braille—are mentally made of images." (in Rocha Barros et al. 2012, p.107), concurring with his conclusion that images are the universal symbol of the mind. Their conscious or unconscious nature depends on how the representation is articulated in the world of internal objects with emotional experience and its meanings. The conscious and unconscious modes of a meaning do not exist independently or in parallel with each other. They maintain a dialectical relationship, and each acquires its quality by reference to the other, and both are driven/impelled by drives. In this context, Elias and Elizabeth Rocha Barros specifically suggest that through the affective pictogram captured via reverie, access can be gained to the expressive contents of unconscious fantasies. In their view, these resemble what Laplanche (1987, pp.124 and 129) described as scene fragments. These are akin to a video clip and are part of the world of images, even when they appear only in the form of words, having lost, at this point in the unconscious, their openings for communication.
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