Through a richly detailed close reading of Wilfred R. Bion’s work on dreaming, as scattered across multifarious and largely unworked texts, this book argues that Bion’s thinking can form a unified theory of dreams which extends and has further implications as a visionary model of the mind. The central quality of Bion's visionary model of the mind is the belief that all that is interesting in the human mind pulsates with an unreadably complex dynamic beyond the unknown, the unknowable and the unthinkable. However, rather than interpreting this negatively, the author understands the inevitable unknowability of the human mind as a call to perplexity and wonder which actively encourages the intuition of fundamental insights into who and what determines our internal lives. A major implication of this belief is that psychoanalysis is itself essentially about the unknown, and Monteiro generates informed observations about how this may influence psychoanalytic work. Providing renewed insight into psychoanalytical understandings of dreams, this book is essential reading for any psychoanalyst wishing to broaden their knowledge of the importance of Wilfred R. Bion’s dream work. ‘This book is really amazing… it is life-threatening to forget, and life-threatening to give such interpretation before we are mature to receive it.’ Prof. Dr. Yolanda Gampel , professor in Advanced Psychotherapy, Sackler Medical School, Tel-Aviv University, Israel; training, supervising and past president of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; vice-president of the European Federation of Psychoanalysis (2001–2005); representative for Europe on the board of the IPA (2007–2011); recipient, Hayman International Prize and the Mary S. Sigourney Award, 2006 ‘I was greatly honoured to be able to read such a brilliant and excellent work. The author succeeds in re-creating and condensing what is best in Bion in such a brilliant way. This makes him a remarkable thinker in psychoanalysis. This book should absolutely be read.’ Prof. Dr. David Rosenfeld , M.D., professor of psychiatry and mental health at the medical faculty of the University of Buenos Aires; training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association. He was awareded the 1996 Sigourney Prize ‘Monteiro takes psychoanalysis out of the dogmatism in which it locked itself up to make it rediscover all the freshness of its beginnings. Freud’s interpretation of dreams has marked its emergence; the dream functions (Bion) raise a corner of the veil of the mysterious process of transformation of the physiological into the psychic. Monteiro brings together Bion’s dream functions and Meltzer’s theory of intimacy . A big step in the understanding of the analytical work. Nothing more mechanical, systematic, forced in the analytical work, but the emergence from the depths of the unknown, the unknowable and the unthinkable ( dream’s navel ) of a sense that never exhausts the living forces of the human soul, but which gradually reveals to our amazed eyes the beauty of the inner world.’ Prof. Dr. Didier Houzel , M.D., emeritus professor at Caen University (France); training and supervising analyst at the French Psychoanalytic Association ‘As I became increasingly engaged in Monteiro’s rigorous and yet passionate book, I experienced it as a genuinely artistic (master)piece. The way the author has read Bion led him to formulate the ground-breaking thesis that psychoanalysis is essentially about the unknown , the unknowable and the unthinkable . The conclusion of this astonishing book speaks for the whole book in an inextinguishable moment of emotional beauty: Meltzer’s “(. . .) strenuous and astonishingly powerful clamour: ‘NOOO!!. . . You always have to be beyond the breaking-point!!’” resonates in this book from beginning to end. We can read this book, hear it, feel it, dream it all along Monteiro’s poetic and passionate voyage to the realm of the unknown, the unknowable and the unthinkable; to the very heart and soul of psychoanalysis, to the unending mystery of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic praxis .’ Prof. Dr. Carlos Farate , M.D., training and supervising analyst at the Portuguese Psychoanalytic Society; editor-in-chief of the Revista Portuguesa de Psicanálise (Portuguese Journal of Psychoanalysis) ‘Monteiro takes us to the edge of that which is essential to our analytic work with dreams: "the unknown, the unknowable, and the unthinkable". He reveals another level of understanding of Bion’s theory of dreaming. While we accompany him on this journey, he poses questions about Bion’s theory of dreaming, then circles back to answer them, always taking us to a level of understanding beyond what we knew about Bion’s model of the mind, and the ever-changing perplexity and mystery of dreams and dreaming. The mind continuously creates itself into existence through dreaming. Monteiro expands our thinking about the process of dreaming. Rather t