In a world speeding at ever increasing rates, as I seem to compete in efficiency with robots that override my logical processes, it is tempting to fall for survival, the survival of a self-doubting human that is losing its grip to algorithms. Are robots learning reverie or is the stance disappearing from our conceptualization? Am I growing intolerant toward my own mind-wandering the way some people can’t tolerate getting lost in cities or exploring unknown territories? We now have a fix for this: “Let’s ask AI to give a quick answer to our present question, a parroting compilation of an amalgam of reliable and for-profit-manipulated information. What has become of my non-profit reflection, aimed at enabling the symbiotic encounters of parts of my psyche that have learned too well to close off, compartmentalize, or give up open inquiry? Is my psyche slowly paling, reflecting the impoverishment of social conversation with strangers and those who disagree with my position? How am I to learn, develop my inquiry into unknown terrains that beckon to widen, deepen, and court the mystery of existence? How will I find untrodden paths, forgotten treasures, and natural springs of inspiration if I fear to let my mind wander. When I was an actress years ago, one of the methods proposed to find the core and depth of a role was to push it to its limits in all directions to find its center. By probing it to questionable extremes, some inner wisdom emerged as to the center of pivoting of the being portrayed. I believe people who build stone sculptures learn this way to find the center of gravity of the edifice they raise.
Milner introduced “reverie” into psychoanalytic discourse before Bion, deploying it to describe states of creative absorption within a protected analytic frame – a formulation Bion would later refine and claim as his own. Milner’s theorisation of absent-mindedness, bodily awareness and the dedifferentiation of “me” and “not-me” boundaries provided the essential scaffolding for both Bion’s reverie technique and Winnicott’s conception of play. The creative potential of omnipotence, the therapeutic value of pre-logical thinking, aesthetic experience and regressive processes – ideas now routinely attributed to her male contemporaries – originated in Milner’s work (Reis, 2026)