Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. Edgar Allan Poe, Complete Tales & Poems
I had a dream, my son, or a nightmare. I had dreamed that the whole of Italy had deserted us. (Pope & Dream & Nightmare) The Borgias s1e8: The Art of War, Pope to Cesare, Showtime 2011
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? William Morris, The Earthly Paradise, 1868
Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth. Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mots, 1964
Do you ever have that feeling where you are not sure if you are awake or dreaming? The Matrix 1999 starring Keanu Reeves & Laurence Fishburne & Carrie-Anne Moss & Hugo Weaving & Joe Pantoliano & Gloria Foster & Marcus Chong & Julian Arahanga & Matt Doran & Belinda McClory et al, directors Andy & Lana Wachowski
So I awoke, and behold it was a dream. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had. Tears For Fears, Mad World, Roland Orzabal and sung by bassist Curt Smith
These were incidentals. It all started with a dream I used to have as a small child. A is for Acid 2002 starring Martin Clunes & Keeley Hawes & Richard Hope & Celia Imrie & Rowena Cooper & Terence Beesley & Barbara Marten & Claire Nielson et al, director Harry Bradbeer
I’m a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds. Mike Tyson
I used to have dreams. Field of Dreams 1989 ***** starring Kevin Costner & Ray Liotta & Burt Lancaster & Amy Madigan & James Earl Jones & Timothy Busfield & Dwier Brown & Frank Whaley & Fern Persons et al, director Phil Alden Robinson, Costner to missus
Ideas? I got a million dreams. It’s all I do is dream all the time. Duke Ellington
We need men who can dream of things that never were. John F Kennedy
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream? William Wordsworth, Ode, Intimations of Immortality, 1807
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. ibid.
There’s a long, long trail awinding
Into the land of my dreams. Stoddard King, There’s a Long Long Trail, song 1913
The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
We can dream, can’t we? Rab C Nesbitt s8e3: Commons, Gash to girl, BBC 1999
The poet and the dreamer are distinct,
Diverse, sheer opposite antipodes.
The one pours out a balm upon the world,
The other vexes it. John Keats, The Fall of Hyperion, 1819
Egypt’s might is tumbled down
Down a-down the deeps of thought;
Greece is fallen and Troy town,
Glorious Rome hath lost her crown,
Venice’ pride is nought.
But the dreams their children dreamed
Fleeting, unsubstantial, vain
Shadowy as the shadows seemed
Airy nothing, as they deemed,
These remained. Mary Coleridge, Egypt’s Might is Tumbled Down, 1908
The quick Dreams,
The passion-winged Ministers of thought. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonis st9, 1921
He has out-soard the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow strain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain. ibid. st40
Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It’s nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that ... Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and sob probes, and you would mark them. Women – and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses – will wake and turn to these men and ask, with female need-to-know, ‘What is it?’ And the men will say, ‘Nothing. No it isn’t anything really. Just sad dreams’. Martin Amis, The Information
He cursed him in sleeping, that every night
He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright. R H Barham, 1788-1845, The Ingoldsby Legends, 1840
He who looks outside, dreams; he who looks inside, awakens. Carl Jung
Some ships sail from port to port
Following contentedly the same old way,
While others who through restlessness
Watch new seas at each break of day.
We of the night will know many things of which
You sleepers have never dreamed. Bessie Haley Hyde
All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. Elias Canetti
The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life without a dream? Edmond Rostand, La Princesse Lointaine, 1895
Climb ev’ry mountain, ford ev’ry stream
Follow ev’ry rainbow, till you find your dream. Oscar Hammerstein, 1959 song 1959
Dreams have been responsible for two Nobel Prizes, the invention of a couple of major drugs, other scientific discoveries, several important political events, and innumerable novels, films, and works of visual art. Dr Deirdre Barrett, Harvard Medical School
At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable. Christopher Reeve
Dream the impossible dream. Joe Darion, American songwriter
Sixty-one million people in this country will fall asleep, and each and every one of us will dream. It’s an extraordinary world of pleasure and pain … [Nathaniel] Kleitman called it Rapid Eye Movement. Horizon: Why Do We Dream, BBC 2009
So science has revealed that dreams have many purposes. A good night’s sleep – a way of seeking solutions – they may even be a way of maintaining our mental health. ibid.
Only a fifth of women’s dreams about sex involve their partners. But for men it’s even less – just a sixth of the time. ibid.
Sadly, more than three-quarters of our dreams are negative. ibid.
Dreams don’t only have meaning ... and ultimately have changed the world. ibid.
The story of Frankenstein was dreamt up by Mary Shelley. ibid.
We can use our dreams to help us learn in our sleep. ibid.
So science is finding our dreams are many things. A crucial evolutionary device developed by our minds to help us consolidate our memories. A way to solve our problems. Dreams even help us to survive. Throughout the long night our mind is training us to face the coming day. ibid.
If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rung the bell,
What would you buy? Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Dream-Pedlary, 1830