The author says, “They make us what we were not” and “shake us with the vision that’s gone by” to explain that our dreams are involuntary and when we dream, they almost make us into a different person in which we do things that we would not normally do. Within this stanza, I noticed a bit of personification. With beings brighter than have been, and giveĪ breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. Substances, and people planets of its own Is not the past all shadow? -What are they?Ĭreations of the mind? -The mind can make The dread of vanished shadows -Are they so? They make us what we were not -what they will,Īnd shake us with the vision that’s gone by,

I also think there’s a continuous pattern of alliteration throughout the poem as a way of expressing the wide variety of sleep’s power. The other alliteration that caught my eye was “tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ” this line seems to be covering a wide variety of emotions such as sadness, anger, and happiness which brings me back to feeling like sleep’s universe is limitless there’s the possibility you could feel any and every emotion. Dreams come from the mind, the soul and the subconscious I love the metaphor for sleep as the boundary, between death and existence. I say universe although the author says world because I’m getting the feeling that the setting while asleep is limitless to almost all possibilities from the alliteration “a wide realm of wild reality”, also factoring in that really anything could happen in a dream. The author begins the poem by making the statement that sleep contains it’s own universe, different from what we consider to be the actual universe. I noticed a couple of examples of alliteration in the first 6 lines of the poem that I think were purposely written in a distinct way for it to be noticed.

“Our life is twofold Sleep hath its own world,ĭeath and existence: Sleep hath its own world,Īnd dreams in their development have breath,Īnd tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ”

The dream byron poem