A Dream Within a Dream Themes
Philosophical Viewpoints: Skepticism
The idea that everything we experience might all be one big dream is often associated with skepticism, a philosophy that calls into question our ability to know things for certain. "A Dream Within...
Isolation
"A Dream Within a Dream" is all about being alone. The speaker says goodbye to a woman in the first stanza, and spends the second isolated on a beach as he contemplates one of life's biggest questi...
Defeat
Let's see, the speaker tries to hold some sand in his hands and just can't do it. And it upsets him. Looks like defeat, smells defeat, so it must be defeat. The second stanza of this poem isn't the...