ABOUT THE POEM "...I AM THE DREAMER OF DREAMS..."

“We are the Music Makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams…”

Thus spake Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844-81) – and also Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka when Veruca Salt complains that there is no such thing as a Snazzberry.

This is the dark and disturbing surreal world of the subconscious – there is no letter ‘i’ anywhere in the body of the poem, just as there is no ‘I’ in any dream. The id rules supreme.

This was an actual dream I had which I have tried to encapsulate here. I am fascinated by dreams – Am I a man who once dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who is dreaming it is a man? Am I just another character in someone else’s dream? Is God dreaming us, and if so, what will happen to us when He awakes?

After showing this to a (very learned) friend, he suggested that there were parallels with Enkidu's Dream in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Looking on the internet I found a very good explanation of this here - read it for yourself. I however had no knowledge of this when I wrote the poem.

I have also recorded a 40 minute electronic suite based on this poem: you can hear the whole piece (no charge) by going to this page.