Dreams

Taking the poem’s central focus as the devastating impact of dreams that bring to life painful traumas kept under control during the day, it offers vague “[m]ysterious shapes” (Line 1) that conjure these nightmares with “wands of joy and pain” (Line 1) as the symbol of dreams.

The poem thus symbolically depicts dreams as the product of a menacing magician able to create convincing alternate realities that can bring happiness but also, more often than not, pain and sorrow. The suggestion of sorcery shows that for Jackson, dreams are separate from her conscious control. They come from some other entity that she harbors in her brain but cannot influence. Thus, she is passive, able only to watch these images.

Because the poem argues that sleepers are vulnerable and helpless in the face of whatever dreams may haunt their slumber, the symbol of a performing magician positions the sleeper as an audience—an observer without any power to interrupt or alter the program. Like audience members watching a deft performance, the speaker watches these dreams as if watching a magician’s tricks—they seem real and convincing even though the speaker knows in their clearer moments that they are illusions.