1. Dream and apocalypse: The dream-as-narrative-event -- The apocalypse -- 2. Medieval dream authorities: Classical scepticism -- The encyclopedists -- Select medieval authorities -- Assessing the evidence -- 3. Origins: A rhetoric and a form: Augustine and Macrobius -- Freedom in parody: The Roman de la Rose -- A psychology and a metaphysics: nominalism -- 4. Structure: The shape of the poem -- The poem and the readers -- 5. Applications: three deconstructive dream visions: The Book of the duchess and the discourse of sentiment -- Pearl and the discourse of eschatology -- The Hous of fame and the end of lore -- Epilogue: "It was no dreme: I lay brode waking".