After many years of studying his dreams and nightmares, Coleridge claimed that ‘no explanation of Dreams or attempt to explain them’ had ‘in the least degree’ satisfied his judgement or ‘appeared to solve any part of the mysterious Problem’ (CN iv 5360). In 1827 he declared that all he had read on dreams and dreaming was ‘utter shallowness and impertinency’ (CL vi 715). This perceived absence of any cogent or comprehensive theory that could account for the different and bizarre qualities of dreams presented him with no other option than to suggest his own possible solutions.

The question of the origin of dreams was one which intrigued Coleridge for most of his life. Throughout his notebooks, letters and critical writings it is possible to discern three general dream-origin arguments, all of which arise from his vast reading of dream and medical literatures coupled with his own experiences: first, that dreams are caused by gods intervening in the lives of men; second, that they are a result of the action of malignant spirits; and third, that the dreamer's bodily position and state of health both causes and influences dreams. This third possibility presented him with a greater dilemma than the simple question as to why it was that dreams were dreamt. The poet's body dominates all his speculations about dreams and dreaming: a body frequently diseased, racked with pain, and often violently opposed to his intellectual and moral life. Just as pain is a feature of the dream's language and the language of the dream, so too does pain become a feature of Coleridge's explanation of the origin of the many species and genera of dreams he experienced.