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By contrast \"vision,\" as it is introduced into the play, is a code word for the dream understood, the dream correctly valued. Often the user does not know that he knows; this is another of the play\'s thematic patterns, supporting the elevation of the irrational above the merely rational. As a device it is related to a character type always present in Shakespeare, but more highly refined in the later plays, that of the wise fool. Thus Bottom, awakening, is immediately and intuitively impressed with the significance of his \"dream,\" which we of course recognize as not a dream at all, but rather a literal reality within the play.
-Marjorie B. Garber, Dream In Shakespeare, 1974
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