SOURCE: "Spirits of Another Sort: A Midsummer Night's Dream," in Dream in Shakespeare: From Metaphor to Metamorphosis, Yale University Press, 1974, pp. 59-87.

In the following essay, Garber studies the role of dreams in A Midsummer Night's Dream, arguing that dreams are a source of creative insight and have the power to transform reality. The creative, transforming process of dreams, Garber states, is not only the subject of the play, but the force which guides the play's action.

If we shadows have offended
 Think but this, and all is mended:
 That you have but slumb 'red here,
 While these visions did appear.
 And this weak and idle theme,
 No more yielding but a dream.

V.i.422-27

Puck's closing address to the audience is characteristic of the tone of A Midsummer Night's Dream; it seems to trivialize what it obliquely praises. All the key words of dream are here...