Its Definition

In the sense, "sequence of sensations passing through a sleeping person's mind," probably related to "dream(s)," perhaps from "deception, illusion, phantasm" to deceive or delude a ghost and/or apparition. Possible cognates outside - "seek to harm, injure, lie, deceive." But dream(s) meant only joy, mirth and possibly music. Common words for "sleeping vision". Much study has failed to prove that dream is the root of the modern word for "sleeping vision," despite being identical in spelling. Either the meaning of the word changed dramatically or "vision" was an unrecorded secondary meaning of dream, or there are two separate words here. It seems as if the presence of dream of joy, mirth and music, had caused dream(s) to be avoided, at least in literature. "Sleep" was hence used as a substitute. I remarkably discovered that dream(s) in the sense of "ideal or aspiration" was first abbreviated in 1931, from earlier sense of "something of dream, like beauty or charm". Dreamy in the sense of "full of dreams;" abbreviated in 1941 as "perfect, ideal." Dreamboat "a romantically desirable person" is from 1947. Dreamscape was first used in 1959, in a Sylvia Plath poem.