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About this quote

What does it mean?
Vast, unnatural shapes haunt the mind during the day and disturb dreams at night.
In plain terms
Weird huge shapes float in my thoughts and trouble my dreams.
What can you take from it?
Subconscious images can persistently trouble both waking and sleeping minds.

Where it applies

  • discussing nightmares
  • exploring trauma
  • analyzing poetry

Putting it to work

  • therapy journaling
  • literary analysis
  • dream recording

Questions to consider

  • What haunts your dreams?
  • How do memories trouble you?

Another view

It conflates internal mental images with external realities.

More from William Wordsworth

  1. The grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after …

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  2. Where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.

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  3. Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling …

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