"A Dream Within A Dream" is a sad Poem about Hope, hopelessness, and helplessness written by Poet Edgar Allan Poe.
The poet in this piece questions the certainty of life as we know it. He draws the attention of the reader to the uncertainties, questions, and doubts surrounding reality as we know it. The poet was inspired to ask these questions based on the happenings around him. The poem started with the poet reminiscing over the farewell he said to a lover. This situation left him questioning the certainty of reality such as love, which was certain one day, and gone the following day.
Further down the poem, the author is forced to assert that reality is simply a dream, but a dream within a dream. This assertion shows the severity of doubt that Edgar Allan Poe has about reality. So much that while he ascertains that reality is nothing but a dream, he also believes that it is still a dream within another dream.

A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?