Only in Dreams

This song is so incredible. I always listen to it when I feel down. It's clearly about a guy who's madly in love with a girl, but can't ever tell her. So he can only dream of them being together to ever imagine being happy. It's so powerful and so realistic at the same time.

this is the song about a breakup.

the protagonist is so in love with this girl that its "in his bones" that she is "home" that she is everywhere (oxygen, molecules). then there's a flashback to when it began. it was improbable that she'd go out with him, but she did. (dancing scene).

and in the end, the relationship does not work out, and he "wakes up", realizing that the past was like a beautiful love story without the happy ever after ending.

This should have been the theme song for 500 Days of Summer.

any thing I write about this song relates to my own experience- that's why I feel I can tell the meaning

I believe this song is about a man and a woman (prob in their teens or early 20's), the man is singing this song so it's from his point of view. He is obsessed with this girl, so much so that she is as important as the air that he breathes. It is a loving obsession, she literally is as important to his life as oxygen. However, he can't have her. He can't have her. So it seems that the only place they can be together is in a fantasy, or dream. But no matter what he loves her more than anybody. The love becomse's painful and the only way to heal the pain is to be together. But it doesn't ever work, so they can be together in dreams. The pain is always there but you get more distracted from it over time.

In my opinion, this song is about a guy who is completely and totally in love with this girl. Who knows if they were dating, and she broke up with him, or if hes just seen her and knows her, and is in love with her because of that. Hes saying that she is nearly a physical part of him, and that without her, he wouldn't be happy. But the only time that he's with her is in his dreams. And when he wakes up, everything's been erased. really, its quite a depressing song, but i love it. its all i listened to after my girlfriend moved to florida and broke up with me. Has a deep meaning for me.

I must agree with you guys that this song is incredible live. You can forget everything else while you are listening to an incredible song like this one. Music in general (but mainly w/ Weezer for me) is an absolute representation of everything that happens in our lives. A song can define depression, joy, love, lust, confusion, communication, sex, political issues, anger, and many other things. This song, as well as a few other Weezer songs, helped me to define my own desires when I was younger. I know that many people have felt the same way about them. They have given words to the feelings of a generation raised by working parents who have had no one to turn to. We have struggled with painful internal conflicts, because no one else was there to help us. But now, as we grow up, we have learned the things that are parents never taught us. We have learned how to live our lives without falling victim to fear (hopefully).

I've always thought the song was about a girl he loves but can only have her in dreams.. In fact I'm pretty sure this is what the song is about..

Makes complete sense, doesn't it? Any thoughts?

This has been one of my favorite songs since I heard it as a Cowboy Bebop AMV. I used to think it was just a regular love song, albeit one that I found quite cathartic to listen to. But, slow thinker that I am, I just read the lyrics and realized: the girl isn't real. It makes the sound of the piece mean so much more to me, now that I realize that the song is from a person who's love is not for a real person, but for a fantasy which no real person can measure up to.

you arent an american unless you like this song

I wish more people would post what they think the song is trying to convey. Most will agree this is a great song, can we not delve a bit deeper here?

I sort of view this as unrequited love, a possible break-up.

The first verse describes how he feels about the subject. She is a part of him, she's everywhere and cannot be escaped.

"Only in dreams, we see what it means"

There is an issue that is only solved during dreamstate, when all becomes clear.

"Reach out our hands, hold on to hers"

He grasps her here because he is unable to do so in everyday life.

"But when we wake, it's all been erased, and so it seems, only in dreams"

The connection he made to her is lost upon waking, and so it seems only in dreams he is able to be with her.

He offers a hypothetical situation in which he is able to be with this girl he loves, and begin over again. About stepping on her toenails, the way that he says "into a thousand pieces" seems to large scale for such a small act. I think he had hurt her before, in this daydream he realizes it's a good thing it is such so that he cannot hurt her again.

this song is about a girl in their dreams??? more like its about smoking weed. "float in the air" ....... "between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide" and when they wake up "its all been erased" because they were high....just saying to make everyone shutup