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Dream-visions are a distinct medieval text form. They are very often, though not necessarily, allegorical. Their subjects can be religious or secular, and in tone they can be serious or comic. Although we find a wide variety of texts in this text form, many dream-visions have certain features in common, namely:

• a first person narrator
• many are frame stories
• some supernatural or surreal content
• a setting in an ideal landscape
• a certain instruction of the dreamer
• the ignorant dreamer is accompanied by a guide or mentor

The text form is based on influential classical and biblical traditions. Dreams of the Bible and related visions and commentaries establish the interpretative framework. Cicero's Somnium Scipionis with Macrobius' commentary serve as a typological pattern, and the Roman de la Rose sets the model for most medieval dream-visions.

Among the Middle English exemplars of the text form the most famous are: Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls, The Legend of Good Women, and The Nun's Priest's Tale, William Langland's Piers Plowman, Wynnere and Wastoure, the Gawain-Poet's Pearl, Gavin Douglas's The Palace of Honour and William Dunbar's The Thrissil and the Rois.