Although the title is taken from Shakespeare, the music has no programmatic association with Hamlet. Rather, it is a procession of images, moods and memories that occur during sleep and which are manifested in the rapid eye movement (REM) associated with the dreaming periods of slumber. Dreams are the narratives that the brain tells during sleep and are often linked to waking experiences. Evidently, we all have multiple dreams each night although most are not remembered: many have a fantastical element, some are wonderfully bonkers, and others have a darker edge. This piece therefore is a sequence of imagined dreams with very little by way of organised form and development. A reviewer once wrote ‘Boyle’s rigour, when it comes to form is notable – maybe too notable’: a comment that I have endeavoured to negate here.