An archaic or poetic term for the time spent dreaming, or the duration of a dream.
From dream + while (Old English hwīl, meaning 'a period of time'). This is an archaic compound using while in its original sense of 'a space of time' rather than the modern conjunction.
Old words like 'dreamwhile' show how English once had compound terms for psychological experiences that we now express through separate words—'the while' was a poetic phrase meaning 'during all that time,' and 'dreamwhile' is its specialized dream-version.
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