A major point in "Ode to a Nightingale" is Keats's perception of the conflicted nature of human life, i.e., the interconnection or mixture of pain/joy, life/death, mortal/immortal, the actual/the ideal, and the inextricable link between the real and the unreal. In the ode, Keats focuses on immediate sensations and emotions that the reader can draw a conclusion from or a notion. Throughout the ode he is trying to work through …showed first 75 words of 1653 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1653 total…of the ode, Keats wonders whether he has had a true experience or whether he has been daydreaming. He is both questioning the validity of the experience, and expressing his inability to maintain a true vision for a long time. This is another time where he examines the permanence of things in art and the imagination. Is his experience a false vision, or is it a true experience of insight into the nature of reality?