Dream-like and fairy-tale-like sentiments are expressed through sound. Dream Story is a musical embodiment of a German fragment that came to Kōsaku Yamada's mind one morning:

Sie war zum Sterben,

Ich nahm sie nach Heim.

Und dann, und dann -

Sie ward mein Weib!

The gist of the above German poem is: 'A woman who was on the verge of death, I brought her home. And then, and then, that woman became my wife.' The rhythm of this German poetic phrase is also reflected in the music.

Kōsaku Yamada composed many poetic works with lyrical titles around 1916–17. Dream Story is one of these pieces.

According to the composer, the "final three phrases" of the music correspond to the part "Once upon a time" (昔、昔あるところに). He also states that "Und dann, und dann" expresses a sense of reminiscence. The syncopations in the latter half of the piece resonate with a retrospective poem, with lingering echoes, drawing the listener into remembrance. One is drawn to listen to the intermingling of sounds as if dozing in a dream, caught between sleep and wakefulness. Finally, a tonic chord of D minor sounds softly, inviting one to the past or a distant place, just like an old fairy tale.

Composed in 1916, dedicated to Etsuko Terasaki.The composer himself premiered this work with the other premiered works in his recital in November, 1916.In the program note for this first performance, the composer explained why he had written this piece.According to it, inspired by the rhythm of a poem which occurred to him at his waking up in the morning on 16th July, he “realized the feeling like a dream, or like a fairy-tale, in tones”.The subject of the poem, which doesn’t have a profound sense for Yamada, is a dying woman.The first half of the piece illustrates the poem almost faithfully and the second half represents Yamada’s feeling toward the poem.

Yamada referred the phrase in the second half of the poem “Und dann, und dann”, as “the feeling of reminiscence, namely the poem itself ” (probably it means the genre of the poem itself, not only this one), in the representation of which the real point of the piece lies. His explanation that he “stopped the last three phrases with the feeling that “once upon a time”, following the first phrase of a fairy tale”, suggests that the composer’s musical inspiration is put down directly in this piece, which represents his talent without ratification.