This poem (Song of Solomon 5:2–8) deliberately mirrors the poem in Song of Solomon 3:1–5. Both scenes have a dreamlike quality. They describe events that are unlike normal experience, and yet are uncomfortably familiar. These poems are therefore best taken as symbolic and not the description of actual events or even actual dreams. A poem about a dream is not the same thing as a dream, nor is either of them the same as an actual experience.
1
So as the young woman expresses her thoughts and feelings in this dreamlike poem, she once again describes herself as being in a light sleep.
2 I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.”