The Place Between Human And Fey In A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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, this is the “Talking Self,” or the conscious mind, describing the “Younger Self,” or unconscious mind (Simos, p. 35). The human mind contains both fairy and human elements, just as the human and fairy realms contain elements of the mind. In this way, the fairy to human relationship serves as a metaphor for the elements of the psyche (and vice-versa.)
Modern ideas about the realm of fairy acknowledge an overlap with “our world,” a place where “dream logic” and the logic of law exist simultaneously. Macbeth explains the overlap as follows:
The word faery also means the place – Faery, the land of all the faeries, also known as the otherworld. Faery is alongside our everyday world, almost but not quite in synchronization with us, overlapping in some ways, different in others, and operating on a different level of energy. (Macbeth, p. 12)

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the overlap is immediately manifest – both fairies and humans are played by actors speaking English on the same stage. As far as plot is concerned, both fairies and humans have their respective domains, yet both cross the border into the other’s territory. The lovers spend the night in the woods, and the fairies attend the wedding festivities in Athens; parallel king and queen figures rule both the human and fairy realities, and all individuals are susceptible to the effects of love, and love’s flower.
Despite this overlap, there is still a distinction between realms. Even though the fairies rule the elements of nature, as is suggested by Titania (ll. 87-117), mortals are still incapable of perceiving the fairy plane (with the exception of Bottom). The distinction fades after nightfall, however. Night plays tricks with the eye, is ruled by the changing moon, and is equated with powers of the feminine and the unconscious, which are elements of fairy. All of these attributes make night more conducive to an abundance of fairy, or unc...