Songfacts®:

• Written by lead singer Don Dokken, "In My Dreams" is one of Dokken's most popular songs. In the song, he's lost his girl, but she returns to him every night in his dreams.
• In a Songfacts interview with Don Dokken, he explained how he wrote this song in a flash of inspiration. "I was in Mexico on vacation and I took my acoustic guitar with me," he said. "I was sitting down at the beach, just looking at the ocean. The sun was going down, and I came up with the guitar riff. I had a magazine and a pen, and I started scribbling the lyrics on a magazine. In 40 minutes, the song was done."
• The music video was directed by Wayne Isham, one of the most successful music video makers of all time. Early on, he did a lot of hair metal videos ("Home Sweet Home" by Mötley Crüe, "18 And Life" by Skid Row). He later veered toward pop, working with Britney Spears and 'N Sync.
  
  For "In My Dreams," Isham brought the rain, having Don Dokken sing in a deluge and contrasting it with shots of scorched earth.
• Dokken was a metal band, but when they spotted a song with hit potential, they made it as radio-friendly as they could, which is the case with this one. Fans who knew them for their singles were in for a shock when they saw them in concert.
• This was the big hit from Dokken's third album, Under Lock And Key. The band existed in some form since 1978, and were honed in by the time they put out their first album in 1983. They ended up with three Platinum albums (including Under Lock And Key), but fractured in 1988 when they were more popular than ever, a result of burnout and internecine tension.