Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there.

Cioran contrasts waking life—structured by hierarchy, talent, and social distinction—with the dream state, where imagination is democratized. In sleep, everyone “escapes” the burdens of identity and competence; the mind produces images and narratives without effort or training. Calling us “geniuses when we dream” is both celebratory and sardonic: dreams can feel like spontaneous art, yet they are also involuntary and fleeting, undermining the prestige of conscious creation. The line “the butcher’s the poet’s equal there” collapses cultural status, suggesting that what we admire as artistic genius may be less exceptional than we think—or that the deepest creativity is universal but usually inaccessible in waking life.