The story of A.P. Chekhov "Dreams" was written in 1886, first published in 1886 in the newspaper "New Time" No. 3849 dated November 15 with the signature An. Chekhov, in 1887 was published in the collection "At Twilight", in 1898 it was published as a separate edition of the Moscow Literacy Society, was included in the collected works of the writer, published by Adolf Marx.

During Chekhov's lifetime, the story was translated into Hungarian, German, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Czech.