The first and most important lesson learned from the dream is that the notion of a strict separation of public life and private life is chimerical. Such a proposition, that public life and private life are closely intertwined, cut against the cultural norms of Victorian and Edwardian England – and indeed against basic notions of social organization since the Enlightenment and rise of liberal political thinking in the 18th century. By 1901, the differentiation between public life and private life was a central cultural value of the times. It was also beginning to undergo critique. At the end of the novella Heart of Darkness, for example, Marlowe, the book’s central character, is confronted with the dilemma of describing the rogue ivory-trader Kurtz’s despicable actions to his idealistic fiancée at home. Marlowe decides not to say anything – to protect the private sphere from the public sphere. Marlowe’s evasion makes a strong point – what those in the isolated private sphere think is happening in the world of affairs is delusional, a mythical and grand deception. Virginia Woolf, in her post-WWI novel To the Lighthouse, picks up on this same notion of cultural self-deception – in this case an aggrandizement of the masculine, heroic realm of world affairs. Her paragon of private life, Mrs. Ramsey, images that “she had the whole of the other sex under her protection… reasons she could not explain, for their chivalry and valour, for the fact that they negotiated treaties, ruled India, controlled finance; finally, for an attitude towards herself which no woman could fail to feel or to find agreeable, something trustful, childlike, reverential.” Men, for Mrs. Ramsey, both depended on the private support of women but ultimately acted in a world far from it, retreating now and then to their coastal and country vacation homes for rest and relaxation. In “Dream of Armageddon,” Wells reveals what it would take WWI to reveal for most: public and private life were one and the same – that the notion of being able to retreat from public life into a private domain was nothing more than wishful escapism. Love that couldn’t exist at once in public and private life was a fantasy. 

The second revelation divulged in the dream is the inherent danger of a “long peace” existing simultaneously with massive preparations for the next war. Wells' story, of course, falls precisely within the period known as the “long peace” in Europe – the period between the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 and the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Wells recognizes what most sensible people did at the time – that the arms’ race and colonial competition, both full of military blustering and posturing, threatened the increasingly fragile peace. This was especially true in the growing tensions between Britain and Germany over sea power, African possessions, and influence in the Middle East.  

Third, Wells' dream story reveals that the growing force of modern industrial warfare will far surpass people’s expectations. New technologies, either created for industrial purposes or for military campaigns in Asia and Africa, had already displayed their devastating potential. The U.S. Civil War, the Crimean War, the imperial campaigns in Africa (especially the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan) and finally the Boer War between the British and the South African Dutch Boers showed the trajectory of military development. The dream, then, offers a portentous warning – the next war will be “Armageddon,” a war unlike any past war in terms of destructiveness and worldwide scope.