Kubla Khan was inspired by a dream. In the summer of 1797, the author had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton. He had taken anodyne (a pain reliever) and after three hours sleep woke up with a clear image of the poem. Disturbed by a visitor, he lost the vision, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images. Modern scholarship is skeptical of this story, but it reflects Coleridge's problems to manage practical life and finish his ideas.