Introduction

Dream Theater's eighth studio album, Octavarium, is their most complex, reference and nugget-ridden album yet. In a radio interview, Mike Portnoy admitted that the album is basically one giant nugget.

This is my attempt to gather everything known about Octavarium into one long page. I'd like to thank the folks at the MikePortnoy.com forums for finding most of this stuff. They have way too much time on their hands ;)

Overview

The overlying them of Octavarium is the idea of things going in cycles, repeating themselves, and ending in the same place they begin. An octave in music (which the word Octavarium is likely based on) starts and ends on the same note. Octavarium also provides a logical continuation from Train of Thought, as it starts on the same note (F) that the song In the Name of God ends with. This continuation pattern has been going on since the album Scenes From a Memory.

A symbol you might see quite a bit in the Octavarium artwork is an octagon circumscribed around a 5-pointed star. These numbers, 8 and 5, figure prominently in Octavarium and Dream Theater in general, and are littered everywhere throughout this album.
Looking at the history of the word Octavarium reveals very little. The only historical record of it is a historical book in the Vatican called the Octavarium Romanum. It consists mainly of lessons regarding various Catholic feasts. Notable in its history, however, is many 5's and 8's. The book was first mentioned underthe pontification of Sixtus V (1585-1590) (Sixtus the FIFTH in FIFTEEN EIGHTY FIVE) and then was not mentioned again until it was brought up under Clement VIII (1592-1605) (that's Clement the EIGHTH).

Anyways, on to the main symbolism for the numbers 5 and 8.
- Octavarium - 5 syllables, consonants, and vowels, DT's 8th studio album
- 5 current members of Dream Theater
- 8 total members in the band's history (this does not include Chris Collins as he was only a part of Majesty)
- DT has 5 official live albums (at the point of Octavarium's release)
- DT formed in 1985
- The Octavarium World Tour began with a European Festival series, which appeared in eight countries (Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, France, and Belgium)
- 5 of the 8 songs on this album were recorded with Mike "Hammer of the Gods" kit, the 8th drum kit he has used in his career

Artwork

The most obvious nugget here is that the album jacket contains 8 pages. The front of the jacket (also the front of the case when folded out revealses a full Newton's Cradle with 8 balls. This physics toy always repeats the same motion over and over again, emphasizing this album's theme. There are also 5 birds in the picture, forming a piano octave - the balls being the white keys and the birds being the black keys. This theme of octaves is continued throughout the entire album.

On the insides of the the front and back covers of the jacket, there is a boy with a can attached to a string. The idea is that the beginning and end are connected--everything ending where it begins. On one side the boy is speaking into the can and on the other side he is listening. Perhaps the boy can tell information he has gained by the end to the boy at the beginning. Even when you have learned a lot through a journey, you are still stuck in the Octavarium, the endless cycle. Note that three fingers are visible in one picture and five in the other.
Behind the lyrics to The Answer Lies Within is a depiction of two dominoes. One totals 5 and the other 8. There are three birds that perhaps represent the three former members of Dream Theater, Charlie Dominici, Kevin Moore, and Derek Sherinian, the flying two being the keyboardists, and the one and the domino being the singer.


Opposite the lyrics to These Walls is a spider (8-legged creature) inside an 8-sided maze. The maze has five layers and although there are 8 doorways in the maze, there are also 8 dead ends and there is no way for the spider to escape the maze, thus the spider is trapped within "these walls."


Opposite the lyrics to Never Enough and Sacrificed Sons is an octopus (8 tentacles this time) with 5 fish, and a stop sign (8 sides) with the Majesty symbol.
The next illustration is a peculiar blueprint of a star inside of an octagon. There are many more references to 5's and 8's here, many of them more subtle. One that is not subtle, is the scale (5:8), and the fact that it is labelled as figure 8. The dimensions are 29' 6.75" square, with right triangles with legs of 8' 8" cut out. There are spaces in each wall 5' 8" wide. The F Lydian scale is spelled out starting at the leftmost side and going clockwise. One can also find the chromatic scale with accidentals inserted in the proper places. There are doors on four sides of the object, with only the south door open. This possibly symbolizes that you can enter the room, go around it, but the exit is the same as the entrance.

On the next page, the boy is seen again, and then the members of Dream Theater as the black keys of a piano.
Finally, on the inside of the case behind the CD is a pool 8 ball with the Majesty symbol on it.

On the back of the jacket, you'll see part of a piano. Note that each octave on a piano has 8 white keys and 5 black keys. Each white key represents a song off the album - in order, starting with F. In fact, these notes are the minors of the key the song is in.

But where the the black keys, the accidentals fit in? Well if you look carefully you'll see that the track times on the back of the CD appear to be incorrect. They only add up to 73:26, when any CD player will tell you that the CD is 75:55. Interestingly enough, 5 of the tracks have negative time that makes up the missing 2:18. Not only do each of these negative time tracks represent the accidental, but they are also in the key of the relative minor of the accidental.