It was written by songwriter Diane Warren and composer James Newton Howard to promote Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001).

A "tender" pop ballad, "Where the Dream Takes You" is an inspirational song about following one's heart and self-discovery, which alludes to the film's central plot about a young adventurer's search for the lost city of Atlantis.

[3] Earlier that year, the releases of The Mummy Returns and Pearl Harbor had also been accompanied by pop songs to attract a wider audience, a trend Disney would follow with Atlantis.

[5] Chuck Taylor of Billboard believes that Disney recruited R&B singer Mya because of the studio's professional relationship with the artist's then-record company A&M/Interscope Records.

[8] Rob Burch of The Hollywood News believes that "Where the Dream Takes You" was initially intended to benefit Mya's career similar to the way in which "Reflection" had bolstered Aguilera's.

[20] Puerto Rican singer Chayanne covered the song in Spanish, entitled "Donde Va Tu Sueño", to promote the film's Latin American release.

[22] The two-disc Taiwanese release of the soundtrack includes three additional versions of "Where the Dream Takes You" performed in three different languages by three different artists: Jolin Tsai in Mandarin, Joey Yong in Cantonese, and Kangta in Korean.

"[13] A writer for Barnes & Noble agreed that, thematically, the single "correlates to the film's tale of an inexperienced young adventurer", Milo Thatch,[25] and its diverse cast of supporting characters, all of whom long to follow various dreams of their own as they search for Atlantis.

[18] Lasting a duration of four minutes,[27] AllMusic cites the song's mood as both "earnest" and "mellow";[10] Mya performs it using a "sweet vocal",[15] which spans two octaves from G3 to D♭5.

[18][28] Although AllMusic's Jonathan Widran believed the song could potentially become a "pop hit", he ultimately dismissed it as "fairly generic Diane Warren-written fare.

[9][28] Calling the singer "a curious choice" for "Where the Dream Takes You", Chuck Taylor of Billboard criticized Mya's vocals for failing "to lift the ballad beyond the mundane, while making it more than obvious that her talents are best-suited for uptempo, beat-heavy fare", and believes the single could have potentially benefited from a more powerful, seasoned vocalist.

[6] Ranking "Where the Dream Takes You" among Disney's worst songs, Consequence of Sound's Dominick Suzanne-Mayer panned the ballad as "an addendum every bit as forgettable ... as the film in which it appears.