Analysis of Visual Representations of Dreams in Films with Focus on Animation (2009)

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Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Diplom Digital Artist(FH) an der Babelsberg Film School

Dreams and Films

Analysis of Visual Representations of Dreams inFilms with Focus on Animation

Vorgelegt von: Sadun KalMatr.-Nr.: DA 0603191

1.Prfer: Prof. Angela Kern

2.Prfer: Matthias Haase

Berlin, den 10.09.09


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N! 2009

No copyright, no copyleft, no nothing. Feel free.

Abstract

In this thesis the artistic representations of dreams in films are analyzed. The visual properties,

characteristic elements and further details of the representations of dreams are examined. The

main focus is on animation and how dreams are represented in that art form. The research

identifies the distinguishing properties of dreams in films, illuminates the reasoning behind

artistic decisions and serves as a potential basis for future research and an inspiration source for

future artists.


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Contents

1. Introduction ..................................................................................... .............................................................. ...... 41.1. Imagination and Reality ........................................................... ............................................................... ..... 41.2. The Purpose of This Thesis ................................................................ .......................................................... 41.3. Defining Dreams ............................................................................................ .............................................. 51.4. Overview ............................................................. .............................................................. ........................... 6

2. General Characteristics of Filmic Dreams ............................................................................. ........................... 72.1. Logic and Nature of the Dreams in Films...... ............................................................... ...................................... 7

2.1.1. Regular Dreaming ............................................. ............................................................... ........................... 82.1.2. Technological Dreaming .............................................. ............................................................... .............. 102.1.3. Supernatural Dreaming ............................................................ ............................................................... ... 122.1.4. Hallucinations and Delusions .................................................................................................... ................ 13

2.2. Themes and Narrative Roles ........................................................... ............................................................... ... 152.2.1. Dream as the Object of Interest ............................................................................................................. .... 152.2.2. General Narrative Purposes ........................................................................................................ ............... 162.2.3. Wish Fulfillment and Fantasy ............................................................. ....................................................... 172.2.4. Nightmares ......................................................... .............................................................. ......................... 182.2.5. Reality vs. Dream ......................................................... ............................................................... .............. 202.2.6. Other ........................................................................................................... ............................................... 23

2.3. Visuals ............................................................................................ ............................................................... ... 252.3.1. Transitions ............................................................................... .............................................................. .... 252.3.2. Blur and Visual Vagueness................................ ............................................................... ......................... 282.3.3. Time and Motion .......................................................... ............................................................... .............. 302.3.4. Fog and Clouds ............................................................. ............................................................... .............. 312.3.5. Color and Look ............................................................. ............................................................... .............. 32

2.3.6. Contextual Design ................................................................... ............................................................. ..... 34

3. The Role of Animation ............................................................................................................. ......................... 373.1. Animation and Live Action Dreams .......................................................... ....................................................... 373.2. Advantages of Animation ............................................................... ............................................................... ... 383.3. Disadvantages of Animation .................................... ............................................................... ......................... 393.4. Selected Animation Examples and Further Discussion .................................................................................... 40

4. Conclusion ........................................................ .............................................................. .................................... 45Bibliography .............................................................. .............................................................. .................................... 47Filmography ................................................................................... ............................................................... .............. 48


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Introduction | 4

1. Introduction

This thesis is concerned with visual representations of dreams in films; their general properties and the potential

meaning of animation in relation to them. Introductorily some background information is given, a practical

definition of dreams and an overview of the planned approach is provided.

1.1. Imagination and RealityThe human imagination has been the source of countless creations. This gift enables people to mentally go beyond

the boundaries imposed upon them by the laws of the universe; both time and space become nothing more than toys

to play with once a mind sets off to imagine alternative realities. This potential for adventure has always attracted

and fascinated human beings. In fact, these adventures have become a part daily life. Almost all novels, paintings,

songs and of course video games and motion pictures are the products of this desire; a longing for something more

than just the immediate reality, for one reason or another.

Of course humans dont always have full control over their imagination, or its effects on them. There are different

forms of imagining. While sometimes a completely conscious imagining activity is put into use, other times people

just let the job to their unconsciousness and sometimes they do so without even being aware of it. This is how

different kinds of dreams come into existence which can delight, excite, surprise, shock or horrify even the supposed

dreamers although they seem to source from their minds.

Many art forms like motion pictures, most of which are basically elaborated daydreams themselves, sometimes try

to capture this fascinating process of dreaming. Filmmakers dream of other dreams within their filmed dreams.

And interestingly the idea of taking a closer look at that phenomenon for this thesis also surfaced while the author

was in a dream state.

1.2. The Purpose of This ThesisDreams that occur during sleep and throughout the day for various reasons, in their raw form, are not tangible, solid

objects. Theyre abstract, complex, vague and temporary. Just to notice their existence often requires some effort or

luck. All this makes it really hard for humans to communicate what exactly happens in their imagination to others.

Often the dreamers dont even know it themselves. So when artists aspire to show their audience a dream, this goal

alone is likely to be a big challenge independent from the content of the dream because of dreams unique,

mysterious nature. Their essence is hard to obtain. Although while this may seem like a terrible disadvantage for the

artist, the same problem exists for the audience too; they dont have exact knowledge on the nature of dreams either.

Therefore it is difficult to find the criteria by which artists interpretation of dreams can be judged.

This mystery shrouding the dreams, in addition to the extreme diversity already present among dreams, creates a lot

of extra room for artistic freedom. Consequently there are many different ways of treating dreams, and huge

differences between all the ways the dreams are represented in all art forms.


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Introduction | 5

This thesis aims at providing a basic understanding of the way dreams and similar activities related to imagination

are visually represented in films, with an emphasis on animated films. The goal is to explore and understand the

distinct characteristics of the relationship between films and various types of dreams. The narrative and intellectualaspects of such representations are also included, but the visual aspects will be the focus. This means that the active

visual representation of the imaginary by the filmmakers is of primary concern.

There is currently relatively little research done on the connection between films and dreams, and the majority of the

existent information has little to do with the visual aspects. This text should function as an introductory source into

this unexplored topic in the future.

The reason for the emphasis on animation is because animation, with its higher degree of independence from reality,

allows filmmakers to go further than they can just with live-action. Contemplating on the differences between

various mediums and understanding the limitations or advantages/disadvantages can aid peoples artistic decisions.This research can give readers a better understanding of the potential of dreams and by familiarizing them with

numerous examples of the use of dreams in films it can also inspire more interesting and powerful usage of filmic

dreams in the future.

1.3. Defining DreamsThe nighttime dreams occurring during sleep are not the only times when the imagination results in visual

imagery. Although the activity during sleep is very relevant, and it is the one that concerns the scientific study ofdreams most, different types of dreams can also occur outside the sleep state. For practical reasons, throughout

this text the word dream will generally be referring to all forms of visual imaginations in films. This includes

daydreams, hallucinations, certain kinds of visions and of course the dreams occurring during sleep. Distinctions

between these different types will also be made throughout the text.

The reason for including all forms of imaginary visuals instead of just regular dreams is that the text focuses on

the filmic dreams and their appearance. Because the dreams in films are not designed based strictly on reality and

scientific research1, the visual distinction between all the different types of imaginary visuals (e.g. dreams vs.

daydreams) is not as clear as it might be in the field of psychology. Following that vagueness, since the focus of

the research is on the visual representations of the imaginary, the examination of all the different products of theimagination together is considered as justified. So the word dream is used in a broad sense in accordance with the

nature of the art form and what follows will be an examination of the art form rather than its real-world subjects.

Also particularly dreamlike features of abstract or surreal works of art are within the boundaries of this

research due to the visual relevance. When appropriate and useful, such works will be examined in the same

light as a representation of the dreams of a dreamer who is not directly visible within the artwork itself.

1For much more on that topic see the book Dreams on Film: The Cinematic Struggle Between Art and Science by

Leslie Halpern (2003).


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Introduction | 6

1.4. OverviewIn the next chapter the dreams with visual representations in films are closely examined. The content of dreams in

motion pictures are categorically analyzed with many examples from films. The nature and types of dreams, their

visual representations narrative roles and the visual characteristics are the main points of interest. Through this

dissection a clear understanding of dream representations in films should emerge.

Following that the focus is more intensely on animation. Different qualities of various animation techniques and

live-action with regard to dream depictions in films are discussed. A basic overview of the advantages,

disadvantages, limits and possibilities of the techniques are given with help from selected examples.

The dreams in films without any implication of visual representation are excluded from examination in this text.This means that just a narrative phenomenon that is related to dreams will not be considered relevant due to the

focus on the visuals. All non-visual products of imagination (like auditory hallucinations) are also considered

irrelevant.

In the final chapter the meaning of the thesis and the conclusions reached are be summarized.


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General Characteristics of Filmic Dreams | 7

2. General Characteristics of Filmic Dreams

Dreams in movies usually display specific characteristics which distinguish them from the reality of the movies. In

many cases these signals immediately make the audience aware that what they see is not a part of the filmic reality.

Sometimes these signals can be more subtle and even impossible to figure out until the end of the movie, or even

after the movie is finished.

In this chapter the nature of all kinds of filmic dreams are discussed based on numerous examples from films. First

the general structure and laws of the realm of filmic dreams are examined through categorization to reveal the

aspects in which the dreams significantly differ from regular filmic reality. Then the various roles of dreams within

the context of films story are observed to acquire a better understanding of the dreams potential narrative value.

Finally the visual aspect of filmic dreams is closely examined to explore the ways in which dreams have so far been

visually represented by filmmakers.

2.1. Logic and Nature of the Dreams in Films

In a way all fictitious art is created in the longing for something that doesnt really exist. So most films are an

extension of reality; going beyond the reality. This in itself frees the filmmakers from some of the constraints of

reality. Films often stretch things in certain directions to reach a desired effect. Even if films pretend to show

something out of our reality they do not hesitate to exaggerate things and risk being implausible. The audience is

often prepared to cooperate and comply with the required stretch of imagination, because they also want to lose

themselves in new adventures. In movies the laws of the universe are deemed to be flexible whenever it seems

necessary.

Other times films readily admit that they do not try to fake being real, because the stories obviously take place in

imaginary universes. Then its even possible to see magic or some imagined technology with equal magnificence.

Of course there are also movies combine the reality and surrealism or movies that are purely abstract and even more

disconnected from reality than a usual fantasy or a science fiction.

Yet all these are still examples for the real human dreams; movies are the products of human imagination. Manymovies tend to sacrifice a certain amount of logic and plausibility to tell an interesting story. Supernatural elements

and impossible events are seen regularly. The same tendency also exists in the dreams which are within those

fictitious realities. In a way dreams in movies have to be even more supernatural, or differently supernatural, than

their real-world counterparts, because they have to stay loyal to the supernaturalism of the films universe and

usually they also have to make it clear that theyre doubly imaginary.

What follows is an exploration of different aspects of dreams in films. Various examples are brought up in order to

understand how the logic and laws of nature in dreams may differ from the realitys. Four main categories have been

selected to distinguish between different types of dreaming and imagination activity represented in films. The first

category is about regular dreams. The other categories are titled Technological Dreaming, SupernaturalDreaming and Hallucinations and Delusions.


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2.1.1. Regular Dreaming

The regular dreaming category refers to the common dreaming activity occurring during sleep or activities in other

altered states of consciousness which resemble that type of loose imagination activity. In many films the dreams that

occur during sleep are used for a number of different purposes (See section 2.2. Themes and Narrative Roles) but

the examples examined below are the ones that engage human dreams more on their own terms rather than trying to

force them into certain roles for narrative purposes. In other words these examples are of dreams which seem to be

relatively freer to be dreamlike. The dream sequences which have little to do with extreme imagination activity

are excluded from consideration in this section in order to clearly demonstrate the extent of potential distinguishing

features of filmic dreams.

Michel Gondrys Science of Sleep (2006) is a movie within which the nature of dreams has been intentionally

explored in an experimental fashion. The story takes place in the real world2, but its a film rich with dream

sequences. Those sequences emphasize the irrational nature of the dreams occurring during sleep: For example at

the beginning of a dream the main character Stephane is shown as the host of his own nonsensical TV cooking show

in his dreams. In the bizarre studio the walls and all the technical equipments are made of cardboards and the walls

are covered with egg cartons. (Fig. 1) As the host of the cooking show he says that hell show the imaginary

audience how dreams are prepared. He mixes things like memories, random thoughts, reminiscences of the

day, which are represented in forms of food substances, and cooks them. Once the dream is done he goes towards

an opening in the studio a blue screen- and disappears into the dream he just prepared. He goes from the first stage

of his dream to a deeper state. And the dreams can have a very associative, essentially irrational, chaotic structure.

People may speak in various non-existent languages with differing accents and their lips dont match the sounds

they make. The size, form and location of everything can change rapidly and the universal laws of nature seem

flexible. Lifeless objects can move on their own and the gravity isnt of much concern.

Similarly in another one of Gondrys films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the viewer follows the

main character Joel through a long, unusual dream-like process. In a depressed state Joel wants to forget all about

his girlfriend Clementine. So he seeks help from a company which offers such a service. He takes some sleeping

pills and after he falls asleep the technicians of the company arrive to begin the procedure: to erase his memories

which are related to his girlfriend. The audience witnesses whats going on in Joels head during that process and

again it becomes clear that he is no longer in the real world of the movie. The locations and people suddenly

change. Joel sees himself from outside living the memories in his mind. As the memories are being erased one by

one things get quite bizarre: One of Clementines legs disappear while shes walking, and then she disappearsentirely. And sometimes the faces of the people or any other object may disappear. At one point Joel runs after

Clementine. But paradoxically no matter towards which direction Joel runs to reach her, he seems to arrive at the

point where he started out from. Sometimes time progresses faster, slows down or is reversed. When the character

goes back to his childhood memories he becomes smaller but not younger; hes still the same middle -aged guy only

as tall as a child, and he behaves and is perceived by others in the memory like the child he was.

2In Science of Sleep, there are a few quite fantastic occasions when the dream world and the real world seem to mix

together but the whole thing feels quite natural due to the elegant integration. Gondry explains such moments aswillingly shared daydreams between the characters in the scene: These surreal incidents are not a part of the filmsreality but the characters pretend that theyre real and the viewers share their perspect ive too. (Source:http://www.pixelsurgeon.com/interviews/interview.php?id=254[Accessed on September 2009])
http://www.pixelsurgeon.com/interviews/interview.php?id=254http://www.pixelsurgeon.com/interviews/interview.php?id=254http://www.pixelsurgeon.com/interviews/interview.php?id=254


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Figure 1: Science of Sleep (2006) - Stephane cooked a dream in his mind and he's entering a second stage of

dreaming through the blue screen. The screen to the left shows how the finished dream will supposedly look with a

background replacing the blue screen.

Even just these two examples clearly indicate that all kinds of rules can be flexible in dreams, or in other wordsthere arent necessarily any objective rules. Only a subjective, very person-specific and loose logical structure seems

to exist.

Another significant example is Joel and Ethan Coens cult comedy The Big Lebowski (1998). It contains two

humorous and surreal dream sequences. Their content is not completely meaningless but the associations with the

dreamers life are very loosely defined. This freedom allows these dreams to be quite ridiculous. In one dream the

filmmakers play with gravity and the sizes of the objects. The second dream starts out like a big, crazy, astral

musical about bowling and women. It ends as an absurd nightmare. The second dream feels as dreamlike as it does

primarily because it doesnt really make much sense. Its not because its incredibly supernatural but because

everything seems so out of the ordinary. The setting, the costumes and the behavior of the people in it just dontbelong to the films reality, or any other reality known to mankind for that matter.

The Cell(2005) is also exceptionally rich with dreams full of surreal bizarreness. Again the characters can instantly

change shape, morph, turn into people with different personalities, abilities and costumes. They can travel back into

their memories and even appear as a child. The environments inside the dreams are often also very unworldly. The

force of gravity can change directions and time may flow at different speeds.

Dreams in films can also be dominated by abstract visuals: The brief nightmare sequence in Hitchcocks Vertigo

(1958) has some abstract elements like a head floating through a tunnel and an animated morphing/dissolving bunch

of flowers. In Alfred Hitchcocks Spellbound(1945), theres a dream sequence which plays a key role in the film

and it was designed by the famous surrealist painter Salvador Dali. This led to the dream sequence looking partially

like a surrealist Dali painting in motion. (Fig. 2) The shape of certain objects, the backgrounds and the lighting

clearly separate these scenes from the rest of the movie (See section 2.3.6. Contextual Design for more).


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Figure 2: Spellbound (1945)The dream sequence from the film is designed by the surrealist painter Salvador Dali

and its visually dominated by his artistic influence.

To sum it up; dreams with irrational, unnatural events and structures are not rare in films. What such dream

sequences have in common is that they display things which would normally make no sense. Things that are

physically impossible to happen and bizarre events that are normally very unlikely to happen -if not also impossible-

are regularly seen in dreams. Certain forms, structures and strange behaviors that are featured in these dream

sequences would serve no materialistic function in our world other than being art. But such surreal determinants can

be the dominant factors in dreams and change the rules completely.

Apart from the usual sleep induced dreams or daydreams there are also various other kinds of dreams in films.

Dreams are not always the products of a sleeping mind, or a mind that can be considered ill or insane. An

altered perception or altered states of consciousness can also drive a character in a film away from the films reality.

2.1.2. Technological Dreaming

The term technological dreaming refers to the dream sequences featured in some science-fiction films, which come

to existence through some kind of support from imaginary technological devices, or at least influenced by them. The

structural qualities of such dreams are significantly different from earlier examples.


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The Spanish science fiction Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos)(1997)3

features a technologically induced constant

dream state. The depressed protagonist contracts with a company specializing in cryonics and he lets them freeze his

body after his death until a time comes where he can be resurrected and his problem solved. He also applies for theartificial perception option

4and once he is resurrected in the future, he doesnt wake up but he rather unknowingly

continues a dream life in the past. In that artificial reality he has the power to live exactly the life he desires, but for

the most part the rules in the dream world appear to be the same as in the films reality.

A similar example can be found in The Matrix (1999) and its sequels: The story also takes place in the future where

almost the entire humanity is unknowingly living in a collective dream; a virtual reality called the Matrix. But this

time its controlled by machines, and humans are merely their pawns. This simulation of reality is apparently so

successful that nobody doubts its verity unless they can be literally unplugged to see the reality. Unlike in normal

dreams, this illusion is so captivating that dying in the simulation leads to a real death of the physical body. What

can be seen in that virtual reality is generally not that dreamlike though, both because humans capabilities arestrictly bound to the digital programming within the Matrix, which mimics the physical laws of the real world, and

because the peoplenot knowing that the Matrix isnt real- dont attempt to do extraordinary things. So the minds of

those who participate in the dream can influence Matrixs reality only to a limited degree. Nevertheless, while

normal humans must obey what they believe to be the physical laws of that reality, the rebels (those who are aware

of the situation and fighting against the machines) can come up with new computer programs and train themselves

to go beyond the default limitations inside the Matrix. In so doing they can gain extreme acrobatic abilities, fighting

skills and more. A small number of exceptional individuals may also become aware of the reality without outside

help, and they can manipulate the simulated reality to a certain degree. This element of flexibility sometimes results

in relatively supernatural or surreal scenes throughout the entire Matrix series and The Animatrix (2003); a

collection of nine animated short films based on the universe of the series. But the last animated short titledMatriculatedfeatures a robot plugged into a virtual reality created by the humans and what can be seen in there is

much more dreamlike. Similarly, hacked minds trapped in a nightmarish virtual reality can be seen in the Japanese

animated feature Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004).

Total Recall (1990), a science fiction film loosely based on a short story by Phillip K. Dick, also features a

technology which installs false memories into a persons brain and gives them the impression that theyve been

living interesting adventures when in reality theyve merely been asleep for a short while. In the film a potential

false memory is referred to as a possible dream, even though the logic and nature of what happens is again no

different from the films reality (See section 2.2.5. Reality vs. Dream for more).

In the examples mentioned above, what the dreamers mind loses itself in can be more accurately described as a

virtual reality rather than a naturally occurring dream. And what happens in that alternative reality appears to be

restricted by the technology if not completely created and controlled by it. This is not like in normal dreams where

the human imagination is set loose and rules the dreams , but its more like a forced, directed imagination. The

individuals minds can still significantly influence the content of the visual representations, but not greatly affect the

fundamental rules present in the dreams.

In Dreamscape (1984), The Cell (2005) and the animated feature Paprika (2006) technological devices enable

researchers to enter other peoples dreams, instead of determining the content of the dreams. So basically these are

3Also its American remake Vanilla Sky (2001) has an almost identical story.

4Artificial Perception is called Lucid Dream in Vanilla Sky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_%28film%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_%28film%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_%28film%29


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not restricted to be any less dreamlike than other natural dreams in films, but the influence of multiple persons

within the dream change the main dreamers experience. In addition to that, the device in Paprika also makes it

possible for dreams to secretly invade others unconscious minds even when theyre awake, which has some majorconsequences in the film.

2.1.3. Supernatural Dreaming

This section is about the dreams which seem to be influenced by some forces which are not believed to exist by the

vast majority of todays scientific authorities. These too have certain characteristics which distinguish them from

regular dreams.

What Dreams May Come (1998) uses the concept of life after death as a realm where the dead peoples imagination

defines their own heaven and hell. (According to the story the humanimagination doesnt necessarily source fromthe brain -a piece of meat- but rather from a spirit/soul.) There isnt a single heaven but rathermultiple versions of

heaven specific to each persons own dreams about what heaven should look like. Consequently the protagonist

initially finds himself in a heaven which looks exactly like his wifes paintings . His whole world is made of paint at

first; a dynamic, three dimensional oil painting. (Fig. 7) As he gains more control on his abilities he can change

things any time as he wishes. Hell on the other hand is a place where everyone can be trapped in their own, unique

kind of misery theyve constructed for themselves in their own imagination. The dreams in this film are more

fluid than the technological dreams but theyre still not as wildly unpredictable as the regular dreams due to the

constrictions present in the afterworld.

InFlatliners (1990) a small group of medical students experiment with near-death experiences. One by one, theyallow each other to die under their control for a few minutes and the dead person supposedly faces the life after

death during that short period of time. All those who try it find themselves in a dreamlike mind trip into their own

past. Strangely, after they wake up they continue to see similar visions in waking life too, and they even seem to

physically interact with them. 5 The initial dream they enter in this case is more like an elaborate, fancy flashback

rather than a regular dream and the visions that follow are more like hallucinations.

Apart from that there are also cases where the dreams clearly and intensely influence the reality. One of the most

widely known examples is The Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and its sequels, where the undead villain Freddy

Krueger can kill people through their dreams, which causes people to be afraid of falling asleep. Dreams with

Freddy can be significantly surreal but mostly theyre under the control of Freddy instead of the dreamers and the

dreamers have little time to lose themselves in imaginative dreams when fighting for their lives.

It is also fairly common to see dreams and dreamlike visions in the context of psychic abilities: In Dreams (1999)

features a woman who is haunted by troubling visions about a man, both while asleep and awake. In The Gift(2001)

a fortune-teller solves the mystery behind a murder with help from her psychic visions and dreams. In Final

Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) a woman communicates with the ghosts of alien life forms through his dreams.

The science fiction film Minority Report (2002) has a trio of introverted psychics. They float all day long in an

5Although the characters inFlatliners seem to be convinced that they experienced something that can be considered

supernatural, the film offers no objective proof for that belief. It seems possible to interpret the events in a waywhich only requires the viewer to believe that the characters become delusional after their near-death experiences.


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isolation chamber and usually do nothing but try to foresee the future. Their visions are recorded by a high-tech

specialized police department in order to prevent murders before they can even happen.6

The dreamers in those examples are not always asleep or in a dream state otherwise. The content of such psychic

visions are generallybased on the films reality despite their relatively dreamlike visual and aural qualities. There

are no surreal or abstract elements like in regular imaginative dreams; just visions about things or events from

another space and time within the same universe. This is also the case for the equivalent of such visions in more

fantastic film universes like those of The Lord of the Rings (2001) andHarry Potterseries (2001), Eragon (2006)

andDark City (1998). The psychic-like visions and dreams in such movies tell more about the universe of the film

than the dreamers inner world.

All in all supernatural dreams are, in comparison to regular dreams, less about a fluid imagination activity and more

about interactions of supernatural kind.

2.1.4. Hallucinations and Delusions

This section is about imagination activities that take place even when the dreamer is awake and is not supposed to

be dreaming under common conditions. The uncommon conditions may be caused by various mind-altering

substances or they may be unusual mental conditions.

In Terry Gilliams Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), the two main characters are under the influence of

various psychoactive drugs the whole time. Theyre regularly caught up in their absurd imaginations. Their insane

perception is not stable either; it can change from minute to another, from one delusional thought to another. The

audience is often shown things the way they perceive them to be.

The science fiction A Scanner Darkly (2006) features also a group of drug addicts. The film starts with a character

obsessively trying to wash off illusionary insects from his and his dogs body. Similar hallucinations occur a few

times throughout the film.

Another interesting example is The Bear(1988) where a bear cub wonders off into the forest and naively eats a few

red mushrooms. It is briefly shown how his perception is altered as he lays down, freaks out and watches a colorful

mushroom fly and morph above his head.

What separates such hallucinations from regular dreams is that theyre perceived to be a part of the films reality bythe characters, and not a different reality independent from it.7 They physically interact with their hallucinations, or

the hallucinations directly affect their interactions with real objects and people. And the unconscious mind or the

memories of a person is not the determining factor when it comes to most hallucinations. Their phobias and interests

might be reflected in what they hallucinate but the connection is very loose. Unlike regular dreams, hallucinations

are more spontaneous and belong to the present moment.

An exception to that description may be the hallucination sequences in Blueberry (2004). The film features very

6 The dreaming activity here is supported by a technological facility, but the source of the visions remainssupernatural, which is the main factor that determines the dreams exact nature. 7

In A Scanner Darkly (2006) there is one particular scene where one of the characters exceptionally seems to becompletely aware of the fact that hes hallucinating. He doesnt react strongly to his friends turning into insects.


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heavy and complex hallucinations caused by some kind of psychedelic substance used by Native Americans. But

despite that the characters seem to be somewhat aware of the unreal nature of their hallucinations. They appear to

find what they perceive interesting but they do not freak out like the characters in earlier examples, which may alsobebecause theyre physically weakened by the same substance.

Another significant example is Altered States (1980), where a psychologist experiments with his state of

consciousness. He uses sensory deprivation tanks filled with water and consumes psychedelic mushrooms to explore

possible realities beyond the immediate reality. What he sees cannot be classified as pure hallucinations because it

later turns out that there is more to it, but his visions certainly dont belong to the dominant reality of the film.

Theyre technically not dreams or daydreams either because the dreamer is neither asleep nor just calmly

dreaming about things while awake. His visions start out as powerful mind trips and eventually they become

something much more cosmic and intense, and start to mix with the normal reality. This makes at least some of the

sequences supernatural hallucinations, but others remain explainable with natural psychology.

Structurally the visions inAltered States are very chaotic and unstable, most similar to those in Blueberry among all

the examples. In both films the hallucinations become so intense at times that they seem to disconnect the

hallucinating person from the filmic reality completely; they just lose themselves in strange images. In that regard

the hallucination arguably turns into something much like a dream, and differs significantly from what the

characters inFear and Loathing in Las Vegas andA Scanner Darkly seem to go through most of the time.

Then there are also deluded characters like Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Tyler Durden inFight Club (1999) that

seem to have multiple identities. But in these films such delusions are shown from the perspective of the characters

and accordingly they arent depicted any differently than the films reality. For example when the c haracters talk to

themselves the film shows either two equally real looking characters talking to each other, which is what the

characters believe is happening, or the deluded person talking to himself, which is whats really happening. But both

scenarios dont result in any obvious visual distinctions between two personas, because one either believes in the

existence of both equally, or knows that one of them doesnt really exist. The place between two perspectives of

reality is mostly skipped and there are just jumps between the two. Its also similar in A Beautiful Mind (2001)

where the protagonist develops schizophrenia instead of a multiple personality disorder. This time the character is

once again talking to himself but the responses to him are only in his head, despite being presented differently

throughout the film. The imaginary people are indicated to be imaginary only later in the film when they seem to

appear and disappear or move from place to place without a rational explanation.

So there are different types of hallucinations. The degree to which a hallucination strays away from the reality and

becomes more dreamlike differs from case to case. The more intense a hallucination the more dreamlike it is, and

consequently the hallucinating person becomes more dysfunctional and closer to someone asleep in a dream state.


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2.2. Themes and Narrative Roles

When it comes to storytelling dreams are rarely just dreams. Most films do not make the effort to tell what each

character dreams about when they go to sleep. But when films do show some dreams, then theres usually an

important reason for it.8 The reasons may vary but in the end its about adding value to the work, one way or the

other.

2.2.1. Dream as the Object of Interest

One reason maybe that the dreams content alone is considered valuable enough to show even if it doesnt seem to

have any significant implication on the flow of the story that takes place outside the dream.

All the film adaptations of the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865), like the famous

Disney versionAlice in Wonderland(1951), are not interestingbecause of Alices reality, but interesting because of

the fantastic adventure in Wonderland, which is just the product of Alices dream.

The famous musical-fantasy film The Wizard of Oz(1939) is also for the most part just a young girls dream. The

first fifteen minutes set the stage for whats to come and for more than 80 minutes whats shown is only Dorothys

fabulous journey in an imaginary land called Oz. The beginning and the ending in the real world certainly make the

dream more meaningful than it wouldve otherwise been, but without the long dream the film wouldve been a very

different film to say the least, and inevitably much less interesting without all the magic. Such influential works

inspired many more similar projects.

The 23-minute animated film titled 1001 Nights (1998) starts directly with the narratorsvoice saying Let us then

dream. And in that dream, which is the film itself, what can be seen are only a dreaming princess and her dream.

The dream begins right after the film begins and the film ends right after the dream ends. The film is nearly a pure

dream. Theres no real story being told in other words, but there still is an imaginary reality where the dream is

being dreamt.So in this case there is no significant relation of the dreams to something that can be called a filmic

reality, because the filmic reality is already presented as something unreal. Ten Nights of Dreams (2006) is another

film which mainly consists of a disconnected collection of dreams, but a basis filmic reality is still present even if it

doesnt seem to have any relevance to dreams whatsoever.

In another animated film, The Triplets of Belleville (2003) there are a few dream sequences which are very short and

appear to be totally irrelevant to the plot: theyre just interesting for other reasons. Similar examples can be found in

Big Lebowski andPee Wees Big Adventure (1985).

In those moments, when the audience is taken into the characters dream worlds, the story temporarily becomes the

dream itself. Although these dreams do not appear to be directly related to the story, or having any influence on the

plot, they inform the audience further about the inner world of the characters they may care about. The desired effect

may be to strengthen the audiences emotional reaction to an event which really happens in the movie at some point

or it may also be solely about enjoying the dreams interesting content.

8The dreams in books and other forms of storytelling are also no different in that regard.


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In Akira KurosawasDreams(1990) there is something else that is philosophically interesting. Its a collection of 9

real dreams of Kurosawa, turned into short films. Theres a text that saysI once had a dream at the beginning of

the film and then the film jumps into filmed versions of the directors real-life dreams. In this case it is clear that thedreams arent dreamt in an alternative reality; Kurosawa says that these dreams source directly from our own reality,

directly from his mind, from a real person. Its just a direct communication of real dreams. And if theres a real

story these dreams should shed some light on, as in most mo vies, then this story is the real-world Kurosawas and

accordingly humanitys real story. If the content of the dreams are supposed to have an influence on a wider plot,

theyve obviously influenced Akira Kurosawas real life in a way that caused him to make a feature film about them.

And since theyve been turned into films and publicized, they therefore influence the plot of the real lives of many

real humans too: The audience and all the people spending time watching, writing, reading things about Kuro sawas

Dreams, and many who are indirectly influenced by it all, albeit minimally.

But of course dreams are not always that disconnected from a filmic narration of a fictional story.

2.2.2. General Narrative Purposes

The reason for depicting a dream can be one related to traditional storytelling. For example dreams and visions are

often used to disguise flashbacks. In many films characters seem to dream about past events. Even if this happens

during theirsleep they are usually still shown in a way thats not too dreamlike as can be seen in Minority Report

(2002) orManchurian Candidate (1962).

But there are also interesting examples of how flashbacks can be disguised as dreams: Spellbound(1945) opens with

a text explaining that the story deals with psychoanalysis and continues to state that opening the locked doors ofthe mind of a patient -to release the disturbing complexes behind- solves the mental problems.

9What happens in the

film is that a man who doesnt remember anything about his past is trying to figure out his apparent connection to a

murder. His recurring dream is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle and every shot in the dream sequence

has a significant symbolic meaning (see section 2.3.6. Contextual Design for more on symbols). Thanks to the

psychoanalysts the mystery behind all the symbols can be revealed, which cures the patient and he remembers

everything again.

One interesting aspect of the dream sequence in Spellboundis that the audience doesnt get to see the dream while

the character is dreaming it, but it is presented as hes telling about his dream to the psychoanalysts.10

Its almost

like a reenactment of the dream, or its flashback; a flashback of a flashback that is told in form of a dream with

symbols.

Similar connections between storytelling and their visual depictions also exist in films like Millennium Actress

(2001), The Big Fish (2003), The Wild (2006) and The Fall (2006) where an older character tells a story to a

younger one, rather than a dream. But such sceneries have a lot in common with dreams because they depict

imaginary tales where many surreal elements are mixed with the characters real lives. In a way the tale being told

draws both characters into a daydream. And especially in the case of The Fallthe tale being told and shown is very

9 Interestingly Hitchcock later refers to his Spellbound as just another manhunt story wrapped up in pseudo-psychoanalysis. (Hitchcock-Revised Edition by Franois Truffaut [1985, p. 165])10

The same thing happens in Open Your Eyes (1997) too, but it happens within a dream. And the guy inside thedream unknowingly describes something that really happened.


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much improvised and dependent on the characters thoughts at the time of the telling. It is similar to a lucid

dreaming experience where the dreamer is aware that it is a dream, and can consciously manipulate the content of

the dream.

In many other cases the dreams primary purpose in films is to reveal more about a characters inner nature and

feelings, even if it doesnt affect the story as dramatically as in Spellbound. In Ingmar Bergmans Wild Strawberries

(1957) the oldprotagonists dreams, flashbacks and fantasies dont help him solve a crime but he rather reevaluates

his life through an interior journey of self-discovery.

In Brazil (1985) the dreams of the protagonist accompany him throughout the entire film to make the audience

understand his innermost desires and struggles more clearly. What happens in his dreams constitute a parallel

storyline to whats really happening in the film. His dream-self goes through a symbolic version of the same things

he experiences in his real life.

In the screen adaptation of George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) it is shown how the protagonist,

overwhelmed by the darkness and hopelessness of the world hes living in , regularly escapes to a calming, pastoral

environment in his dreams. Later in the movie, as hes tortured and as the suffering reaches unbearable levels his

dreams also reflect how he gives in to the extremely oppressive authorities. His place of escape eventually seizes to

be an innocent place and at the end he no longer visits it.

Instead of showing a character laughing, crying or reacting in any other imaginable way to a certain situation in the

filmic reality, showing variations of these within the characters dreams and imaginations is what these scenes are

commonly used for. It can add depth to simple emotions and provides an opportunity for both explaining complex

emotional processes more in detail -instead of superficially showing the facial expression of a character for

example- and also making it all look much more interesting.

What follows will be a closer look at a few of the more specific and common themes that can be encountered in

filmic dreams. For example with all the freedom the dreamers have, it is common to see cases of wish fulfillment

and various fantasies in dreams.

2.2.3. Wish Fulfillment and Fantasy

At the beginning of Disneys Cinderella (1950) two birds fly to her room and wake up Cinderella, but she refuses to

tell them about her dream saying/singing: If you tell a wish it wont come true. And after all a dream is a wish your

heart makes11It appears that she isnt the only one to think so, because dreams picturing wishes and fantasies are

very common in films.

One basic form of wish fulfillment is the act of flying and its often seen in dreams. Since the laws of nature within

dreams are not necessarily the same as in reality, flight is a suitable choice for directly demonstrating that freedom.

11The filmmakers dont directly tell or show Cinderellas dream either. But presumably she dreams about what later

happens in the film, which means her wish/dream probably came true, because she lives happily ever afteraccording to the final statement in the film. So the script is written in a way that is loyal to and supportive ofCinderellas belief that not telling about ones dream indeed makes a difference, which is not too uninteresting interms of storytelling.


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Fellinis 8 (1954) begins with a dream where the protagonist escapes his car (which is stuck in the traffic) and he

ascends into the sky. In Brazilthe protagonist Sam dreams of himself as an angelic knight with mechanical wings,

gloriously flying over the clouds. In Paprika (2006) the protagonist flies on a small cloud in her dream, like somesort of a sorcerer, and later in the dream she also turns into a fairy and starts flying in that form. In both the Big

Lebowski and Science of Sleep the dreamers float over a city landscape with ease, as if swimming through the air.

Such examples indicate a sense of supernatural powermuch like angels- and a certain convenience for the dreamer.

When flying they can see things from a much higher perspective and travel a lot faster and more freely than they

couldve by foot.

But characters usually desire more than just flying of course. In 8, a film about filmmaking, the director Guido is

struggling to live up to the expectations to make a good film and he s also overwhelmed by the social complexities

related to the women around him. He fantasizes about having a modern form of harem filled with all the women inhis life where they all admire and pamper him. As the king ofhis harem hes even prepared to tame the women

with his whip if they tend to behave badly. Apart from that, later in the movie he also commits an imaginary

suicide when the pressure on him as a director gets too high; a fulfillment of a darker wish.

In High Fidelity (2000) and Requiem for a Dream (2000) characters seem to briefly imagine committing acts of

absurd violence against someone they dislike when in fact theyre just silently but angrily- standing in front of the

disliked person.

Brazils Sam is always pursuing his love in his dreams. When things go wrong in his real life he gets disconnected

from reality and loses himself in his pleasant dreams. Science of Sleeps Stephane dreams about many odd things,

some of which also inevitably reflect his wishes and fantasies about women and his career. The Dude from Big

Lebowski has his own uniquely bizarre fantasy where his passion for women, bowling and music is combined in an

odd way. In the black comedyHappiness (1998) a middle-aged psychiatrist has a recurring dream where he calmly

goes to a park with a machine gun and serenely starts to shoot people. The pleasure he gets from doing that is such

that he says that after waking up he gets very depressed because [hes] living in reality instead of that dream

where he can happily shoot people.

Another unusual example for a wish fulfillment dream can be seen in one of Pixars early animated shortsReds

Dream(1987) where a unicycle dreams of being the star of a circus when its actually just sadly sitting in a bike

shop and hoping to be bought by somebody.

In sum, straying from the filmic reality to communicate the desires of characters is a widely used technique. Dream

sequences and similar scenes can be effectively put into use even for communicating the most absurd fantasies,

which would often be impossible or difficult to do otherwise. In so doing such dream sequences help explain the

dreamers motivations for their actions in their filmic real life and add depth to the story.

In contrast with various forms of wish fulfillment, there are also the infamous nightmares; the fulfillment of fears in

dreams.

2.2.4. Nightmares

When the emotional outcome of a dream is clearly unpleasant for the dreamer then such negative dreams are usually

described as nightmares. Sometimes the discomfort reaches such a high degree that the dreamer wakes up from the


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dream.

The emotion of fear often plays a big role in fi lms since its a part of the excitement that is usually preferred to bepresented in films, rather than a familiar slice of common daily life. Since new and exciting events are more

memorable and are also perceived to be more share-worthy than regular, common events, this is also reflected in

films and filmic dreams. Accordingly nightmares can be frequently seen in films, due to their dramatic value. In

comparison dreams of less dramatic nature, e.g. purely pleasant dreams, are more difficult to encounter.12

Today the most popular treatment of filmic nightmares is arguably with Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare on Elm

Street(1984) and all its sequels. The main premise of the movie is that the mysterious and scary Freddy character,

who is actually supposed to be a long-dead child murderer, surfaces in teenagers nightmares, through which he can

somehow influence the real life and violently murder real people. Although Freddy doesnt directly represent his

victims specific fears in their waking life, he is des igned in a stereotypically horrifying way (disfigured psychopathwith a metal-clawed glove, odd abilities and unconventional tendencies). He doesnt have any difficulty scaring all

his victims to death even if theyve never known him before, because his image and actions resonate with certain

universal fears present in humans. In an interview the director Wes Craven, creator of Freddy and the Elm Street

series, states that while designing Freddys metal claw he was looking for a primal fear which is embedded in the

subconscious of people of all cultures the claw of an animal, like a saber-toothed tiger reaching with it's

tremendous hooks. I transposed this into a human hand.13

In other words it doesnt matter whose dream Freddy

haunts for the typical audience to be able to understand and relate to the victims fears.

In comparison to that, the horror Pee-wee experiences in his nightmare in Pee-wees Big Adventure (1985) in

reaction to what a few people in clown-like appearance do with a red bike would be harder to understand if one

doesnt know enough about what Pee-wee is like and what he went through.

Nightmare sequences such as in A Nightmare on Elm Streetseries (1984-1994) are often filled with a lot of tension

and action. That emotional intensity and sense of adventure are the primary functions of nightmare sequences in

some horror films, rather than presenting information about the inner world of a character in order to make what

happens in the filmic reality more understandable and feel richer. In such situations, where the nightmare sequence

is treated like a mini horror/action film, the difference between the real world and the dream world is of no critical

consequence on an emotional level, especially if its not shown as just a dream and presented as real. Whatever is

chosen to be presented on screen is accepted to be true in that moment. The vagueness or the flexibility of the

boundaries between reality and nightmares in certain films makes what takes place in the nightmares no less

important than what happens in the filmic reality (See section 2.2.5. Reality vs. Dream for more).

Not all nightmares use totally stereotypical and non-specific fears to scare. Outside the horror genre the nightmare

sequences are often more representative of the dreamers psyche and the fear elements become specific to the

dreamers life and personality. Sometimes what is depicted in filmic nightmares are the characters worries about

the future. Nightmares with apocalyptic visions can be quite disturbing (Terminator 2 [1991], Terminator 3 [2003],

12On overage people report more negative dream contents than positive ones in real life too. (Valli, K., Strandholm,

T., Sillanmki, L., and Revonsuo, A. (2008),Dreams are more negative than real life: Implications for the function

of dreaming)13

Source:http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/nightmareinterviewswes.html (Accessed on September 2009)Creating Freddy: A Talk with Wes Craven by William Schoell (From:Nightmare Never Ends: Official Story ofFreddy Krueger and the "Nightmare on Elm Street" Films, 1992, William Schoell, James Spencer)
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788216900http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788216900http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788216900http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788216900http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/nightmareinterviewswes.htmlhttp://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/nightmareinterviewswes.htmlhttp://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/nightmareinterviewswes.htmlhttp://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/nightmareinterviewswes.htmlhttp://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788216900http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788216900


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Watchmen [2009]). But what concerns a character playing an independent film director most can instead be just

everything going wrong on the set of a low-budget film (Living in Oblivion [1995]). A Scottish Noble who betrayed

William Wallace can have a nightmare about Wallace coming nearer and nearer to him with an angry facialexpression (Braveheart[1995]) and a racing car can fear losing the big race and ending up among tractors in its

nightmare (Cars [2006]).

In addition to fear of bad future scenarios, characters can also have anxieties about their past experiences. In The

Manchurian Candidate (1962) a group of men are having nightmares about a traumatic experience they were

hypnotized to forget, like an uncomfortable flashback. In Flatliners (1990) characters intense feelings of guilt are

disturbingly revealed in their minds when they have near-death experiences. In Paprika (2006) a cop is having

nightmares because he never finished a film that he started making with an old friend of his.

Nightmares often result in the dreamers waking up on their own due to the intensity of fear. That also indicates thatthe most disturbing part of a nightmare has to be at the end, even outside nightmares with Freddy Kruger where the

characters usually seem to wake up after Freddy physically attacks and hurts them. When what the dreamers

experience in their dreams becomes unbearable, then the act of awakening becomes a protection against the dream

content; an instant transportation away from the dangerous realm into the calm reality.

2.2.5. Reality vs. Dream

Dreams are also often used to play with the audience s sense of reality and to confuse them about what is real. One

relatively simple and popular way to do this is to start a film directly with a dream sequence so that the audience

doesnt have a chance to judge whether or not what theyre watching would fit into the films reality. Because videois a time-based medium, normally the viewer is only exposed to a single frame at a time, unlike experiencing a

painting where the viewer can choose how to interact with it. In films the whole picture becomes apparent only at

the end of the film, and even that picture is formed only in the viewers mind, based on his/her memory of what has

been communicated throughout the entire film. The viewer is bound to the linear flow of the medium.

So unless the viewers are prepared and already expecting the films to show them only half-truths (e.g. not making

clear beforehand that what is shown is just a characters dream) theyre likely to temporarily assume that the film

actually started by showing something that really belongs to the filmic reality. Since statistically the percentage of

films that start so deceivingly is quite low, the majority of the viewers are not likely to have such expectations. So

presumably most viewers tend to suspend their disbelief at the action right from the very start of a film and react

accordingly, which means that they end up mistaking a filmic dream for the filmic reality.

Concealing that what happened in the film was just the product of the imagination of a character, until the filmic

dream ends, also results in the dream sequence being judged in a different context than it otherwise would be. Just as

real people in the real world take their own real lives more seriously than what they see in films, the things that

belong to a films reality may in a way also be taken more seriously than what doesnt really happen in a film, and

the real events can be considered relatively more important. If the viewers are not aware that what theyre

watching isnt actually going to affect the filmic reality as dramatically as it would have if it were really happening

in the filmic reality (instead of just being filmic dreams) then theyre likely to react to what they see more strongly.

Not knowing that a character who is seemingly in extreme danger and pain actually lies on a comfortable bed makes

it easier to care about the apparent pain and danger. This means that it becomes easier for the viewer to empathize

with what a character is going through, or at least what a character seems to believe he/she is going through.


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A few examples for films that start with a dream only to later reveal the dream sequence for what it was are Total

Recall(1990), The Cell(2000),Paprika (2006),Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), Fellinis 8 (1954) and

some of the films from theNightmare on Elm Streetseries.

If the dream or at least its beginning- is not visibly too contrasting to the reality of the film, or if the transition

between the two is smooth enough, a dream can also be introduced without warning at any point in the film and still

manage to confuse the audience, at least temporarily.

In Disneys famous book adaptation Alice in Wonderland(1951) there is no clear sign given to show when Alices

dream starts. What happens is that while shes happily singing and dancing around, she spots a talking rabbit. She

follows him and enters the Wonderland through a rabbit hole. Only at the very end of the film it is revealed that

Alice was asleep the whole time and her fantastic adventure took place only in her dream. In The Wizard of Oz

(1939) the situation is similar, but not as deceiving as in Alice. Because this time the protagonist, Dorothy, is seenon screen when falling asleep. What may make the audience believe that her fabulous adventure is really happening

is that at the beginning of her dream she seems to wake up in the same spot where she fell asleep. So the transition

between reality and the dream is not too obvious. Characters who seem to wake up when theyre actually just

entering their dream can be commonly seen in films.

A film about independent filmmaking, Living in Oblivion (1995), starts out as the members of a film crew get up in

the morning and prepare themselves for shooting a scene. But everything goes wrong and they cant even get one

shot. Finally the director bursts with anger, starts insulting his entire crew and then wakes up to realize that it was

just a nightmare. This dream goes on for longer than 20 minutes in the film. Then the director heads to the set for the

real shooting and the film crew cant get a single shot this time either, because of completely different reasons. But

after 30 minutes it is revealed that all that was also a dream, this time it was the dream of the actress. After that she

goes to the real set and ironically they start shooting a dream sequence, and this time it isnt anybodys dream.14

But

at that stage, after having observed two deception attempts, the average viewercant help but being a little paranoid

about the rest of the film, which is possibly something the writer/director Tom DiCillo was anticipating at the time

of writing.

In the science fiction filmOpen Your Eyes(1997) and its remake Vanilla Sky (2001) there is also no visible sign that

lets the audience know where the reality ends and the dream begins. As the protagonist doesnt know what is going

on either, the viewers share his confusion throughout the entire film. The exact storyline and the nature of reality

become clear only at the very end.

Theres a similar twist inBraziltoo. The film has a dramatic ending where a significant portion of the film turns out

to be the protagonists fantasy, who apparently finally lost his mind completely because of the insane bureaucratic

system hes forced to live in. Once the dream sequence is over the audience is thrown out of the delusion back into

the bleak reality. Due to the striking contrast of reality with the happy ending in the protagonists fantasy the typical

viewer is likely to feel sorry for him instead of sharing his deluded happiness. Similarly, Jacobs Ladder(1990) and

Stay (2005) both feature a character losing himself in a confusing mixture of memories and dreams, when in reality

hes badly wounded and about to die.

Films likeIdentity (2003) andFight Club (1999) show things through the viewpoint of a character with dissociative

14Except that it is arguably the dream of the real-world filmmakers.
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identity disorder (multiple personality disorder), consequently many of the things shown are actually only in the

characters mind. But since this is not readily observable until the end of the film, it results in a false sense of reality.

In Total Recall, right at the happy end of the film, the audience is again forced to consider the possibility that the

whole adventure may have just been a dream when the last thing the protagonist says to his lover is I just had a

terrible thought: What if this is a dream?.

In Waking Life (2001) what is real, or if anything at all is real, is even more unclear. The film ends like it all might

have been the lucid dream of the protagonist , but its never clarified. It is rather a philosophical exploration of

various ideas and is not meant to have a logical, reality-like continuity and structure.

This notion of realitys boundaries not being clearly defined, or the boundaries being explicitly flexible, is

sometimes referred to as rubber reality. Such examples demonstrate that the glimpses into the potentially-

imaginary realms provided by films are not enough to conclusively verify the realness of all that is presented in a

film. Not in every film are there intended clear answers. Filmmakers dont hesitate to tell paradoxical or ambiguous

stories. Not all films can necessarily be rationalized with the logic and laws characteristic of the everyday reality.

The final example is Wes Cravens New Nightmare (1994): As earlier mentioned, the Nightmare on Elm Street

series features a dream stalker named Freddy as a villain. His supernatural powers enable him to enter the films

reality through characters nightmares and this alone blurs the line between the imaginary and the real. Yet in the

seventh film of the series, New Nightmare, which is the only other film directed by the creator and director of the

first film, Wes Craven, this elusiveness rises to an extreme: What happens is that Freddy, after being officially

killed in the sixth film, is revealed to be this ancient thing15

that was held captive in the form of the Freddy

Krueger character throughout the six films. But he is set free after his death in the sixth film because the story has

ended and he is now haunting the film crew who worked/is working on the Nightmare on Elm Street films. His

primary goal is killing the real-world actress Heather Langenkamp who played the protagonist Nancy in the first and

the third film, at the end of which she was killed by Freddy.

In addition to the traditional mixing-together of the films nightmares and reality throughout the film, this film blurs

the line between the filmic reality and the true reality too. Within the New Nightmare, the films real writer/director

Wes Craven is playing himself and he is shown while writing the film he is in, based supposedly on his prophecy-

like real nightmares. At one point he says I think the only way to stop [Freddy] is to make another movie

inevitably referencing the movie hes playing in, as if it was really made to stop Freddy. Whether or not Heather

Langenkamp wants it shes forced to play Nancy and fight Freddy again because the film conquers her real life.

Things that happened in previous movies this time really happen to her. Towards the end of the film she somehow

finds the finished script of the movie within the nightmare, she opens a random page towards the end, and starts

reading the following from the script:

The more she read the more she realized what she had in her hands was nothing more or less than her life

itself. That everything she experienced and thought was bound within these pages. There was no movie.

There was only her life.

So the film isnt only self-referencing while pretending to document the reality, its also using this twisted structure

15Wes Cravens line in the film while hes playing himself.


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against the characters in the filmwho are supposedly real people- to increase tension, and all of that is happening

through dreams or in dreams, within a film.

On top of all that, along with Wes Craven and Heather Langenkamp, also both Freddy Krueger and the actor Robert

Englund who always played Freddy are credited as having played themselves, as if Freddy Krueger is a real person.

In a way this is a multi-textured mockumentary filmed as some kind of horror film; a fake documentary pretending

to be presenting the reality when in fact it is extremely unreal. Obviously this unique plot does more than making

the audience question the boundary between filmic dreams and filmic reality; it also introduces real dreams and the

true reality into the picture and ends up raising some interesting questions.

The self-referencing mockumentary style can actually be used independent from any filmic dreams but the layers

added by the dream aspect makes it more intriguing and sophisticated. Freddy enters through filmic dreams not only

into the filmic reality, but supposedly also into the real reality. If the earlier films can be regarded as dreams of real

people from the real world (filmmakers) and this one as a documentary, then the double-transition of Freddy is

uniquely interesting.

All these examples demonstrate that the notion of dreams provide plenty of opportunities for coming up with

intriguing, thought-provoking premises in films. They help the viewers question and ironically understand the nature

of the reality better.

2.2.6. Other

What follows are a few unique cases which cant easily be put into categories but deserve mentioning. They are

interesting for different reasons:

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), where the main character Joels memories are being erased from

his mind while hes asleep and dreaming, his doctor earlier explains to him that by the time he wakes up in the

morning the targeted memories will be gone as in a dream upon waking. 16 During the process Joel goes back and

forth between unconsciously living the dream and being consciously aware of the dream. Hes jumping from one

memory to the other and watches the memories that are related to his girlfriend Clementine disappear one by one.

Eventually he comes to realize that some memories are just too precious to forget and regrets his decision. He wants

to cancel the erasure process, but unfortunately he cant wake up and tell the technicians to stop it. From that point

on he struggles to save a few memories of his girlfriend: At first hes in panic and all he can thin k of is to hold her

hand and to run to someplace else in his mind. But he only jumps from one memory with her to another. So the

computer, which has a map of all of his memories with Clementine in it, tracks them wherever they go and erases

the memory, along with Clementine. After a while, realizing that this strategy isnt working well, he stops to think.

In his dream he starts to chat with his girlfriend about the problem and she comes up with the idea 17 that she should

be hidden in a memory which actually doesnt have anything to do with her. So Joel takes her back to her childhood

memories, which, he assumes, should be safe from the erasing machine because they arent a part of the electronic

16 The film is referencing the view that for most people their dreams are hard to remember; as soon as the personwakes up its as if the dream never occurred. It doesnt matter if the person was tota lly convinced that he/she wasreally living the dream while dreaming.17

Joel imagines that Clementine comes up with the idea, although his mind is actually doing the thinking.


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map the computer has. Although this causes the technicians some trouble, they still get to remove Clementine from

those memories too. When all of it is over Joel appears to have failed at keeping any of his memories with his

girlfriend in them. When he finally wakes up all that is left is an inexplicable, seemingly irrational urge to visit theplace where they first met without him even knowing why hes going there.

This is an excellent example for taking advantage of the flexible nature of dreaming. During that entire chaotic

struggle in Joels mind, while the memories disappear one by one -starting from the most recent ones and going

towards the earliest memories of the couple- the viewers are informed about the development of their entire

relationship in a uniquely entertaining way. First the viewers get to understand why their relationship reached a

point where they want to erase each other from their minds, they see the good times and the bad times the couple

had, they get to know both characters much more in detail, and it becomes clear how much they mean to each other

and why they dont want to completely forget each other. This narrative style informs the viewersboth about Joels

past and his present thoughts and feelings, because Joel is conscious of the fact that hes dreaming his way throughhis memories, even if he doesnt have full control over the flow of the dream. He relives his memories and at the

same time thinks, talks, acts with his actual consciousness and affects the direction of the dream and appears to

modify his memories while reliving them, which leads to some interesting scenes in the film.

Another case where a filmic dream seems to serve a uniquely interesting purpose is the Directors Cut version of the

science fiction filmBlade Runner(Original Release 1985, Directors Cut 1992). The directorRidley Scotts version

features a very short dream sequence which dramatically affects the audiences interpretation of a significant

element of the story. A dream with a unicorn throws in the question that the main character, Deckard, may be a

replicate a synthetic adult human with artificial memories- rather than a real human with a real past.18

Apart from

the direct implication on the story, this distinction also creates room for extra ethical and philosophical questionsregarding the meaning or significance of being a real human and humans relationship with potential future synthetic

life forms.

Although Ridley Scott insists that he always intended the protagonist to secretly be a replicate, interestingly there

still seems to be some disagreement on this point among those who worked on the film.19

The actor who played

Deckard, Harrison Ford, and the screenwriter of the film, Hampton Fancher seem to disagree with Scotts view that

Deckard is a replicate. Even if this ambiguity caused by the unicorn dream may result in everyone believing

completely different things, the addition of it manages to add another layer of mystery to the film and leaves

unanswered questions, hypothetical answers of which provoke even more significant questions. In a way a subtle

complexity like this enables the filmmakers to tell two significantly different stories at the same time, because the

viewer is manipulated to consider both scenarios with all their philosophical implications. This twist might make the

movie more memorable for the audience also for the film crew apparently- and arguably more successful for the

filmmakers because of that.

The last example is from the animated feature Horton Hears a Who (2008). There is a scene in the film where

Horton the elephant seems to falsely believe that hes falling down a bridge when in reality he isnt moving at all.

18This is the case because later in the movie it is indicated that certain type of replicates may have this unicorn

dream implanted in their minds. A character who isnt close enough to know about Deckards dreams seems to beaware of his unicorn dream, which implies that Deckard is a replicate and that he has information on Deckards origins; i.e. which model Deckard is and how the mind of that particular replicate model was designed.19

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Blade_Runner(Accessed on September 2009)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Blade_Runnerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Blade_Runnerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Blade_Runnerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Blade_Runner


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This delusion of Hortons is not shown directly through his perspective but because of the tricky editing and

camerawork the audience is still led to believe that he is indeed falling. Basically what is shown on screen is a close-

up of Hortons face where he yells in panic as ifhes falling down. In that moment the viewer isnt exposed to anymore visual information than that; no visual reference is presented in the background that should indicate that

Horton is immobile. Also with the addition of a traditional falling-down sound effect the deception is successful.

The truth is revealed as the camera slowly moves back. This is an example where the filmmakers cheat to take the

audience into a characters imagination, without really leaving the filmic reality. The way Hortons intense fear is

conveyed is artistically rare, if not unique. It shows how fearful expectations can trigger a characters imagination

and force him/her to reach false conclusions, even if very briefly. And this scene informs the audience further about

Hortons personality, in addition to being interesting on its own.

Altogether dreams in various forms can serve many different purposes, some of them very complex some of them

very simple. The mystery of real dreams is not likely to completely disappear anytime soon. So films that can reallytake advantage of their ambiguity by stretching the audiences mind about what dreams can be and what they may

mean will not cease to be interesting anytime soon.

2.3. Visuals

Dream sequences in films tend to have certain atmospheric characteristics which distinguish them from the films

reality. Certain moods and vis

Analysis of Visual Representations of Dreams in Films with Focus on Animation (2009)

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