Dreams within dreams

Saw Inception last night. An astonishing film. Christopher Nolan is possibly one of the most amazing directors in Hollywood today. Without giving too much away, the film is based around the notion of being able to go into people's dreams to steal or implant ideas.

 
I was more taken with the way it used dreams within dreams to carry the story along. If you haven't seen the film, click here for a choice of 3 (count them, three!) different Inception trailers. Then go see it! If you have seen the film, but you're still scratching your head this illustrated guide to the film might help clear things up (a bit).

Pillow talk

Last night I dreamt I was eating a giant marshmallow. When I woke up my pillow was gone.

When I told this joke to a class of my students once, they groaned in unison. One student at the front of the class didn’t seem to realise it was a joke. Or just didn’t get it. “So where was your pillow?” she asked.

Twenty Past Two

Ray, a friend of mine who works at the same University as me, has a son who writes a blog at fourteentwenty.com. I only just looked at it this week for the first time. I like it. A couple of things that caught my eye were Flat Life, a 10 minute animated short, included here:



and Dreams:


Flat Life shows how much each of our lives are connected with other people's lives, and Dreams shows us there's more to life than simply meeting other people's expectations.

But I'm not the only one

If my life is one long dream, then are you just a character I've dreamt up as part of that dream? Or are you dreaming your own dream? In which case, am I simply a character in your dream? Whose dream is this anyway?

You may say I'm a dreamer

The protagonist in the film Waking Life (I still haven't seen it yet, only the clips on YouTube) is portrayed as being in some kind of 'lucid dream' type state as he goes on his journey seeking the opinions of various people on the meaning of life. Whereas in a 'normal' dream, you are effectively the passive observer or experient of the dream sequence, in a lucid dream you become aware that you're dreaming and you are then able to control the dream.

I can't say I've ever had a lucid dream (not that I can remember), although I gather it is something you can train yourself to do. As I understand it, part of this training involves asking yourself at various points during your waking life, "am I asleep or am I awake?". The idea is that you will eventually start asking yourself this question in your sleep when you are dreaming, thus raising the possibility of becoming aware of yourself dreaming.

Some people think that your whole life can be regarded as one big dream, and when you die you awaken from the dream. From this perspective, imagine what it would be like to live your waking life as a lucid dreamer... first you become aware that you're dreaming and then you realise you can control the dream. Imagine that.