That (sub)conscious thinking thing...

     Dreamscape (1984) opens with the figure of a woman in terror, running frantically (and futilely) from a fiery green-screen-simulated atomic blast.  The scene ends with an abrupt cut to a man in bed, drenched in sweat, jolted awake and upright by what he has just seen, instilling within us as the viewing audience the familiar "it was all a dream" assurance.  Though dreamscape and reality are visually easily distinguishable through the use of similar, and similarly-campy, special effects like the opening scene, as the film progresses, the metaphorical division between waking-life and dream, conscience and subconscious, becomes increasingly volatile.  The film, with all its overwhelming pre-CGI goofiness and casual sexism, resonates with the concerns of the Cartesian dualists and explorations of the self in terms of mind and body and the perceived reality of both.
     **Spoiler Alert** If you watch this trailer, you'll have seen almost the whole film but for those of you who don't want to take the two minutes, eleven seconds to ruin the journey, and Dreamscape is a journey, Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) plays a psychic who uses his abilities to live a playboy-esque lifestyle while on the run from those who want to experiment with and potentially exploit his telekinetic faculties.  When Alex is dragged back into the life he escaped from to assist Dr. Novoty (Max Von Sydow) and love-interest Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw) with a new "project," one that involves joining a fellow dreamer through psychic projection in order to alter their subconscious trauma that manifests through reoccurring nightmares, he tests the limits of his own psyche and psychic abilities as well as the relationship between his active, dreaming mind and his dormant, inactive body.  
     Descartes determines, after doubting anything that can be determined through the senses, that is anything physical or of the body, "I am, I exist, that is certain. But how often? Just when I think; for it might possibly be the case if I ceased entirely to think, that I should likewise cease altogether to exist" (134).  Therefore the faculties of the imagination, the mind, become crucial in figuring our sense of self,  the reality we experience as a true and accurate perception.  Dreamscape definitely privileges the mind over the body as most of the plot depends heavily on what occurs in the dream, and even the sex-scene between Alex and Jane occurs through psychic dream connection, discounting the body's physical role all-together, which brings us to Locke.  Locke considers the self as "that conscious thinking thing. . . which is sensible, or conscious of Pleasure and Pain, capable of Happiness or Misery" (198), agreeing with Descartes  that what gives the self meaning is the ability to produce thought.  However, Locke's dualism appears less divisive.  If what constitutes the self is its ability to think and understand sentiment, suggesting that pain and pleasure are not felt per se but experienced by the mind, then what keeps the thinking conscious attached to its body? To illustrate this, he supplies the inventive (and relatable) example of how a drunk, who is not considered himself, that is, not considered of the same conscious as his sober self, still receives punishment in the morning for the previous night's actions because he is not two persons, but one and the same.  However, for our purposes and certainly for the film's, a similar example might prove more relevant in highlighting Locke's mind/body inquiry: "If the same Socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same Person, [a nonsensical claim]. And to punish Socrates waking, for what sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of, would be no more Right, than to punish one Twin for what is Brother-Twin did" (199).  Obviously, a dream is a dream or in the case of the film, a nightmare is a nightmare, and the actions and thoughts within make sense depending on the logic applicable to the dreamscape.  But where the film complicates this is with our protagonist Alex, though he may be asleep, has the power to not only project himself into another's dream, but assume an active role in that dreamer's mind.  When he is able to move around and assess the situation, the dreamer is bound to the dream logic, still afraid of the monster knocking at the door or the love of his life having an affair with all his friends.  This established logic shifts without explanation by the end of the film but hey, we're talking 1980s sci-fi camp and not big budget consistency.  Anyway, not only is Alex just as much of an agent in sleep as in waking, but the film plays with the urban myth of death in a dream meaning death in "real life," suggesting that the mind and its activities are inextricably connected our bodies and their existence.  As the ending of the film suggests, a joking double-take-wait-are-we-awake moment in a train, this connectedness does give reason to doubt what we perceive.
     A few final thoughts.  This connection, as suggested by the film comes with a severity.  As suggested by Hume, "sleep, a very small effect on the body, is attended with a temporary extinction, at least a great confusion of the soul" (231).  Sleep and dreaming is confusing because we leave the world we normally perceive behind temporarily, adopting a new logic for what feels like a new consciousness.  Alex is able to transcend this confusion through his psychic abilities, but that does not mean he wanders freely through the dreamscape.  His mind, his soul, is at just as much risk as his body.

If you like semi-claymation snake men, rescuing the president of the United States, perms, explosions, and/or saxophones, this is the film for you!