In the 1984 film Dreamscape, starring Dennis Quaid as the
psychic Alex Gardner and Max von Sydow as the Doctor Paul Novotny and
Christopher Plummer as Bob Blair, a government agent with ulterior motives. In
the film, Doctor Paul Novotny contacts Alex Gardner in order to help
participate in a new scientific study about dreams and the ways of accessing
them. Alex is of course reluctant to join for he has routinely tried to hide
his psychic abilities in order to avoid raising suspicion for himself.
Eventually Alex gives in to Doctor Novotny and joins the experiment. Due to his
psychic abilities, Alex is able to “enter” the dream of another human being,
provided that the human being has entered REM mode and Alex has conditioned his
body to match his heart’s BPM with the victim.
Because of this distortion of
reality, the film Dreamscape brings
about an interesting perspective on the material nature of the body, and the
possible materiality of the human mind. This in turn is a response to
Descartes’ notions of the dualistic nature of mind and body, answering to
Descartes musings that yes, the mind is of material substance, and yes, this
substance can be exploited and explored provided there is someone who contains
telekinetic and psychic powers of the mind. This is an interesting inference,
not only for the sake of the film Dreamscape,
but so much so that in any case there is a person who proclaims to be a
psychic, or can bend spoons with their minds must deny that there is an
immaterial mind. If this were not the case, how on earth can an immaterial mind
“read” another immaterial mind? Is it by going through the ethereal space? Or
is it because the minds are alike the psychic can “find” another mind?
While the film does not try to
answer these questions, it cannot help but raise even more questions,
specifically with each scene in which Alex “enters” another person’s dream.
Through each sequence, there is a distorted tunnel that is shown through
different substances, colors, as well as environments. For the neurotic
husband, his dream is an erotic red that billows and bellows the sounds of a
female, while a terrified boy being eaten away by his nightmares has a tunnel
that is in shades, has a violent soundscape full of clanging and lightning, and
every other person Alex enters also has a unique and different tunnel. This
film shows that each person has a unique substance, a different tunnel that can
help him or her be recognized. Is this not another way of understanding Locke’s
Of Identity and Diversity? For a “thinking intelligent Being, that has
reason and reflection” can in fact be recognized as such by Alex or any other
Psychic. For each mind Alex enters, he is in fact entering another person’s
consciousness and reflection. Alex can understand the minds around him, and can
in fact perceive another person’s identity. If it is possible for Alex to enter
another person’s mind, that person must also exist, for without existence, Alex
would have nothing to enter into. The mind as itself tries to lock itself away
from the outside world, but Alex, and any other psychic in our world, can
perceive the inner workings of the mind.
A final musing over the film Dreamscape is the notion that if a
person is killed in a dream by a psychic (I am assuming that the figments of a
person’s mind cannot kill that particular person, but only a psychic who
infiltrates the mind and contains a unique substance to itself can possibly
kill the mind), that person is in fact killed in real life. If this is the
case, then this would mean that the mind’s own physicality takes such
precedence over the body, that it is one of the few characteristics of a person
that is a necessity. Without the mind, a person is a corpse.
Through all of the film, a cheesy
story line and amusing action sequences take place, but the questions and
implications the film raise make it worth a viewing.
What I find very interesting about your review of the film is your commentary about the way different people had different looking dreams. I do think the film screws up this idea a little though because when we see the President's original nightmares, they appear very different from the train nightmare during the climax of the film. I think that could mean that the experience of a dream has not only to do with the dreamer, but also the content of the dream. In your last paragraph, you talk about the idea that if you die in a dream, you die in real life. Though this is a major plot point, there are some flaws with this idea throughout the film. When Alex first enters the mind of another, he falls off a skyscraper and plumets to the ground. We are then taken back to the dream lab when Alex wakes up from his dream state without any problems even through his dream-self has assuming died from a fall. Later in the movie Bob Blair says "So the old wives tale come true after all. When you dream that you die, you die in life." What is the difference between these deaths? You point out that maybe it has to be a psychic who enters the dream who kills the dreamer, but regardless of the rules, this is a hole in the suspension of disbelief.
ReplyDeleteI also had my suspicions in regarding the plot hole of Alex avoiding death after his first experience in tapping into someone else's dream, but if I am not mistaken, we as a viewer never see Alex's death. I believe that whoever wrote this wonderfully bad B movie would argue that the story implies that Alex managed to escape from the dream moments before his dream-self hits the ground.
DeleteI think you bring up two very interesting points that I also contemplated when writing my blog post on Inception. First, while it does seem ridiculous, how do we know for certain that we are in our waking life? I think this argument can be supported by several parts of Descartes' Second Meditation. He maintains that while there are two parts to our mind (the knowledge and understanding, and the sense), only what we understand from our own thoughts can be accepted as the truth. In Inception, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) claims dreams feel real when we are in them, it's only when we wake up that we realize something is strange. Thus, going back to Descartes' points, how do we know we aren't actually dreaming right now since that decision would be based on our senses rather than actual knowledge? Secondly, I liked your point about how without the mind, a person is a corpse. This is definitely supported by Descartes' argument, "Cogito ergo sum," or "I think therefore I am." Thus, if someone thinks, they exist.
ReplyDeleteChris, I think your final point about the duality of the mind and body and the mind's physicality (or ability to function on its own), is an extremely pertinent observation when talking in relation to Descartes' Second Meditation. In order for one to be sure of his/her own existence, everything must be traced back to the mind/consciousness and its self-sufficiency (that is to say, is functioning autonomously from the physical world). If the psychic in this movie kills someone in their dream (destroying their mind and consciousness), then they are killed in real life as well, represented physically in the movie by the death of the actual character, but more symbolically, placing the aura of human existence in the consciousness and mind rather than the physical extension of the human body.
ReplyDeleteHaving just watched the video of Deleuze posted by Dr. J, something that sparked my attention in relation to this review was the statement "As soon as someone else dreams, there is danger. People's dreams are always devouring, threatening to engulf us. . . each one of us is a victim of the other's dream." When Alex experiences another's consciousness, he not only reveals the diversity and specificity of each human mind, the power it has over their own perception and waking interpretations (for example, the president's decision to relinquish America's nuclear power at the Geneva convention instigated by his apocalyptic nightmares), but he experiences how the mind of another can affect those sentient "thinking intelligent Beings" around it. Yet, as you pointed out, it's not the mind that can end another person's consciousness, rendering their body lifeless and obsolete, but the psychic who infiltrates their dream. This fluctuation between active and inactive and the consequences of such states in relation to others, in relation to what Deleuze suggests, intrigues me. For the mind is an active, powerful "substance" but the act of dreaming seems so involuntary. You sleep, and your consciousness wanders. By presenting dream as an active endeavor through the science fiction elements, I think not only does Dreamscape raise some interesting metaphysical questions about thought and the human mind, but also extends them beyond a personal examination of one's own capacity to reason and doubt.
ReplyDelete