The world of dreams has always been a fantasy to the human mind This inexplicable world full of illusions and images has puzzled humans since centuries.docx

8/14/2019 The world of dreams has always been a fantasy to the human mind This inexplicable world full of illusions and im

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The world of dreams has always been a fantasy to the human mind This inexplicable world full

of illusions and images has puzzled humans since centuries, and the curiosity has always tried to

untangle the mysteries and the interpretations of the dreams ,and the occult messages , if there

are any and if those messages and images are the result of our hidden desires or they are the

results of our unconcious mind. But what exactly is meant by unconcious mind ? Does it really

exists or is it just a mere hyopothetical space crafted by philosophers and psychologists?

When we talk of dreams and unconcious, immediately Sigmund Freud comes to our mind, one

of the most important figures who paved the way to deduce the complexities of human dreams

with a scientific approach. As the notable psychoanylst states ( Ch. 1 . The scientific literature of

dream problem, Interpretation of dreams)

I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret

dreams, and that on the application of this technique every dream will reveal itself as a

psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place

in the psychic activities of the waking state

Freud came out with scientific methodologies to unravel the occult mystries of the strangeness

and obscurity of dreams , and how each element of the dreams is a self projection of the desires

( as stated by Lacan) with the help of these methodologies one may be able to decipher the

extraordinary variations in the content as well as the visualisation of the dreams. . First we would

be going through Freudian methodolgies and subsequently we would be using them to analyse

two movies- The Vanilla Sky directed by Cameron Crowe in which we would be going

through the manifestation of the desires on dreams and their uncontrolled outcome and The

Machinist by Brad Anderson, which plays with the subtle unconcious of the protagonist and the

occult emotions of guilt and their projections.

Freud On Dreams

In his book, Interpretation of Dreams ,( ch 1 ,Section B- The Material of Dreams-Memory in

dreams) Freud states that

That all the material composing the content of a dream is somehow derived from experience,

that it is reproduced or remembered in the dream

This is true that our dreams are manifestations of our experiences and daily life. All that is

projected in the dreams is either influenced by a person whom we had talked to or someone whowe know very well , experiences that we have had , places that we have visited or from the

things we do normally, our habits, our lifestyle and the list goes on. According to Freud , the

whole content of a dream can be largely grouped under two entities , they areThe Manifest and

The Latent content. Generally speaking, the former represents the dream itself, the imagery and

the depictions , the visual content of the dream and the latter signifies , as its name suggests the

latent , or the hidden meaning to every imagery , projections, and visuals and related to the occult


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or single words. The secondary revision is responsible for the organized narrative and story like

quality of the dream , that is the sequence of events and their organization .

Vanilla sky

The film Vanilla sky is 2001 American film directed , co produced , and co- written byCameron Crow .It is a remake of 1997 Spanish film Abre los Ojos( open your eyes), written

by Alejandro Amenbar and Mateo Gil. Personally I feel that Vanilla sky Stands out to be

more Intense and creative in representing the theme of the movie.The movie depicts the life of a

young man , David Aames, played by Tom Cruise , and his constant tussle with his unconcious

and dreams and he is unable to decipher whether he is in a state of reality or a dream .

The movie starts with the cityscape of New york from heights and a feminine voice calling out

Open your eyes ,which is the recorded voice of Davids alarm clock .He gets up and gets

ready for work and as he drives towards his office, he finds out that the streets are totally empty

and and none is there . When he reaches New York Times Square he finds out that it is totallydeserted and he begins to Run and being paranoid screams out and finds himself awaken this

time, as this all was nothing but a dream and the sound of his alarm clock speaking Open your

eyes, but this time with a different voice,that is of Juliana, ( Cameron Diaz), who is Davids

casual fling partner . Here we see displacement in the dream , as substitution of Voice in alarm

clock . The actual one being of Julianas , but the substituted one of being Sofias , Davids love

interest . The birdseye view of New York is corollary to Davids real life , as we learn that he is

afraid of heights.Here again we see displacement, that is substituting fear of height with the

images as if he is flying. The absence of people reflects the loneliness and running away from it

is his loneliness where he cannot relate himself to anyone around him, where everyone see him

as a rich brat, who just got to inherit his fathers company without any hard work. Since ,hischildhood , he was considered reckless and irresponsible .The next sequence in which David is

wearing a prosthetic Mask and is in jail , talking to a psychatrist Mr. McCabe as he is been

accused of a murder, and he recollects the moment when he met Sofa , a young dancer who

came to her Birthday Party, with Brian , his Best friend. In one of the scenes , Sofia is looking at

a distorted guitar of a famous rock and roll singer , placed as an artpiece in Davids home. The

distortion of life and the nonlinear form of lifestyle corresponds to the broken guitar.

Meeting with Sofia was a inforgettable moment for David,as he sees himself falling for her at

first sight.In the succcessive scenes, he leaves from the Sofias House and finds himself being

stalked by Juliana .Obviously , Juliana is envious about the growing proximity of David andSofia, and while she tries to persuade David , of their relationship , she asks him What is

Happiness to you David? . This is the same question that we see being a sked about by the

young man , on the terrace to David. Here we see , that this dream leads David to his unending

search for the reasons of his happiness. According to Freud, our latent wishes and emotions are

the manifest content of the dreams ,so this simplifies that Davids reasons for happiness are

being manifested in this question , which appears many times in the movie.


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The accident appears to be a dream to David which he later tells Sofia , But sees her running

away from himself. Though we do not see yet the disfigured face, but later it explains the cause

of the disfigurement. This distortion of face depicts the non -linearity and the broken life of

David and exclusion of Juliana from his life. The prosthetic mask follows the censorship , where

he to accept his deformity, and much more being distanced away from Sofa . One of the peculiar

things of the movie is its Non linear form of depiction , where the protagonist himself is

ambiguous about his presence state, whether he is in dream or is he In reality. As Freud says

the dream has at its disposal no means of representing these logical relations between the dream-

thoughts. In most cases it disregards all these conjunctions, and undertakes the elaboration only of the

material content of the dream-thoughts. It is left to the interpretation of the dream to restore the

coherence which the dream-work has destroyed. ( Pg 102,C. the means of representation of

Dream,I nterpretation of dreams)

The bar scene , where David , confronts with his friend Brian and Sofia, whom he feels is ignoring her

because of his distorted face is where it leads a scuffle amongst the two and David because of his uncanny

behaviour. After the incident , he breaks up and lies unconcious in the street near Sofias house. In the

morning , Sofia comes up to wake her up with her Open Your eyes. We see that whenever he gets up

from a dream it is the voice of Sofia , who is doing that. The dream reproduces only a distorted form of

the dream-wish in the unconscious.Again, in the lock up , while discussing the incident, Dr. McCabe asks

him the same question again , that What is Happiness to you David?. This is Nothing, But another self

projection of David and catapulting the same question again and again to himself only.

displacement of another kind does occur, and that it manifests itself in an exchange of the verbal

expression for the thought in question ( Pg 110, D. Regard for representability,the Interpretaion of

dreams )

Thus we see , how displacement helps us to unravel the circulation of Davids question to himself in

different manifestations.

Davids dreams starts to play with him,on the night when he is with Sofa ,when he sees that he is now

cured and the distortion of has been cured and returned to normalcy.Though he still have some

hallucinations of his distorted face. But , the night when he is with Sofa , but actually finds out Juliana

beside her , who tells him that she is Sofa and he asfixiates her with pillow and when he removes the

pillow , he realizes that he has killed Sofa. Here we see condensation playing a major role in the dreams

of David. His fear and desires entangle in such a way that they are intensely represented as violence and

yearning for Sofa in his dreams.

The Lucid dream of the life extension in the final part of the movie explains all the mysteries of Davids

Mind.This whole series of events was nothing but Davids extended dream,and the whole thing is his

creation.After he had fallen in the street, Sofa didnt ever turnedup, and he went home and later ended

his life.But his Lucid dream begins from that point where he was lying in the street .After that he moment

it was all a dream of the life that he wanted to live with Sofa.Elements of plastic representation begin to

reveal, when the Man calling himself the tech support of Life extension explains him that it is he who

chose this whole scenario


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.The individual parts of this complicated structure naturally stand in the most manifold logical relationsto one another. They constitute foregroundand background, digressions, illustrations, conditions, lines of

argument and objections. When the whole mass of these dream-thoughts is subjected to the pressure of

the dream-work, during which the fragments are turned about, broken up and compacted,

( Pg, 102, C . the means of representations of dreams, The interpretation of dreams)

The moments that he spent in his dream was crafted out from the iconography of his youth.He and Sofa

walking by the street was inspired by the album cover that once moved him. Dr. McCabe is also not real ,

but a figment of his imagination that was inspired by a movie in which a father talked to son , and this

was represented as a protective and understanding figure of Dr. McCabe, just like a father having a

conversation with his son and clearing his dilemmas. The fact that he barely knew Sofa in his real life but

in his dream she was his saviour truly stands out. The Monet like skies in the final scene , were his

mothers favourite and the last scene on the roof where he has the final choice to continue with the dream

or to face the real world,is a concrete representation of his own choices in life, but in dream with a slight

imaginative touch. He chose the roof as to end his fear of heights. Again the projection of his question

by the young man what is happiness to you David? And the fact that Brian used to say that the Thesweet is never as sweet without the sour are his manifestations derived from the real life, a means of

plastic representation and symbolism.

The final scene where he jumps from the roof is his way to end the dream and with it the fear of

heights.Its is his moment of choice , where he wants to continue with his real life. In the end , he wakes

up with the voice calling him to Open your eyes , which is the voice of Sofa , and it is the same voice

that wakes him up from every dream.This is his manifestation that Sofa is reality to him and that is why

each time it is Sofas voice, waking him up from the world of his dreams.

The Machinist

The Machinist is a 2004 English language film directed by Brad Anderson , starring Christian Bale as

Trevor Reznik, who is a machinist in a metal workshop and who claims that he has not slept in a year and

is haunted by flashes of recurring imagery and everyday events in his life , where he is unable to deduce

the reasons and lead him to a state of paranoia. It is his unconcious psyche that plays with him in which

his occult emotions are deeply based , which results in an unusual series of events . First of all the the

imageries that flashes before his eyes keep repeating themselves. As Freud states

A relaxation of resistances with a consequent pushing forward ofunconscious material, takes placeregularly in the state of sleep, and thus brings about a necessary precondition for the

construction of dreams. ( Pg. 13 ,Chp.IV , Psychichal qualities, An outline of Psychoanalysis)

These are many images that flash before Trevor in his daily life, and someway or the other he experiences

Dejv ,and the simplest reason is that these all images are a play of Trevors unconcious mind , and they

keep appearing before him conveying some ciphered messages which Trevor and leading him to utter

confusion . Starting with the car cigarette lighter , Trevor is bewildered every time he uses that lighter and

the constanly appearing post it notes with a game of hangman and a puzzle written on it, which he is

able to solve in the final and explains the reason for his insomnia. These all are a result of profusion and


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like the tunnel through which he passed after the accident, all these are manifestations of his repressed

memories.

the young and feeble ego put back into the unconscious state some of the material it had already taken

in, dropped it, and behave in the same way to some fresh impressions which it might have taken in, so that

these, having been rejected, could leave a trace only in the id. In consideration of its origin we speak of

this latter portion of the id as the repressed ( Pg.14, Chp. Dream interpretation as an illustration, An

outl ine of Psychoanalysis)

The notes on his regfrigerator with stick figures and the wordplay with the letters is also his depiction of

guilt. The word that he makes from the missing letter , are mother and killer , both pertaining from

the incident. The photograph that he finds out in Ivans purse, proving his acquaintance with other co-

worker Reynolds, and as a proof of his existence , upon being confronted with Stieve , turns out to be his

own photograph, thus proving that Ivan really does not exist, but it is the repressed id of Trevor, that

Trevor who killed Nicholas and ran away.

The final scene in which he kills Ivan and after rolling him in a carpet and he goes to the dam to dump

him reveals the height of his uncontrolled psyche over his feeling of guilt. As he dumps him, and sees

somebody approaching him , and as the carpet rolls over , it is seen that it is totally empty , and the man

who has approached him , is no one but Ivan, his id. In the final , as he washes his hand, which again is

his one of the actions to get rid of the guilt,and the feeling of despite, he sees Ivan standing behind him ,

and he recognizes as himself, the murderer and all the events of the hit and run flash before his eyes.

In the end he realizes his mistake , and decides to stop running from it. He goes to the police station and

surrenders so to and this feeling of guilt , and we see Trevor sleeping contently for the first time in the

entire movie.

The super-ego is aware of it in its judicial functions as our conscience. It is a remarkable thing that

the super-ego often displays a severity for which no model has been provided by the real parents,

and moreover that it calls the ego to account not only for its deeds but equally for its thoughts and

unexecuted intentions, of which the super-ego seems to have knowledge. This reminds us that the

hero of the Oedipus legend too felt guilty for his deeds and submitted himself to self-punishment

(Pg 35 chapter IX , The internal world, an Outline of psychoanalysis)


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The world of dreams has always been a fantasy to the human mind This inexplicable world full of illusions and images has puzzled humans since centuries.docx