Critical Research

The influence of neurology and dream theories on contemporary cinema

By Priscilla Nash

Intro

In this study I will be using Inception, Sucker Punch, Waking Life, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Source Code, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland and Shutter Island as my primary texts. My primary texts enforce notions of dream manipulation and I will be exploring if these films apply to the theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler or Jean Baudrillard. Each theorist has a different belief in terms of dream significance and I will be evaluating how these ideas of simulacra, symbolism and consciousness are influenced and integrated into recent films/contemporary cinema and how applicable the theories are to the texts. I will be able to gather my secondary texts through books, articles, resources on the Internet and critics reviews. A few definitions of the word “consciousness” are as follows: “the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings” and “a person’s awareness or perception of something”. Throughout my textual analysis I will also be judging how far these definitions relate to my primary texts, if at all.

Freud, Adler and Jean Baudrillard all had different theories in terms of dream interpretation and their significance. Sigmund Freud believed that dreams have both manifest and latent content; they are either random and meaningless or subliminally trying to inform the dreamer of their waking desires. Freud believed in the significance of symbolism in a person’s dream and that sexual desire is a dominant motivation. Alfred Adler however, insisted that dreams were “problem-solving devices” and that they have noteworthy relevance to our waking state. His theory consisted of the idea that a person’s thoughts in consciousness are exactly the same when asleep and that the answers to their daily struggles are revealed to them in a state of dreaming. Jean Baudrillard focused on ideas of hyperreality, simulacra and simulation; this is the idea that postmodernism takes over and the dreamer is unable to determine dream simulation from reality. This suggests that elements of reality can be the stimulus for the projections that occur during sleep and the dreamer believes that simulation has become the reality.

Adler

“Alfred Adler believes that dreams are an important tool to mastering control over your waking lives.” Austrian doctor Alfred Adler strongly believes that dreams have a direct correlation to a person’s waking state and is driven by motivational purposes as opposed to Freud’s theories of sexual desire and manifest-latent content. Adler also believes that dreams are representations of present day and future experiences that are depicted as obstacles in every day life. Films like Inception, Source Code and Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland are all examples of how directors incorporated the idea of using a dream-state to solve the troubles in the characters’ lives. An example that enforces this theory is the scene from Source Code where Captain Colter Stevens is being briefed about how he has to keep going back to the last eight minutes of a dead person’s life in order to find a bomber and stop a following attack. This is an accurate link to Adler’s theory of using dreams to solve problems of the conscious state and reality.

Freud

Freud however, opposes Adler’s theories and inclines toward ideas of symbolisation, projection and displacement. “However, Freud was cautious about symbols and stated that general symbols are personal rather than universal.  A person cannot interpret what the manifest content of a dream symbolized without knowing about the person’s circumstances.” Freud implies that these dream symbols are metaphors for the dreamer’s desires and thoughts that are deep within the unconscious mind. Shutter Island and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind are prime examples of how a person’s desires can be manifested into something or someone else in the form of a dream. A specific example of this is a scene in Shutter Island where U.S Marshall Teddy Daniels has a dream of a woman named “Rachel Solando” and helps her dispose of the bodies of her children she murdered. Teddy has reoccurring dreams about Rachel, who is actually a displacement of his wife. Teddy murdered his wife and somewhere in his subconscious he feels guilty about doing so, enforcing Freud’s theories of symbolism and displacement.

“We are not in quite the same state of consciousness as when awake, but we are consciously viewing and moving around in a dream space, which we believe to be real.”  This theory by Robert J Hoss, found on http://www.dreamscience.org/idx_science_of_dreaming_section-3.htm, is an accurate representation of how directors have used ideas such as these to portray dream manipulation in contemporary cinema throughout recent years. The themes of using dreams to solve issues in a person’s waking life have become a common use of film concept in contemporary cinema; with Inception being such a success, Alfred Adler’s theories are being incorporated into more films, using the idea of dreams being problem-solvers. “A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.” This definition of the word “dream” relates directly to the film Waking Life which explores the conscious and subconscious desires of the main character and those around him; the motives of each character and what drives them is a vital part of how they act within the dreams. An example of this is the scene in Waking Life of “The Self-Destructive Man” who openly shares his views of pessimism and how the media manipulatively portrays serious worldly situations. 

Baudrillard
“Simulacra are copies that depict things that either had no reality to begin with, or that no longer have an original.[1] Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time”. Jean Baudrillard, a French philosopher, has confidence in the idea that dreams are an imitation of real life situations and are re-created when asleep; Sucker Punch demonstrates this theory accurately as the character manipulates her waking life situations and interprets them into her dreams – the hyper-reality slowly becomes her reality.

Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland

Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland is a primary text that is an accurate representation of Alfred Adler’s theories of how dreams are used as tools to solve the issues in a person’s waking life but also follows aspects of Freud’s theories of displacement: “This occurs when the desire for one thing or person is symbolized by something or someone else.” The characters in Alice’s dream are a representation of those she encounters in her waking state, making it easier for her to understand each person’s motive and how she can resolve her struggles. Throughout the film Alice insists that she is dreaming and that she is in control, suggesting ideas of lucid dreaming and beholding the power to change her daily state of affairs. For example,  the untrustworthy Knave Of Hearts is an exaggerated portrayal of Alice’s brother-in-law who is shown to be unfaithful to her sister at the start of the film and the Red Queen is shown as Alice’s cold-hearted soon to be mother-in-law.  I think the messages that the film is trying to portray are that if you can defeat the “giants” in your dreams, you will be able to approach difficult situations in your waking life with confidence and ease, which is what Alfred Adler is trying to explain in his theories and what direct correlation Tim Burton is attempting to display in this film. A direct example of this is when Alice defeats the Jabberwocky and sets the characters free from the Red Queen’s reign. I think this is a direct correlation to Alice’s waking life situations; the Jabberwocky could be a representation of the arranged marriage Alice is being forced into. By slaying the Jabberwocky, Alice is taking a stand and deciding not to marry who’s been chosen for her and set those around her free from tradition and dominant ideologies.

Sucker Punch
The film Sucker Punch demonstrates Jean Baudrillard’s theory of non-reality becoming real as long as the dreamer believes it. In Sucker Punch, Baby Doll believes that the strip-club she’s created in her mind is reality to cover up the bleak and depressing life she’s actually living. The events that occur in the strip-club are symmetrical to what happens in Baby Doll’s real life but the film follows the story of her stimulated fantasy, which she perceives to be real. A specific example of this is when Rocket gets stabbed by the chef and Baby Doll closes her eyes and goes into a fantasy which makes the situation less graphic than it is. These dream fantasies are Baby Doll’s escape from reality and opts to stay there for the duration of the film.  

Another example of hyper-reality being dominant in Sucker Punch is the scene where Baby Doll is about to have a sexual encounter with the “High Roller” as he claims to give her “freedom” but in veracity she is about to be lobotomised and the “High Roller” is the doctor who’s performing the lobotomy. Although this is a representation of how Baby Doll chooses the simulated world she’s created to be her reality, it also has elements of Freud’s theory of displacement and sexual desire; in Baby Doll’s hyper-reality dream, she’s portraying the mental institution as a strip-club, causing everything and everyone around her to be completely sexualised. This could be in correlation to the beginning of the film where her step-father attempts to rape her, causing thoughts of sexual desire (not necessarily hers) to be dominant in her subconscious.

A final example of how Freud’s dream theories collide with hyper-reality in this scene is the lobotomy that is performed on Baby Doll. There is blood on the needle after she’s been lobotomised; before the lobotomy took place Baby Doll was about to have a sexual encounter with the High Roller – the blood on the needle after the lobotomy could be symbolised as the blood from Baby Doll losing her virginity, further pushing theories of displacement and symbolism.

Waking Life

Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra is evidently shown in this film in terms of believing an alternate world to be reality. Richard Linklater’s Waking Life (2001) shows the world of lucid dreaming and how the main character perceives the dreams to be reality for a certain amount of time, until he is aware that he is dreaming and tries to find ways of controlling them. Large influences of lucid dreaming are used in this film; the dreamer is aware that he’s dreaming but refuses to conform to the idea that the dream-state is his reality, despite the projections that are portrayed as anonymous characters who he encounters. An example is the man with the ukulele in Waking Life who tells the main character the following: “The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams.” In a way, the ukulele player encourages the main character to embrace the idea of post-modernism and merge consciousness with hyper-reality on a regular basis. This shows how Jean Baudrillard’s theories of simulacra and simulation are being conformed to in contemporary cinema.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an example of how dream manipulation is over-shadowed by the dreamer’s id. There are elements of Adler’s theory in this film where Joel decides he wants to get Clementine erased from his memory. In order for Joel to move on and be reasonably content with his waking life, he has to go into his own mind in the form of a dream and watch his memories of her crumble and fade away. Baudrillard’s hyper-reality is also demonstrated in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the scene where Joel is chasing after Clementine in the street after an argument which he believes to be real, but as cars fall from the sky to represent Clementine’s anger, Joel realises he is no longer in reality. This is an example of exaggerating emotions on a visual level. The crumbling house on the beach towards the end of the film is a representation of Joel’s memories of Clementine being destroyed as he reaches the final stage of his dream/memories of her.

I think that Jean Baudrillard's theory of simulacra, simulation and hyper-reality are the most prominent when it comes to contemporary cinema seeing as they are the most common themes throughout the films that I have studied. Ideas about the character believes the simulated world is their reality is dominant in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Sucker Punch and Waking Life. The idea of hyper-reality being the characters' coping mechanism and masking the harsh reality they're actually living in has been a re-occurring theme in recent contemporary cinema, emphasizing that dream theories and neurology are becoming more popular. Sucker Punch clearly demonstrates how the dreamer takes control of the simulated world and adapts to the situations around, them, Waking Life explores what happens when the dreamer is unable to determine dreams from reality and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind depicts the theory of simulation and dream manipulation. Each of these films were successful in terms of narrative and audience reception, further proving that ideas of simulacra, simulation and hyper-reality are being widely accepted in contemporary cinema.

Bibliography/References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

http://www.dreamresearch.ca/pdf/adler.pdf

http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html

http://wakinglifemovie.net/Transcript/Chapter/10

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud2.htm

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dream

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation