All of this was a dream. There is nothing worse than being subjected to a false sense of closure, after a 2-hour long build up with a climax that is somehow supposed to tie up all ends; and, cathartically tell us that whatever we had watched in those 2 hours was a figment of the protagonist’s mind. Right up there on the list of clichés that screenwriters use, in close contention with ‘cancer’.
What if the screenwriters who make use of this lazy trope know something we don’t? A dream, a state of abstraction and trance. I have heard and read vibrant stories of colorful, adventurous, breath-taking, desirable dreams from various people. Lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, and vivid dreaming, to name a few are some of terms that I have seen people use when it comes to describing their dreams. I hardly ever dream, and even when I do dream, they’re quite mundane and involve me doing nothing. It is as if I’m trapped in this hemisphere of nothingness, where I only have my mere existence to celebrate.
Freudian philosophy has also interestingly often associated dreams with a thing of desire. To put it simply, we dream what we desire. Does that mean that those who don’t dream don’t desire anything? Incorrect. Dreaming has only been an area of study in philosophy and only recently has the possibility of dreaming as a matter of science been explored. Scientifically speaking, and mind you, I am only scratching the surface here — our brain is active when we dream. What we think, see, touch, feel and, are all connected to the brain, while other parts of the body simply aid in completing these functions.
Many works of fiction, literature and cinema alike, have explored the possibility of our reality being a dream altogether. Then comes the question, if reality isn’t real, then what is? As ludicrous as is sounds, I am going to put forth a theory that isn’t even an intellectual exercise but merely mental mastication. What we experience when we are awake isn’t real but what we dream about is in fact, real. I have no scientific facts, data or events to support this. Just this: memories that we sometimes recall don’t seem to be real sometimes. It is just our mind filling in the gaps to make up for our lack of awareness during the occurrence.
In that case, why can’t our perceived reality simply be a cut-away from our actual reality (dreams in this timeline) and the better you get at comprehending what’s real and what isn’t, your dreams start seeming more real to you. And then, you might finally master the art of lucid dreaming, which in our timeline is, reality.
Reality is an extension of some measure in our alternate timeline. All that we do in our supposedly waking hours is just what we perceive in our heads. In our alternate timeline, you will be living the dream.To borrow a cliché I sincerely find insightful — all of this was a dream.
(When he isn’t writing, the creative producer with The Rascalas watches a lot of ‘cat videos’ on YouTube)