I don't know if you could tell by the title, but I am a huge fan of Billie Elish's 2019 debut album, When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go, which uses a mixture of percussion, strings, and even the sound of a dentist drill, to emulate her interpretation of nightmares, lucid dreams, and personal memories. While she leaves her fans room to interpret her songs, Elish gives a glimpse into her dreams through tone, such as how in "Bury A Friend", her voice is auto-tuned to sound eerie and the sounds of glass being broken can be heard, symbolizing how the character in this song is experiencing a frightening dream. Her lyrics also aid in visualizing each song; for example, when she sings, "What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me? Why aren't you scared of me? What do you know?", she is giving the perspective of the "monster", as well as the protagonist when she goes on to sing, "I wanna end me", which illustrates the character's desire to escape the nightmare.
How do we answer Elish's main question? Where do we go when we fall asleep? What do our dreams mean? Are they alternative realities? Is it a reference to a future event? How does our brain concept a story that is made of up tiny memory fragments and everyday thoughts? I wanted to explore these questions with my film opening, so today's blog will be focusing on the research I found about dreams, and how past films have demonstrated them on screen.
Entering the Mind of Five Year Old Sophia
When I was little, I once had a dream where I was stuck in a cupcake factory with a bunch of Disney characters. Did we break out into song? Yes. Did we eat a bunch of cupcakes? Absolutely. But, how does a random and imaginary dream suddenly come to my head? It most likely had to do with my current experiences, thoughts, and memories. At the time, I was extremely obsessed with Mickey and the Three Musketeers, which explains the singing Disney characters and Mickey Mouse being my sidekick, but where in the world did my brain get the cupcake factory from? This dream is an example of an illusory dream, which are dreams based off of incongruent and bizzare content that didn't exist in real time. However, those elements of the dream based off of real thoughts, experiences, and memories would be considered "authentic" parts of a dream.
Being trapped inside a random cupcake factory with Mickey and his friends wasn't the fever dream you would expect, as we go through one wild adventure where we have to save Minnie Mouse as she was trapped in a basement, and eventually end in one elaborate dance sequence. It was, and still is, one my favorite dreams because my brain somehow managed to keep me entertained in my own imaginary alternative reality with engaging characters and plot. Keeping this in mind, I wanted to incorporate a dream sequence within my film opening in order to keep the audience interested with the character and storyline. In order to accomplish this, I researched how dreams have been used in previous films to further the plot.
Dreaming Illustrated Through Film
When it comes to using dreams in films, I noticed during my research that they are mainly used to symbolize the puzzle pieces to the overall story. For example, in Shutter Island, Leonardo Dicaprio's character, Teddy, experiences fragments of dreams and hallucinations that eventually piece together at the climax of the film. Other films, such as Rosemary's Baby, have used dreams to establish a sense of wonder. Through this film, for instance, the main protagonist, Rosemary, continues to have dreams that add to the story, and sometimes wakes up with physical evidence of those dreams, but each dream still leaves the audience to wonder whether it was real or not. Recently, I watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind with my dad, and I noticed that has Jim Carrey's character was going through the experiment, memories of his love interest would disappear, making it seem as though that his memories never existed, and they were simply dreams. By illustrating these "dream states" we learn about his relationship with Clementine, and how she impacted him both mentally and emotionally. Therefore, dreams can represent the inner most thoughts and emotions of a person, and how that impacts their relationship to the environment and people they surrounded themselves with.
What's Next?
While I haven't come up with a plot line, I do know that I want this dream sequence to be a fundamental aspect in displaying who my characters are. By giving my characters an objective, I am able to use their thoughts and emotions as a way to keep the audience engaged in understanding and relating to the characters. My research also inspired me to use dreams as a way to leave the audience with a sense of wonder, wanting to know how the rest of the movie would occur. If I am going to create this sense of mystery, my next obstacle would be crafting a script that doesn't tell too much of the plot, and instead focuses on setting the characters' current state and thoughts. It is also important that I focus on technical elements as well in order to leave visual clues for the audience as to what the dream may mean and how it relates to the characters.
Cited Sources
Shenoi, K. B. (2010, November 10). Dreams and films and dreams | Far Flungers | Roger Ebert. © Copyright 2021. https://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/dreams-and-films-and-dreams
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