In his groundbreaking work The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud put forward the idea that "Every dream represents the fulfillment of a wish." For many dreams, this idea seems rather self-evident. However, it's Freud's assertion that all dreams represent the fulfillment of a wish that many people have a hard time grasping. They have trouble accepting that even their nightmares are manifestations of their deepest desires. On the surface the idea appears contradictory and the implications seems appalling, but the mind is far more complicated than they imagine.
The idea is simple enough, if you think about it. A dream is an experience created by you mind. Every situation, every event, every detail no matter how small is deliberately orchestrated. There is nothing accidental. There is nothing that happens to you in a dream that runs contrary to your will, no matter how much it might appear that way. You might not be aware or feel a conscious connection to the forces creating and controlling your dreams. Nevertheless, it is your mind at work behind it all. It's your mind making it all happen. Deep down there's some part of you that wants it to happen, that needs it to happen, even if the conscious experience of it is one of overwhelming terror.
But why would your own mind deliberately put you through a terrifying ordeal like that? How could a wish-fulfillment fantasy turn into such a twisted and unpleasant experience? The film Vanilla Sky provides an excellent glimpse of this process at work. (Spoilers to follow, of course.)
The story of the film follows the emotional journey of David Ames, a young heir to a publishing empire. He has lived a life of excess and entitlement. He has money. He has no trouble picking up women. Anything he wants, he gets without effort. Disappointment, disillusionment, and regret are things he's seldom had to deal with in his life. Then one day it all falls apart. A girl named Julie that he's had a casual relationship with grows angry over his callous attitude and becomes jealous of a new girl that he's interested in named Sophia. She drives off a bridge and commits suicide with him in the car. He wakes up from a coma scarred and disfigured. Sophia shies away from him. He begins to see his nice comfortable life slipping away. All of the things that once came easy to him are now just beyond his reach.
(At this point in the story, things take a surreal turn. However, my point would be better served if I followed the events in a chronological rather than narrative order.)
Faced, for the first time in his life, with the crushing consequences of something he cannot change, David commits suicide. Before doing so, he signs a contract with a company called Life Extension to have his body placed in cryogenic stasis upon his death. He purchases a deluxe package from them called "The Lucid Dream." As the name suggested, this involves placing David's mind in a dream state while his body is frozen and preserved. This dream is "spliced" into a specifically chosen moment in David's life. As far as he knows, his life is simply continuing on from that moment. He has no memory of taking his own life or any other real-world events that happened after the splice.
Now here is where we get into the issue of dreams. The point of the Lucid Dream option is the same as the point of all dreams under Freud's theory. It is sold to David as a limitless experience of fantasy and wish-fulfillment. Yet, something goes wrong. The dream turns into a nightmare. Oh, it all begins well enough. Sophia no longer pulls away, but instead she accepts him and falls in love with him. The doctors are able to fix his disfigured face. His life seems to be getting back on track. But then things take a turn. He "wakes up" to find Julie in bed with him, claiming to be Sophia. Things begin to spin out of control. Everyone else recognizes Julie as Sophia. He has paranoid suspicions that he's the victim of some sort of conspiracy. Sophia and Julie become interchangeable to the point that it finally leads him to a breakdown that drives him to murder Sophia. In prison a psychologist leads him to remember his contract with Life Extension and the realization that he's in a dream state.
So did the people at Life Extension sell him a faulty product? Was there a glitch in the Lucid Dream option? No. The Lucid Dream delivered exactly what it was supposed to. David's dream was a wish-fulfillment, just as Freud insisted. The problem is that there are often wishes in the mind that run counter to one another, causing a traffic jam of impossibility that makes the sub-conscious incapable of projecting a pleasant scenario. David still had repressed guilt over his involvement in Julie's death. Part of him wished that he had loved Julie. Part of him wished that he had been in a deeper relationship with her, that he could have been capable of caring more about her, and that he could have spared her life. Part of him didn't feel like he deserved this happy life with Sophia and he wished that he could be in a situation that he felt less guilt and regret over. In the experience of the Lucid Dream his mind expressed these wishes by grafting Julie onto his projection of Sophia. Naturally, this conflicted with his more conscious wish to have a happy life with Sophia. This ambivalence is also represented in his worries over whether his re-constructive surgery is real and lasting.
The story of David Ames demonstrates the process of wish-fulfillment by exhibiting it in stark relief. He begins with a nearly perfect life. It's a fairly straight-forward fantasy. But then guilt, regret, and catastrophe disrupt this fantasy as they disrupt all of our fantasies and dreams. It's not a simple thing, getting what we want. Only a perfect and unblemished soul could have perfect and unblemished dreams. For the rest of us, our fears and worries, our doubts and inadequacies shade even our most ambitious desires with touches of beautiful melancholy. Occasionally, the experience can even take a horrifying turn. We can only hope that, like David Ames, we can reconcile this turbulence and find peace under these Monet-like skies.
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