The nature of dreams is often found to be a most fascinating inspiration for works of art. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a poem entitled "A Dream Within A Dream" about the most obvious aspect of dreams which is that they are not reality but mere fantasy. When such a perspective is mirrored into reality, so that reality is thought another dream, the illusion is devastating in its hopelessness. This defining property of dreams is the villain in another work of art as well, a recent movie titled Inception.What makes the knowledge that a dream is not real so terrifying is that it leads to analyzing reality in a way that makes it appear it is only a dream too. For if a dream could feign reality so well, how can we tell reality isn't feigning reality? Poe's poem is of the hopelessness that strikes along with the discovery of an utterly meaninglessness life, and it is this despair that kills in Inception. Meaninglessness is the ultimate depression.
"A Dream Within A Dream" compares the comprehension of everything as nothing to one being unable to keep a handful of sand in their grasp. The hand cannot clutch the grains of sand because they keep spewing out much like the attachment of significance to everything, every part of life, being dissolved. Poe picked the most fitting comparison, even calling the sand golden as meaning is so rich in joy like gold.
In the movie Inception, the main character, while trapped in the dream world with his wife, implants into her head the idea that their current 'reality' was a dream because she was beggining to think otherwise, to believe it was reality. They eventually, after about fifty years in a dream, awaken back to how they fell asleep, young again. But the idea he had planted in her brain remained, and she began to question actual reality. She ended up committing suicide, tossing herself off a ledge to 'wake up'. Tossing herself like sand spilling between fingers as her husband watched.
No one wants to consider their lives insignificant, much less with no meaning or value whatsoever. The notion is one of the most morbid there is, for it is human nature to attach and maintain meaning to everything we see. Significance is life, or perhaps at least the illusion of significance.
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Wow--what a great pairing. I haven't had a chance to see this movie yet, but I'm looking forward to watching it, especially after reading your post. This is deep. It hurts my head to think about it.
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point: "Meaninglessness is the ultimate depression." I think it does us all good to reflect often on our lives, to think about what gives our lives meaning and purpose and to examine if our choices, our priorities, our time management reflect what we say we value.