Issue 45, May 2002
Waking Life
©Jane Teresa Anderson, May 2002
Are you sure you are awake right now? Could you be reading this article in a dream?
Have you ever woken up from a dream, got up, cleaned your teeth, got ready for work and then ... woken up only to find it was ALL a dream? What if you then got, up, cleaned your teeth, got ready for work and then .... woke up again? Deja vu? Groundhog Day? A recurring dream within a recurring dream?
I have just seen the movie "Waking Life". At least, I'm pretty sure I've just seen it. If it was a dream, I'm still in it and haven't woken up yet. "Waking Life" is about the kind of dream you can't wake up from. The main character in the movie, the dreamer, keeps waking up and going about his daily life only to later realise that - yes - he's still dreaming.
So how can you tell if you're really awake, or if you're still dreaming? Can you wake up to the fact that you're in a dream while you're still in it? After all, when you're dreaming you think it's for real, don't you?
"Waking Life", written and directed by Richard Linklater, was originally released in the US in October 2001 and has just been released here in Australia. It's a spectacular movie for many reasons. It was shot digitally using real actors and then the film was animated to give all the characters dreamy-cartoon features. Many of the original facial expressions and body movements were retained to exaggerate the emotions and experiences, making everything hyper-real and intensely vivid, like a dream. Sometimes the characters morph to emphasise their meaning.
The storyline of the movie-dream is an exploration of different perceptions and philosophies about the nature of reality. The dreamer (whose name we never learn) wanders around meeting people, discussing dreaming, perception, reality and the meaning of life in general.
In his dream he eventually meets up with a group of Lucid Dreamers who try to alert him to the fact that he is dreaming. They describe tests he can apply to check whether he is awake or dreaming. For example, they tell him to look at his digital alarm clock carefully. If he can't see the numbers clearly then he's still dreaming. They tell him that there is a strange phenomenon in dreams where you can't switch lights on or off, so they suggest that next time he's passing a light switch he should flick it and see what happens. If the lights stay on or off, he's dreaming.
He applies the tests and, sure enough, he is constantly plagued by fuzzy numbers on his digital clock and by light switches that don't seem to work, so he eventually accepts, from time to time, that he is dreaming. As he becomes increasingly lucid he gets more frustrated because he can't work out how to wake up and escape the dream.
I won't divulge any more about the movie, because I don't want to spoil it for you when you see it, but here's where it gets intriguing:
A few days before seeing "Waking Life" I dreamed I went to see the movie "Sixth Sense". As we were walking into the cinema I saw that the lights were already dimmed and wondered if we'd missed the start of the movie. I was sure it started at 3.30 and that we had arrived on time. In the dream I looked at the HUGE digital clock on the wall and read, very clearly, "3.30" in huge glowing red colour. (No, I hadn't seen a preview of "Waking Life" involving the digital clock scenes, or heard about them before my dream.)
So, as I was sitting watching "Waking Life" I was thinking, "Hmmm. You CAN read digital time clearly in a dream." I also thought about my dream and how it had a tiny shade of precognition and how uncannily the "Sixth Sense" clue had sneaked in.
The accepted theory concerning digital clocks and lucid dreaming is this:
In dreams we generally get the arithmetical side of numbers wrong because the left brain is pretty dozy during dreaming. If you look at an analogue clock in a dream, note the time and then look again, you're likely to get the right time interval because your dreaming brain is good at patterns and easily pictures clock hands sweeping in circular motion around the clock face. But if you look at a digital clock in a dream and then look again a few minutes later, you are likely to get something like "3.30" the first time and then "11.11" when you look a few minutes later. If you look at a digital clock right now (yes - now - do it!) and then look again when you finish reading this article and the times are way out - then you're dreaming.
Usually, in a dream, you have no idea that you're dreaming. It's totally real. You have no idea that you also have a waking life. (At least when you're awake you know you also have a dreaming life.) If you are dreaming and then suddenly KNOW that you are dreaming you can stay in the dream and experience both realities at the same time: you lucid dream.
In a lucid dream you know you can jump off buildings, walk through walls and do all manner of things you might not do in waking life because you KNOW you are dreaming. You are safe to explore. The thing about lucid dreaming is that it feels so real. It's quite different from day-dreaming. In day-dreaming you can imagine flying, winning an Oscar or having sex with someone famous but you don't really get the full experience. In a lucid dream your experiences are vividly real at the same time as you know that you are dreaming them. Hard to explain. If you haven't experienced this yet, your first lucid dream will change your perception of life.
Now to blow the light switch test theory!
I don't know how many times I've read in dream books that you can't switch a light on or off in a non-lucid dream. It's one of those myths that have been perpetuated by being repeatedly published. I have successfully switched lights on and off in my dreams and others have too, as Dream Network members know from discussions and sharing in the Members' Community Forum. To have done it once is to refute the theory, but for several people to have done it and some more than once ...
The really spooky bit, though, was what happened when we arrived home, directly after seeing "Waking Life". Our house was in darkness so I walked in, felt for the light switch, flicked it and nothing .... no, I wasn't dreaming ... the light bulb blew! We were still in darkness. What a beautiful touch of irony: that I can switch a light on or off successfully in a dream, but, in this case, I switched a light on in my waking life and failed to produce light. What did this mean? Strictly according to theory I had proven that I was dreaming! I followed this up by trying to walk through the wall but bumped my head. Replacing the bulb blew that lucid dreaming theory.
So far, in relation to "Waking Life", I'd scored one to precognition (the digital clock in my dream) and one to synchronicity (the light switch experience).
Yesterday, at this point in the writing of this article, I saved my work and turned off my computer. I decided to leave writing the ending until the morning. Several hours later, in the middle of the night, I woke up laughing. I had just dreamed that I went into a shopping centre which was in darkness and energetically jumped up to 'high five' the light switch (in this dream it was a push button) on the wall, instantly switching the lights on and being able to see where I was going!
So, in addition to scoring one to precognition and one to synchronicity I also scored one to dream incubation. Oh, and one more for yet again blowing the light switch theory. If I give myself one more for finishing this article, I guess I've earned my self-congratulatory high five.
So, it's time for you to look at your digital clock again. Are you awake or dreaming?
Jane Teresa Anderson
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