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All Just a Dream/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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*** Similar with [[Waking Life]]. He keeps waking up and waking up and waking up. Has he really woken up yet? Is he still asleep? Then near the end comes another possibility or two: {{spoiler|He might be dead. Or maybe it's a [[Dying Dream]]?}} You have to admit that's kind of interesting.
** The horrible movie ''[[North]]'' was like this. For those who don't know, a kid is fed up with his parents and wants to divorce them and find new parents. Anyway North, a lovable kid, was dreaming about all kinds of racial and ethnic stereotypes in his quest to find new parents. At the end, he wakes up and runs home to his lousy, real parents. Meaning that nothing got resolved, but that we learned the main character is a racist.
*** North isn't so much racist as quite ignorant. As befitting ''his age''. I'm sure all he knows about Texas, Hawaii, Inuit, Amish, Chinese, Africa, France, etc is a bunch of stereotypes fed to him from mass media. Thus it's not unexpected that the best he can come up with is a bunch of cliches. Indeed, the whole "it was all a dream" thing works *best* in this story. Because otherwise, the author ''himself'' would be saying that this is what he thinks the world is like. And ''that'' would be nuts ;) Here, [[All Just a Dream]] is basically an [[
**** So the kid has a racist dream because of the media... Could there perhaps be a [[Fridge Brilliance|hidden]] [[Parody Retcon|message]]?
* What about the scenes where the dreamer is not present? Are we to assume that the dreamer saw them as some kind of disembodied observer?
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*** Long version: It all depends on the particular things that are already imprinted in your own mind. For example, right now, picture yourself standing on the side of a pool, and drop a bowling ball in. Once it reaches the bottom, try using telekinesis to lift the bowling ball back up. Even though it's all imaginary, it still ''feels'' heavy, right? That's because your mind has a kind of physics engine it uses to judge real-world behaviors of objects, and this is the exact same physics engine your dreams use. When you're awake, you can defy the physics engine consciously, but since your consciousness is turned off during a dream, you risk waking up immediately if you try to do it, so you are stuck with whatever rules your mind is currently using. The same goes for memory: if there's a house on your neighborhood you haven't payed close attention to lately, that house might be missing or inaccurate in your dream. Whatever comes naturally to your imagination in normal daydreams will come naturally in dreams. Whatever you have to force will be inaccurate. Hence, these "indicators" will vary from person to person.
* I'm probably in the minority of not being bugged by this trope. I guess it's because I believe that dreams don't always have to be just dreams - but, sometimes, gateways to other realities. Realities that you cannot travel to, physically. Like, for instance, in the film version of ''[[The Wizard of Oz (Film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' - perhaps Dorothy ''has'' astrally travelled to a place called Oz, a place that she can't ''physically'' enter. Ditto for ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Literature)|Alice in Wonderland]]''.
** I take it on a case by case basis, because there are good uses for this trope. One ''[[Batman:
** ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' also put it to good use in the episode 'Future Tense'. [[Tropes Are Not Bad]] when they're used correctly, it's just that some tropes are harder than others to use correctly.
** Indeed. [[Rule of Funny]], for instance, can definitely excuse this trope if they make a good enough gag out of it. Who can forget {{spoiler|the series finale of [[Newhart]]}}? Or the hilarious parody of that scene Jimmy Kimmel and the [[Lost]] cast and crew did?
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