Thread: Waking Life

Just curious as to how many people have seen the movie Waking Life directed by Richard Linklater whose other films include Dazed and Confused and A Scanner Darkly. The movie is very surreal and it's about a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream... all of the characters in the movie are actually dream characters created by the main character. At times he is aware he is dreaming (lucid), and even has a conversation about knowing he's in a dream with one of them (something i've done before ) Im fairly certain watching this movie, and the string of circumstance that lead me to it is responsible for stimulating my lucid dreaming, which started about 7 months ago now:

I attened Bonnaroo a massive music festival in Manchester, TN this past year that 80,000+ people attended (If you've never heard of Bonnaroo go to bonnaroo.com, last years headliners were Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Radiohead and like 50 other acts of 4 days. It Rocked MY WORLD ).

WEll one day i was sitting under this tree with a friend of mine, and some random people sat down next to us. We started up a conversation which quickly turned to movies, ones like Donny Darko and Requiem for a Dream. One of them suggested that if I liked those movies I would love this movie called Waking Life. Well, anyway we got up a few minutes later and i nearly forgot entirely about the conversation as i was stoned and on my way towards the summit of MushroomMountain.

The day i returned back to Ohio, another friend of mine who had actually attended the festival too but who i wasnt with calls me up and tells me about this movie that was on the independant film channel called Waking Life, he said it was quote, "My Kind of Movie". Instantly, the memory of the conversation came flooding back to me and I grew quite excited. I thus began a quest to see this movie. It took me a few days to find a copy of it, but once I did i was extremely satisfied with my viewing experience and the latent stage effects of the impression i came away with.

There is a scene with this one character who is really into Lucid dreaming, and he is talking about different RC's that you can try inside of dreams, like looking at a watch or trying to read fine print. But the one that really stuck with me was Flipping a light switch, because you arent able to manipulate light the same in dreams. So a few days later i remember having a dream where i saw a lightswitch and i can remember thinking... i should flip that... to my surprise after i did... the light just remained ON, and i suddenly became lucid standing in my dream flipping the light switch. What was weird though is eventually i could get the lights to go on and off... but it was always out of sync with the flipping of the switch, which led me to believe that i was willing the lights off and on.

Anyway, If you've seen the movie, i'd like to hear your impressions of it, and if you havent and you are having trouble attaining lucidity... I HIGHLY SUGGEST VIEWING IT!!!!!!!!

I think I&#39;ll <strike>download</strike> buy it.



Heh

I began reading it but snapped out of it and stopped -
Mooveh Spoilerz&#33; xP
I wanna see it, too. I LOVE Psycological Thrillres- they are without a doubt the best.

yeah, that movie was amazing. so was donnie darko; neither here nor there, meh. its just another good psychological thriller

It was a nice movie, but I never finished it. Had a lot of meaning to it. At first, I hated it, cause I expected more of it, haha.
I have to watch it again.

Is this what lucid dreaming really looks like? I&#39;ve never experienced one so I wouldn&#39;t know

Originally Posted by Vetuxo

Is this what lucid dreaming really looks like? I&#39;ve never experienced one so I wouldn&#39;t know
[/b]

this is not what lucid dreaming actually looks like. however, much of the experiences in the movie do mimic real lucid dreams: false awakenings, long conversations with dream characters, flying...

Good, because this movie was trippy with all the characters/objects floating around while the walls and such stayed stationary.

I&#39;m glad you took it upon yourself to seek out and watch the film vetuxo&#33; Hopefully it will have the same effect for you that it had on me... and if it does... you are in for a treat... because i&#39;ve nailed down my own personal process to having WILD&#39;s (wake induced lucid dreams) down to a science. I know exactly when too go to sleep so that i&#39;ll wake up naturally 4-5.5 hours later and then i&#39;ll lie awake for a while (30mins to an hour) before trying to go back to sleep. Probably 3 days a week i&#39;ll have 3-6 hour long sessions where i go back and forth from being awake directly into lucidity sometimes 6 and 7 times a before im too awake to get back to sleep. So ya... over the past seven months i&#39;ve probably had close to if not more than 100 lucid experiences, and i&#39;ve been able to do anything and everything i&#39;ve wanted to so far except for Throw a Fireball and Total Dreamscene change (except the time i climbed through a mirror and found myself in the kitchen of a really nice house where a bowl of cereal was waiting for me on a countertop), but that&#39;s a bird of a different feather

I watched this film last night and I loved it. Also, it gave me my first lucid dream which is really cool&#33;

It gave you an LD?&#33;?

FTW im gonna download it.


I mean....

Download it.

xD

I STIL HAVEN&#39;t HAD ONE

There are like 500 threads about this.

But yes that movie rocked, and it started me into dreaming too&#33;

Havent seen A Scanner Darkly yet...

It gave you an LD?&#33;?

FTW im gonna download it.


I mean....

Download it.

xD

I STIL HAVEN&#39;t HAD ONE[/b]

You should&#33; The night after watching it I just went to sleep as usual, but somehow, I woke up in the middle of the night (which I never do) and started wondering if I was lucid dreaming. I got to the conclusion that I was really awake and then got back to sleep. I then had the lucid dream. It just happened naturally... I&#39;ve had another one since then, so I figure this movie is a really powerful message to your subconscious about lucid dreaming&#33;

Just ordered.

Well worth the watch, though i diasgree with the cartoonish sort of effect it doesn&#39;t ruin the film completely, go buy it

I started it last night. I had a lucid, and also had a weird dream where Marlon Brando was saying all kind of profound things, like the characters in the movie are doing.

I watched it. It didn&#39;t give me a lucid-dream though. I liked it a lot. I love that kind of movies. All the weird talking. Talking that doesn&#39;t make much sense, yet it&#39;s interesting.

i found it really hard to understand although my favourite bit is when there lying in the bed talking about the last ten minites of brain activity before you die, and how all this could be those last ten minites looking back. it reli got me thinking

My favourite part is when the girl in the street starts talking to him about the connection between people being inexistent and that she wants to change that and they start talking about how it feels to be in a lucid dream. Really cool&#33;

I like it, when those 4 guys walk through the city and see that old man on the pole. Also, when he&#39;s in the cinema, watching those other 2 guys talking about certain moments. When they turn into skies.

I&#39;ve been watching movies online all day now, so watching this next shouldn&#39;t hurt
Hopefully I&#39;ll have the same luck some of you have had ^_^

Waking Life is really a Fantastic Movie with a Fantastic Tango soundtrack. Very Mysterious and it really sends you away bewondered and in deep thought about the nature of this thing called &#39;&#39;reality&#39;&#39;. Always a good thing to doubt &#39;&#39;Reality&#39;&#39; cuz what&#39;s real may not all be that real and what&#39;s rediculous may not all be that rediculous.