the movie waking life

[somewhere else]

i was just wondering if any of you have seen the movie waking life and what your thoughts are on it? and another question....when our brain dies, is that it? or is lucid dreaming a means of escape from death.

[Alex D]

I've never seen the movie, but I can answer the other question. No, lucid dreaming is not a way to escape death, there is no real way to escape it. But lucid dreaming adds a bit of extra spice to what little there is of life. Sorry to sound a bit morbid there.

[Barbizzle]

I have seen the movie. While most people here at DV love it, I fond it quite boring. Oh well And when you die, your dead ( or what ever after life stuff you believe in) Lucid Dreaming goes with your mind yep

[mrtywalsh]

I love this movie. It deals with so many subjects along with lucid dreaming. The animation is amazing also. They digitaly painted over everyframe to make that certain effect. I believe they are doing the same thing for those financial commericals now. I think maybe jp morgan or something.

[wombing]

mind-blowing animation, though i found much of the dialogue to be a ho-hum stew of existentialist babble. i'd watch it again if in the right mood. i wouldn't say lucid dreaming is a means to escape death. although perhaps awareness continues after the cessation of brainwaves. are you aware that tibetan buddhists perfected lucid dreaming hundreds of years ago? and that they also believe one experiences various hallucinations and realities after death, in many ways similar to a dream? "The tibetan book of the dead" describes the various stages, which usually result in entering a womb again. its pretty interesting.

[somewhere else]

i guess i should have been a little more clear, but i guess lucid dreaming and out of body is different. i was just wondering what would happen if you were out of your body and while you were traveling, something happened to your body. would your spirit you suddenly die along with your body or would you be stuck in the 4th demention?

[wombing]

Originally posted by somewhere else i guess i should have been a little more clear, but i guess lucid dreaming and out of body is different. i was just wondering what would happen if you were out of your body and while you were traveling, something happened to your body. would your spirit you suddenly die along with your body or would you be stuck in the 4th demention? it all depends on whether you think our spirit has its own spiritual body (that many say is attached by a silver cord to our physical body), or whether our spirit is just an emanation of our temporary physical existence. i'm not sure what you are asking. why take any one else's word on matters like this? it would have to be pure speculation, unless they claim to have consciously experienced the permanent separation of their spirit from body at the end of a previous incarnation. whatever happens at death happens. all you can do is prepare yourself for whatever seems likely. i recommend cultivating constant awareness. if death is it, at least you will get the most out of life, and have greater awareness of your existence. if awareness continues after physical death, you will have the readied yourself as much as possible during your short life to handle whatever may happen afterwards.

[somewhere else]

that seems to be what i am thinking, something along those lines. nice thoughts. thank you.

[will.i.am]

I ate some mushrooms and watched it. That was the most amazing movie I've ever seen.

[Howie]

I tried to like it. I don't know if I would go as far as to say I hated it or anything. It just was to shallow. No thought process was involved. There was some animation that was indeed very trippy. I just think the plot did not do it justice.

[Amethyst Star]

I think it's okay, but I do love the part about lucid dreaming in particular.... and the clock was pretty interesting. Relating to death, as a Christian I believe in an after-life, but as for out-of-body experiences, I'm very skeptical when people bring those up. I'm inclined to believe that the good majority of these claims are just normal dreams that produce intence stimulation. I won't knock it entirely, though. -Amé

[somewhere else]

i respect your views in god and all that, but i have to admit that i have solid proof to beleive that out of body experinces really do happen. its nothing that has happened to me, but something that happened to my wife. i trust my wife, she has never lied to me, in the 14 years we have been together she has always been brutally honest with me, and as the most part she dosnt really beleive in the supernatural, and she too beleives in god and an after life and all that stuff. anyhow, one day years ago, when my wife was in college, she was heading home for a holiday and it was snowing hard and when she was at the top of a mountain, she skid on some ice and the car flipped off the road. the car endded up upsidedown in an enbankment on the inside of the mountain. my wife told me that while the car flipped she was not in the car but watching it happen from out on the road and didnt enter her body again until the crash was over. my wife is a respected woman in her field, a 2nd grade school teacher with a masters degree. she swears on our 3 daughters that this happened to her, and i beleive her.

[Alex D]

Ah, I've seen Waking Life now and can honestly say that I loved every single moment of it. While it did jump between different ideas a little quickly, each scene was though provoking in it's own way. I did love how the visual style changed all the time as well, it gave the film a nice dream-like feel to it. One idea that the film did bring up was the few moments of dreaming before our brains die, in hat respect I retract a bit of my post and say that it may be possible to gain lucidity at this point (if indeed we do dream, as the film suggests) and use it as a way to make it seem like these fleeting moments are longer and in a way 'cheat' death, or at least make it seem like it.

[somewhere else]

yes, its a wonderful film. from the moments after our hearts stop beating and our brains still work,to the "holy monents" in ones life, i feel this movie should be seen by all the true thinkers in the world at least once. i have seen a pattern with the different types of people i have shared this film with. all the folks who take life too seriously and get wrapped up in the real drama of this world seem to find it hard to sit through and boring, yet on the other hand, the people who think all the time about everything and look at the world through the eyes of a child, like me, found this film to fasinate the socks off them.

[wombing]

Originally posted by somewhere else yes, its a wonderful film. from the moments after our hearts stop beating and our brains still work,to the "holy monents" in ones life, i feel this movie should be seen by all the true thinkers in the world at least once. i have seen a pattern with the different types of people i have shared this film with. all the folks who take life too seriously and get wrapped up in the real drama of this world seem to find it hard to sit through and boring, yet on the other hand, the people who think all the time about everything and look at the world through the eyes of a child, like me, found this film to fasinate the socks off them. the 'holy moment' scene was the movie for me. i don't really care if somebody liked the existentialist monologues or not. but if they understood that scene, true understanding is possible between us.

[Dust Mote]

I saw (and loved) this movie some time ago. It reminded me somewhat of the movie “The 6th Sense” in that there was a twist to figure out. Of all the dialogues I particularly like the Neo-human. There was a website that had all the dialogues posted, but alas it has been taken down. Never-the-less, I happen to have a copy of my favorite: (Wiley is sitting a table with a weird looking fellow) Neo-human guy: “You're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. If you're looking at the highlights of human development, you have to look at the evolution of the organism, and then add the development of the interaction with its environment. Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life, proceeding through the hominid, coming to the evolution of mankind: Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon man. Now, interestingly, what you're looking at here are three strains: biological, anthropological (development of cities, cultures), and cultural (which is human expression). Now, what you've seen here is the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time-scale that's involved here: two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, a hundred-thousand years for mankind as we know it, you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. And then, when you get to agriculture, when you get to the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution, you're looking at ten thousand years, four hundred years, a hundred and fifty years. You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's going to telescope to the point that we should see it manifest itself within our lifetimes, within a generation. The new evolution stems from information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog. The digital is artificial intelligence; The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism, and you knit the two together with neurobiology. Before, under the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But, under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive, non-competitive grouping, independent from the external. Now what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually-centered process emanating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process, where the individual is just at the whim of the collective. So, you produce a neo-human with a new individuality, a new consciousness. But, that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence pods on intelligence, as abilty pods on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until you reach a crescendo. In a way, it could be imagined as an almost instantaneous fulfillment of human, human and neo-human, potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual...the multiplication of individual existences, parallel existences, now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space. And the manifestations of this neo-human type evolution could be dramatically counter-intuitive; That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold, it's sterile, it's efficient. And, its manifestations are those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, war, predation. These will be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution, and that is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice.”

[countzero]

The film can be analyzed in many directions. Since it's narativ consist mainly of philosophical matters, not just existentialism but many other postmodern points of view, lucid dreaming is more like a state that Linklater choses for his character(s) to be surounded by and develop in so that some other ideas can come up.