Dreams and Nightmares

The human mind is complicated, the amount of data we gather in our waking day is staggering, and at night, in our dreams, the walls between our mind and reality breaks down. Mulholland Drive explores the messiness that is the human mind. The entire film require the viewer to actively connect the dots and place the dream sequences to the real counterparts. Mulholland Drive is a love story, and a mystery, it is set in a dream, that becomes a nightmare when Diane woke up.

The nightmare is the manifestation of Diane’s guilt and desire for a different life, a life where her future is bright, where she is loved, where she is still innocent. When Diane/Betty arrives at Los Angeles, she is accompanied by Irene and her husband. They are one of the few significant characters with no real world counterpart. This has led me to believe, that they don’t exist in the real world, and solely exist in Diane’s mind. In her mind, they exist as the innocent part of her, her hopes and dreams, the part of her that brought her to Los Angeles to become an actress. As Betty was parting with Irene, Irene wished Betty luck in her career, and show confidence that she’ll make a name for herself. As Irene leaves in the taxi with her husband, she starts laughing in an unnatural way, and acting strangely. This can be seen as Diane’s subconscious blaming the part of her that brought her to Los Angeles in the first place, and seeing that part in an evil way, seeing her innocence betray her.

Another being that solely exist in the dream world is the man behind Winkies. In the film, he is a character to be feared. It was mentioned that he controls everything, he does not want to be viewed. After seeing him, the character that dreamt about the homeless man fell to the ground in fear. For Diane, she never meets this man, although at the end we see that the man is connected to Diane. In fact, the homeless man was holding the mysterious box, and when he let drop the ground, Irene and her husband, the embodiment of Diane’s hopes and dreams walked out of the box, we’ll go into more details into this scene later.
Finally, the box, the blue box that is opened by the mysterious key. When Betty and Rita, found the money and key in Rita’s purse, they hid it in a hat box in the closet. they did this because the money and the key was unexplained they they feared it. Fear, you put your fears away, you put your shame, the truth. That is what the blue box is, Diane’s fears. Notice that the box appears out of nowhere in Betty’s purse, and when the box is opened, Rita gets sucked in. This is what Diane feared, the truth, that Camilla was gone, that she was the cause of Camilla’s death.

Finally, these three elements fits together in one of the final scenes, when the homeless man drops the box and Irene and her husband comes out. The homeless man, her fears, the nasty underbelly, the disgusting part of Diane, releases the box in which Diane puts her shame, her fear, and in it is Irene, the embodiment of Diane’s dreams and hopes. In the end, her dreams and hopes torments Diane so much, play with her guilt, that it drives Diane to suicide.

And this is how you describe the human mind.