The world of myth and dream

So last night I decided to finally give in and go see Avatar since it is now in 3D and all. As I was watching it I began thinking of how it related to the world of myth and dream and everything we have been talking about in class. Throughout the movie the main character, Jake, switches between his Avatar being and his human self. In order to become his avatar self though, he must go into a sleep like mode. The alien race, called the Na'vi, call the Avatar beings dreamwalkers, or something like that. As Jake gets further and further into his mission he states that he is begining to lose sense of what is reality and what is the dreamland, he says that he is begining to feel that the dreamland is the reality and that reality is the dream. The alien world, Pandora, is very mythical in the way that everything functions and how the alien race views life. They have Gods and mythical creatures that they worship. The mother of the Na'vi clan reminds me of Prospero, in that she has almost magic like abilities. She is almost like a Shaman of sorts and is able to communicate with the spirits. Overall, this flim had reminded me several times throughout the three hours it took to watch it, of the theme of myth and dream. I once again find myself relating the highbrow literature we are reading in class to the lowbrow flims I find myself being drawn to, something I never would have done before this class.

What is the Matrix?

So the question of the day was what is the Matrix. Having never seen the movie, except for the selections we watched in class, I was wondering the same exact thing. I decided to google it to see what would appear.

Here are some definitions for Matrix

• An enclosure within which something originates or develops (from the Latin word womb)


• The thick tissue at the base of a nail from which a fingernail or toenail develops


• A rectangular array of numbers (see below)

Basically from what I have read about what a Matrix is is that it is something that is contained within something else or where something else can grow from. This relates to the movie, I believe, in that the world has been surrounded by a simulated world. Which results in "reality" and a sort of "dreamland" that is contained within the "reality". The "dreamland" ultimately is growing inside of the "reality".

These ideas relate back to the idea of myth and dream in that it makes you consider what is real and what is dream and if it is ever truly possible to wake up from a dream like Shelby talks about in her blog. Where does illusion and dream meet reality and is it ever possible to truly be able to say what is illusion and what is reality? If so, how?

The Matrix, The new Alice and Wonderland, and The Tempest

******Forewarning~ if you have not yet seen the new Alice and Wonderland this may or may not ruin some of the plot line***********

So last night my roommates and I decided to go see the new Alice and Wonderland in 3D (I highly recommend it by the way). Little did I know that this movie would ultimately be linked to the current theme we are studying. In the beginning of the movie Alice has these dreams (or nightmares as she calls them) about talking animals and other strange happenings. Later in the movie she once again falls into the "rabbit hole" where she is reintroduced to all the animals and beings from the first Alice in Wonderland. They are unsure if she is "the one" and are constantly questioning it. The whole movie Alice believes that she is just in a dream and she has a conversation with the Mad hatter that went something like "this is all just a dream, I am just making it up in my head" and the hatter is very upset over this and replies "so I am not real then? I am just something you came up with?" This scene made me think back to the movie Stranger Than Fiction when he realized that he was being made up by someone elses ideas. There was also a part in the movie where they showed this calendar they had that showed what was to happen in the future, stating that everything had already been written for them.

In the movie the characters keep referring to Alice as the one, much like Neo is the one in the Matrix, the Savior of sorts. Ultimately it is Alice who saves everyone in the end, much like I assume Neo does since I have yet to see the whole movie. Throughout the Matrix movie, they make references back to Alice in Wonderland when they talk about the rabbit hole and "follow the white rabbit". I also feel that Miranda is "the one" in The Tempest, but she also does not know it. She, much like Neo and Alice, lives in two different places reality and dreamland. Her father controls her dreams in a way by controlling when she is awake and when she is asleep, but also because she is so naive from having only experienced life on the island he can manipulate what she holds to be real. All these dream states also relate back to Finnegans Wake in that the whole book was about being in a dream. And they also relate back to Samuel Beckett's novels in that someone else has already written what is and they are just living it out. It was crazy to me as I was sitting in the movie theatre and all these similarities began popping out at me, making me think back to the highbrow readings we have done and how those influence the lowbrow movie that I was currently watching, something I would never have done before taking this class.