Who is the Dreamer?
It is in the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, that Agent Phillip Jeffries first proclaims from within the Twin Peaks universe that “we live inside a dream.” In Season 3, Part 17 of Twin Peaks, it is the overlaid image of Agent Dale Cooper upon the screen who says that “we live inside a dream.” In each of these cases, this is not put forth as a question, but as a statement of fact.
When from within the Monica Bellucci Dream Sequence that appears in Season 3, Part 14, we then get the question of “who is the dreamer,” however, we are left with what appears at first to be a bit of a conundrum. Is the dreamer meant to be David Lynch, Mark Frost, Gordon Cole or any other characters within the world of Twin Peaks, or the Audience themselves? The simple answer is all of the above.
The confusion within this question lies in the use of the word “like.” The full question is stated as: “We’re like the dreamer, who dreams and then lives inside the dream. But who is the dreamer?”
“Like” is defined as “being similar to, and having the same qualities as,” and yet inherent in this definition is the idea of being separate from. The two are the same, but not one, unlike the Giant who is “one and the same” with the old man who served Cooper his coffee in the Red Room in the final episode of Twin Peaks, Season 2. And yet, if we are similar to and have the same qualities as the one who dreams and then lives inside of the dream, then are we not also ones who dream and live inside of the dream? As has already been stated by Phillip Jeffries in Fire Walk With Me and will be stated again by Cooper in Season 3, Part 17, we do indeed live inside of a dream. And so, of this, we need not speculate.
If we focus upon the word “we” in this question, rather than the word “like,” things suddenly become much clearer.
If you were to remove the word “like” altogether, as in “we’re the dreamer, who dreams and then lives inside the dream. But who is the dreamer?” the question then more accurately stated becomes “who are we?” This, as it turns out, is the key to unraveling this riddle.
Looking at the word “we,” you discover that it is being used both in the singular and the plural form here at the same time. “We” (singular) are individually like the dreamer, as we (plural) all possess the same qualities, as in being able to dream and then live inside of it, yet we (singular) are separate individuals. So we both are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside of it, and are the actual dreamer who dreams and then lives inside of it, at one and the same time.
Gordon Cole is dreaming, and living inside of that dream, when Monica Bellucci (a real person from our world), tells him this. David Lynch is dreaming up Twin Peaks and living inside of it as the character of Gordon Cole, and we in effect are sharing this dream with him as we choose to suspend our disbelief and live inside the world of Twin Peaks and experience it as real as we are watching it, which then leads back to the question of “who are we?” in that are we real or only living inside of a dream that another us is dreaming, just as when we are inside of our own dreams we live them as if they are real until we wake up from them.
This is what I refer to as the Infinity Effect, as infinity is not represented as extending forever forward and backward, but rather as deeper within and further without. Such a concept can be found mirrored in other works, such as in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series in which Roland’s entire world can be found within a single rose growing in a vacant lot in New York City.
It should be noted that when Gordon Cole refers to “the ancient phrase,” he is speaking of a line from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which says “We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream,” referencing a spider that weaves its web and then lives on it. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad then goes on to say that “We create our world, and then enter into that world. We live in the world that we have created. When our hearts are pure, then we create the beautiful, enlightened life we have wished for.” By contrast, we can then infer that when our hearts are not pure, we create pain, heartbreak and damage within our lives.
So who is the dreamer? We all are. I know that I, for one, am certainly a dreamer. I weave the web of my life by what I tell myself, what I believe and what I experience, and then I live within that world that I have created for myself, for good or ill, until something comes along that does not match my vision, and I am forced to redefine it.
