Since I can't get rid of tulpas, since Tammy said they're real, I hereby decree all doppelgangers obsolete.
So, you're telling me the events on a TV show didn't really happen? 😉
To say that the dream is not real is too simple. What is the ontological status of a dream? For years Lynch said that Twin peaks was "still there" - these characters and this place took on a life of their own, in us if you like. We are like the dreamer who lives inside the dream. This is a fantasy, but the line between fantasy and reality is not so stark as we might tend to think. Musical artists are on the cast list. Eddie Vedder is credited as playing Edward Louis Severson (his birthname). An episode is dedicated in the memory of a character on the show.
The dream is real, we live inside of it. Not referring now to the show, but to life. "Reality" is always colored by the fantasy structures we bring to bear, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of ourselves. Puncture that narrative and we discover that life does not make sense.
I think something brilliant is going on with the finale along these lines, though I can't quite fully articulate it yet.
So, you're telling me the events on a TV show didn't really happen? 😉
To say that the dream is not real is too simple. What is the ontological status of a dream? For years Lynch said that Twin peaks was "still there" - these characters and this place took on a life of their own, in us if you like. We are like the dreamer who lives inside the dream. This is a fantasy, but the line between fantasy and reality is not so stark as we might tend to think. Musical artists are on the cast list. Eddie Vedder is credited as playing Edward Louis Severson (his birthname). An episode is dedicated in the memory of a character on the show.
The dream is real, we live inside of it. Not referring now to the show, but to life. "Reality" is always colored by the fantasy structures we bring to bear, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of ourselves. Puncture that narrative and we discover that life does not make sense.
I think something brilliant is going on with the finale along these lines, though I can't quite fully articulate it yet.
Watching Lynch show us that Laura's body never washed up on shore in Twin Peaks, and then show us Pete Martell fishing without the body being there was very startling to see. And also seeing Cooper lead Laura away from her meeting with Leo, Ronette and Jacques was also startling.
So yes, I am saying that the events of a TV show 25 years ago never happened, except for in the dreamer's mind. But like Monica Belluci asked Gordon Cole, which seemed to really upset him if you rewatch the scene, who is the dreamer?
I like your take, Jack. It is well thought out and has a personal, for you I assume, resonance to it.
My own interpretation has more to do with multiverses, but, for argument's sake, I think, as far as who is the dreamer(?) is concerned, the conception would be more akin to something like bishop Berkeley's subjective idealism. So, in a sense, the "dreamers" are the Fireman and Judy (it's their world, we're just passing through). Laura, Bob (and now Cooper with his meddling) are the most important pieces in their cosmic chess match. Humans are mere entertainment (and free-range garmonbozia, perhaps) to the Lodge entities. Cooper's idealistic world view and his adherence to how he interpreted the clues the Fireman revealed to him caused a false sense of security and he became one-track-minded and delusional. He's a pawn that doesn't fully understand his role. He underestimated Judy and failed to account for how important Laura is to her. So, Judy cast them both into a different universe of her creation and will continue to do so with each attempt that Cooper manages (if he doesn't lose his own (I)dentity entirely in the process). There's a possibility that he will eventually outsmart and destroy her, sure. And, round and round and round Coop goes. Trapped in a personal hell that he doesn't realize is a Möbius strip of his own, unintended, creation via Judy. Hopefully the Fireman can get him out of this mess.
I like your take, Jack. It is well thought out and has a personal, for you I assume, resonance to it.
My own interpretation has more to do with multiverses, but, for argument's sake, I think, as far as who is the dreamer(?) is concerned, the conception would be more akin to something like bishop Berkeley's subjective idealism. So, in a sense, the "dreamers" are the Fireman and Judy (it's their world, we're just passing through). Laura, Bob (and now Cooper with his meddling) are the most important pieces in their cosmic chess match. Humans are mere entertainment (and free-range garmonbozia, perhaps) to the Lodge entities. Cooper's idealistic world view and his adherence to how he interpreted the clues the Fireman revealed to him caused a false sense of security and he became one-track-minded and delusional. He's a pawn that doesn't fully understand his role. He underestimated Judy and failed to account for how important Laura is to her. So, Judy cast them both into a different universe of her creation and will continue to do so with each attempt that Cooper manages (if he doesn't lose his own (I)dentity entirely in the process). There's a possibility that he will eventually outsmart and destroy her, sure. And, round and round and round Coop goes. Trapped in a personal hell that he doesn't realize is a Möbius strip of his own, unintended, creation via Judy. Hopefully the Fireman can get him out of this mess.
I agree with this. It makes *more* sense than the whole dream thing.
Like most of us, I'm still processing that finale and how it impacted on the series, the original series and FWWM. One thing is for sure, Twin Peaks is definitely about multiverses, about switching over into different timelines, different realities. Cooper was conned and he is trapped. Again. Whether that was the ultimate finale, pointing out the fallacy of his motives, or whether perhaps optimistically it sets us up for a an entirely new plot in a future Twin Peaks I don't know.
I don't buy the theory that it is simply Cooper waking up in real-life-outside-of-Twin-Peaks reality and that nothing ever existed outside of someone's dream. For many reasons but also, on a more basic level, if that were the case, then why was the sign for the RR diner in place when Cooper and Carrie drove past it, heading to the final scene? RR diner is a Twin Peaks construct, Mar T (or Twedes) is real life.
I like your take, Jack. It is well thought out and has a personal, for you I assume, resonance to it.
My own interpretation has more to do with multiverses, but, for argument's sake, I think, as far as who is the dreamer(?) is concerned, the conception would be more akin to something like bishop Berkeley's subjective idealism. So, in a sense, the "dreamers" are the Fireman and Judy (it's their world, we're just passing through). Laura, Bob (and now Cooper with his meddling) are the most important pieces in their cosmic chess match. Humans are mere entertainment (and free-range garmonbozia, perhaps) to the Lodge entities. Cooper's idealistic world view and his adherence to how he interpreted the clues the Fireman revealed to him caused a false sense of security and he became one-track-minded and delusional. He's a pawn that doesn't fully understand his role. He underestimated Judy and failed to account for how important Laura is to her. So, Judy cast them both into a different universe of her creation and will continue to do so with each attempt that Cooper manages (if he doesn't lose his own (I)dentity entirely in the process). There's a possibility that he will eventually outsmart and destroy her, sure. And, round and round and round Coop goes. Trapped in a personal hell that he doesn't realize is a Möbius strip of his own, unintended, creation via Judy. Hopefully the Fireman can get him out of this mess.
This.
The dream, in my opinion, is subjective, depending on the perspective. Every universe, every "dream", is somebody else's universe/dream. And each is valid as an experience, tangible yet a full on reality.
So some may watch the series and say "oh it never happened because it was all a dream", while others will say "it happened, it was real, it was experienced, but some characters were able to transcend the trick of the dream and see through to other realities."
When one dreams you are completely invested in it and its meaning until you wake. You rarely question the dream, no matter how daft it seems on waking, unless it turns lucid and you gain some conscious control of it. Several characters turned lucid and entered other realities/dreams.
Those on this forum who have experienced lucid dreams or other similar phenomena will know that often the dream can seem more real and conscious than waking life - wakefulness then becomes a let down, because it's never as vibrant or alive as the dream, making you question which is actually real. All are real, experienced and subjective in the Twin Peaks universe, that is how I saw it. It's not just a dream, because the characters are alive and experiencing it - reality 430 could also be labelled a dream. It's just another of many, many dreams. Many other realities.
That's my thoughts on the matter 🙂
A fine post, and 100% I agree that we're not returning again. We finish with Laura, (or Carrie?) whispering, we'll never know what she said. She if full of secrets, and so it will remain. But I'm not just as sure as you that it's a top down narrative, one dreamer and the world of his dream. It feels more that the dreamer is created by one of the characters in his dream. Had Cooper not transcended his dream to penetrate the world of Richard and Linda would the dreamer exist in the way he does. It's Jeffrie's infinity sign, they make each other.
Definitely someone is a dreamer. It cannot be just good joke from Lynch. I think in FWWM it could have other meaning than 25 later. He rewatched season 1 and 2 and FWWM, then he created new story based on it. But it's not same story as it would be continued 25 years ago. So what meaned Judy 25 years ago ? We saw monkey, it could be a place, or woman which he met. 🙂 Noone thought it is ultimate evil after FWWM. Same with this dream, I don't think Jeffries meaning of living in a dream in FWWM, was the same meaning we got now. Lynch changed story because it's 25 later, he had to do it. So probably then he means this meeting at convenience store as a dream. But it doesn't mean now it mean the same. Story changed.
To OP: I appreciate what you wrote. It's one way to understand the series.
But your post sounds more like rhapsody than analysis to me. I don't agree at all.
We do live in a dream, the truth about Twin Peaks is an expression of this fundamental truth of life. Our reality is a non-physical / virtual data-stream. Those who hated the ending & the series as a whole probably have the hardest time comprehending / accepting that.
We do live in a dream, the truth about Twin Peaks is an expression of this fundamental truth of life. Our reality is a non-physical / virtual data-stream. Those who hated the ending & the series as a whole probably have the hardest time comprehending / accepting that.
That's kind of what I was trying to say but you articulated it more clearly and concise 😀
Lynch loves the fact that storytelling wakes up different feelings into everyone and that it creates a different experience for each and every one of us.
That might also mean that none of us gets closure about the characters we are so desperately connected to but its also so incredibly charming that we all can have our own version of what happened.
Each and every dreamer (us) has seen this dream (twin peaks) in their own special way and how wonderful is it to feel like you have your completely own version of what happened?
The bad thing about dreams is you're going to wake up at some point and just like with every dream at the end you get that slight end of dissatisfaction of it not being real. I am really going to miss Twin Peaks..
Just a side note: if this was all a dream, then there's no point in buying a book that fills us in on what happened in the last non-real 25 years for non-existent characters that end up being erased from 'dream history' in the last episode anyway. So is Mark Frost shooting himself in the foot? Or does he not care because it's not his foot, but the fans'? (Yes, theory time!)
The Final Dossier, dig yourself out of the dream, $29.99+s/h!
(Sorry, I just love that I came up with that :P)
I'd be more accepting of the idea that it's a dream if the SUBJECT of the Final Dossier book wasn't in contradiction with the TV show. It's not the first time two canonical works have contradicted each other, but so close in time..? I don't know. I personally lost much of my interest for the TP universe after episode 18's ending, not because of the dream thing, but because I think that while it's okay to finish a story with a big question mark in a movie, when you invest 17 hours of your life (+25 hours for the original show) into characters you come to love, then you owe it to your readers/viewers to give them a satisfying ending, not a cop out that's only there 'for style' or, even worse in my opinion, to help get a new season.
I remember back when The Pretender, hey another TP show, got 2 TV movies after being canceled, and decided to end them with zero answers and a cliffhanger just like the show. Idiots! At least Farscape had the decency of wrapping up its story in the TV movies it got after being canceled, making it much more rewatchable material.
Anyway, Frost/Lynch disappointed after such a good run. I'm okay with it because I'm only a recent obsessive fan (and I'll always remember my special summer investigating all the goddamn red herrings left in earlier episodes), but still, it's the first time in days that I'm back on this forum and I was just dropping by to see if someone had news about a new season or posted a theory that made sense out of the ending without turning it into a stupid dream.
Lynch loves the fact that storytelling wakes up different feelings into everyone and that it creates a different experience for each and every one of us.
That might also mean that none of us gets closure about the characters we are so desperately connected to but its also so incredibly charming that we all can have our own version of what happened.
Each and every dreamer (us) has seen this dream (twin peaks) in their own special way and how wonderful is it to feel like you have your completely own version of what happened?
The bad thing about dreams is you're going to wake up at some point and just like with every dream at the end you get that slight end of dissatisfaction of it not being real. I am really going to miss Twin Peaks..
This is Lynch 🙂 So everyone is a dreamer, we, he, and characters in movie. So someone can dream that this is reality what he see. This is completely understandable. Still there is story shown in this 18h movie that can be discussed. In many cases it doesn't matter if it is a dream or who is dreaming. In that cases we speak only about story line which is the same. For example Judy as pure evil is always same. Whotever it is a dream or not, she is pure evil living in Sarah Palmer.
Nah, 'Judy' isn't in Sarah Palmer. It's all bullshit. The show is inconsequential. Everything that makes sense is contradicted by other factual data. It looks like the guys took too long to write the show, and as a result they focused more on the details than the overall plot. Just about every single storyline in the season (heck, even Ed's with his shadow & the paper burning) is introduced without context, and doesn't get a proper ending. It's what one would usually call a 'slice of life' show. Except it intends to be a 'slice of dream'. Just because my dreams usually don't have an ending and just morph into another unrelated dream doesn't mean my fictional TV shows, with fictional TV characters I get attached to, can do the same.
Starting to wonder if I wouldn't have liked a 3rd season headed by Robert Engels & Harley Peyton, ah ah.
This isn't going to kill the good times I spent in front of my TV for the first run, and the absolutely flawless artistic direction of the show, even the selection of dreamy songs at the Roadhouse, but I'll still need some time to accept that it was ultimately, as feared by many, a troll.
Fire walk with