Watching a bad movie is like listening to someone’s bad dream. And I don’t mean a nightmare. I mean listening to someone going into laborious detail about a dream that was so striking to them, but numbing to the poor listener.
“And then there were these eight long spires that wrapped around the giant Ken doll that were green and blue and teal and magenta and constantly changing color. And there were teddy bears that were floating on each one and they were wearing little bear tuxedos and singing The Rolling Stones’s Satisfaction…”
It’s the equivalent of a movie that is all spectacle and no substance. Specifics and striking images can hold our attention, but once we get the hint that all these “amazing creations” aren’t building toward something, we get bored fast and don’t care for yet another unique and quirky detail.
Contrast that with dreams that are interesting to listen to… the nightmares. Here the teller may still be in a state of panic, recounting sincere emotion. There is a clear protagonist with a goal — “I was in this old museum, and I wandered off, away from everyone else. I was walking through an exhibit all alone…”
They are driven by a goal and confounded by obstacles — “I kept trying different doors to get back to the main group, but each door kept taking me back to the same entrance I just came from.”
They often have an antagonist, seen or unseen — “It sounded like wheels squeaking on the floor, something rolling slowly toward me from the dark corridor.”
And a climactic scene — “It was chasing me and I tried to go for the door, but the nob melted in my hand. I tried to run back, but I slipped on the melted handle on the floor. I could hear this clicking jaw, a mouth opening… then I woke up.”
What can we learn from dreams?
The colorful teddy bear story might be interesting (eventually) if something profound happens, but a straight recount of randomly combined details is not what grabs us in a story. It doesn’t matter how unique, it won’t hold our attention for longer than a moment.
What does hold our interest is someone trying for something and having great difficulty getting it. That’s what clicks with us. (Also, nightmare creature’s jaws.)
-AJ
