AWAKE

It’s only when we wake up that we realize it had all been a dream——or so they say.

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“Awake” is an experimental short about a girl’s acceptance of her lack of knowledge and control over whether or not the reality that she knows is really “real” or merely a dream.

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Words from the Director:

When I was in elementary school, I used to get stuck in these vivid dreams, then fall terribly ill the next day. I don’t think there’s a name for what I had experienced. Lucid dreams are probably the closest comparison, but it’s not quite it. Unlike in a lucid dream, I wasn’t just aware that I was dreaming, but I was fully awake. Yes, it sounds contradictory and rather impossible, but it was simply the case. The most memorable had been one about a rocket launch. I “awoke” from a dream, yet my mind was still stuck in the dream world. I could hear the booming vibrations of a rocket engine, and feel the shaking of the ground. It was a world of texture and movement. I can still vividly feel the liquid-like yet metallic surroundings and the unceasing movement. Nothing was ever still—not even for a second. I’ve been told that perhaps this whole experience had merely been a figment of my imagination, and that I had been dreaming all along. But the events that had occurred seemed so real to me. I don’t know what to believe. How do you know when you’re dreaming and when you’re awake? Maybe it is true: you only know it’s a dream after you’ve awakened. So, what if I never woke up? For me, it was… well, an awakening of sorts——a moment of understanding and acceptance.  We’ll never know. Maybe life is a dream. And if that’s the case, let’s make it one worth dreaming about.