What is a Dream Sequence?

A FBI agent is led into a strangely lit room during a pivotal scene in the television series Twin Peaks, where a dwarf speaking a bizarre form of reversed English reveals the name of a woman’s killer. The agent leaps to his feet in a hotel bed, visibly shaken the vision. A dream sequence is a mix of fantasy and reality that is frequently used in film and television to suggest a character’s inner thoughts or a subconscious exploration of real-life scenarios. The audience may be fully aware of the scene’s dreamlike qualities, or they may be duped into believing the events took place in real life.

A dream sequence is frequently shot differently than the rest of the film or television show. The scene could be given a softer focus or an ethereal, otherworldly feel using special lenses or lighting techniques. The entire scene could be shot through the eyes of the dreamer, perhaps with a distorting fish eye lens. Characters who are familiar to the dreamer may act in strange ways, adding to the dreamer’s confusion. A well-crafted dream sequence, in essence, tries to recreate the same sense of disjointed reality that real dreams do.

In a romantic comedy, for example, a leading character may fantasize about proposing to the woman of his dreams, only to be humiliated when another man knocks on the door. The shock is often enough to wake the character up, revealing that the entire sequence was a dream. Although the real proposal scene resembles the dream, the other man is revealed to be her brother. The alternate dream sequence prepares the audience for a much more positive conclusion. The audience would have no idea about the character’s underlying doubts and concerns if it wasn’t for it.

Dream sequences in movies can also foreshadow real-life events, as seen in Apollo 13. In an extended dream sequence, astronaut Jim Lovell sees the spaceship suffer a catastrophic failure, killing all three crew members. The real Apollo 13 mission does suffer a major disaster later in the film, but the outcome is far less bleak. The dream sequence gives the audience a sense of impending danger while also revealing Lovell’s innermost concerns about the mission’s safety.

A dream sequence is sometimes edited in such a way that the audience is taken aback how abruptly it ends. At other times, the acting is so over-the-top that the audience never forgets they’re watching a dream sequence. After actor Patrick Duffy reprised his role as BobEwing on the television series Dallas, an entire season of the show became an extended dream sequence. To explain his absence from the show, the writers created a new scene in which his wife Pam revealed that the events of that season were only a dream.

As long as the audience is given enough information to distinguish the fantasy from reality, an effective dream sequence can add foreshadowing, comic relief, or dramatic tension to a film or television series. Shows like Medium, in which a character receives clues through psychic dreams, usually do a great job with this type of dramatic device.