Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - "40 Day Dream" Lyrics
I've been sleeping for forty days and Yeah, I know that I'm sleeping cause this dream's too amazing She got gold doorknobs where her eyes used to be, yeah One turn and I learned what it really means to see, yeah
Ah, It's the magical mystery kind Ah, Must be a lie Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love Oooooh I could die Oooooh now, I could die
Oh now I've been sleeping for sixty days and Nobody better pinch me Bitch I swear, go crazy She got jumper cable lips She got sunset on her breath I inhaled just a little bit Now I got no fear of death
Ah, It's the magical mystery kind Ah, Must be a lie Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love Oooooh I could die Oooooh now, I could die
Oooh Ahh Ohhh Ahh Yeah Yeah
Ah, It's the magical mystery kind Ah, Must be a lie Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love Oooooh I could die Oooooh now, I could die
This is a great song about dreams and love. Songs can be interpreted in many different ways just like films and even dreams themselves. This is my interpretation of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's "40 Day Dream."
"40 Day Dream" is about a relationship that challenged the author's preconceived notions of love. The first two lines of the song states that the speaker has been dreaming for 40 days and he must be dreaming because life is so amazing. The speaker associates dreams with good things that happen and he is sure that he must be dreaming because the love he has is not realistic. The speaker is most likely awake and is comparing the amazing love he feels to a dream. He has not literally been sleeping for forty days, he just feels as if he has because his life is so dream-like.
The line, "She got gold doorknobs where her eyes used to be," could imply drug inducement, which is a theme in this song. It could be said that the lovers might be using drugs which could create the dream-like feeling, as if they have been sleeping for forty days, or he could be comparing their love to drug use. The gold doorknobs also indicate a way to access a new room or path by opening the door. He says, "One turn and I learned what it really means to see," suggesting that their love has opened his eyes to new experiences and new possibilities that he never knew existed.
The first line in the chorus, "It's the magical mystery kind," could also be referring to drug use. It also suggests, however, a magical, mysterious love that he thought only existed in dreams. The love seems too good to be true so it "must be a lie," and therefore, he must be sleeping and the love must be a dream. He says goodbye to the love because he knows that the dream will eventually fade and he will have to wake up. He ends the chorus with the line, "I could die." For me, this line indicates that the love he felt was so great that he does not need anything else in life -- he feels complete.
The last line of the chorus is very similar to John Keats' poem, "Ode to a Nightingale." Keats, unlike the speaker in "40 Day Dream," suffers from heartache. He longs to die without pain while listening to the nightingale's song. Keats thinks death will end pain, whereas the song lyrics suggest that death would not be so terrible because he has experienced a great love.
The chorus suggests that the speaker is in the hypnopompic state because he is trying to distinguish between a dream and the real world. He is confused because he thinks that the love he has experienced was all a dream and that he has to say goodbye to it and wake up. Fortunately for him, he does not have to wake up because the dream-like love was real.
The second verse states that he has been "sleeping for sixty days" because he is still experiencing the too good to be true love and has not woken up from his dream-like state. He makes it clear that he does not want to wake up by threatening that he will go crazy if anyone tries to pinch him to prove whether he is dreaming or not. This can be related to the hypnopompic state in which a sleeper tries to hold onto a dream while floating in-between dream and reality. The speaker in "40 Day Dream" does not want to take any chances and wants to hold on to what he believes to be a dream for as long as possible.
The speaker goes on to say that "she has jumper cable lips." I think he is implying that kissing her makes him feel alive, like restarting a car. He goes on to say "she got sunset on her breath," which I think suggests the end of one thing and the beginning of another. In this case, the end to a loveless life and the beginning of a new love-filled life. The next line, "I inhaled just a little bit," has definite drug implications. It is as if his lover is a drug which he has inhaled and now he has no fear of death because he is in a state of bliss and also because he has experienced the greatest love and needs nothing more out of life.
Throughout "40 Day Dream," the hypnopompic state and love work hand-in-hand. Love itself is like the hypnopompic state because it is hard to distinguish whether the great love is real or not. Either way, the speaker does not want the amazing feeling of love to ever end.
Christopher Nolan's film, Inception (2010), revolves around the idea that dreams can be incepted. In other words, a person's subconscious thoughts and ideas can be tampered with and changed by physically placing a new thought or idea deep within that person's dreams. The protagonist of the film, Dom Cobb, leads a team of people in incepting Robert Fischer, the heir to an energy conglomerate, in exchange for lifting the murder charges wrongly placed on him for the death of his wife so that he can return to his children.
The film can be related to the hypnopompic state through multiple characters and scenarios throughout this incredibly thought-provoking film. In order to incept a person's dreams to place a new thought or idea in their subconscious, one has to dive into multiple levels of that person's mind, going deeper and deeper so that that foreign thought or idea seems completely natural. These multiple levels make it challenging for those incepting because they also have to escape each level in order to reach reality. Each inceptor, therefore, undergoes the hypnopompic state at each level of the incepted's subconscious. It is crucial to know the difference between a dream and reality otherwise one could be stuck in limbo forever. The hypnopompic state is a common occurrence and inceptors constantly question whether they are in a dream or reality. To indicate which realm they are in, each person has their own 'totem,' a device in which only that person knows the weight, shape, and texture of. Don Cobb, for example, uses a top which he spins to distinguish a dream from reality. If it stops spinning, then he assumes he is in reality, whereas if it continues to spin, then he is in his own dream.
For this film I am going to focus on Dom and his relationship with his wife, Mal. At the end of the film, Dom admits that he only knows about inception because he first tried it on his wife. At one point Dom and Mal were both stuck in limbo. Dom knew that they had to escape, while Mal did not. She wanted to stay in limbo and live out her life there, so in order to get her out of limbo, Dom decided to plant the idea in her subconscious that they were not in reality. Unfortunately, although they apparently escaped limbo, Mal continued to believe she was in a dream because the idea that had been planted was still in effect. Dom was sure they were back in reality, but Mal refused to believe him.
Mal was stuck in the hypnopompic state. According to Dom, she was awake but she continued to hold the idea that the world she was living in was not real and that she still had to escape. Just like in Jane Eyre and "Ode to a Nightingale," love was the main source that lead to this in-between state. Dom only wanted to help, but his inception led to the very destruction of his love for Mal. The couple constantly argued about dreams versus reality and in order to prove a point, Mal took the ultimate plunge by jumping to her death to prove that there was still another reality to reach.
What makes Inception such a great movie is its clever ambiguities and loose ends. Many spectators, for example, have argued that Mal is not the one who is stuck in the hypnopompic state, and that she is actually right in believing they have yet to reach reality. Instead, it has been argued that Dom is the one who is stuck in the hypnopompic state, refusing to acknowledge that he is living out a dream. This scene in particular is questionable because Dom enters a trashed hotel room on one side of the building, but Mal sits at an open window on the opposite side of the building. One argument for why she is on the other side of the building is that she wanted to create an effect. She knew that Dom would be entering that room so she decided to book another room opposite to it. By sitting at a distance, she could make sure that she could speak to Dom while at the same time ensuring that he would not be able to physically stop her. Another side to that argument is that the scene is set in a dream, subtly hinting that Mal is right (and possibly reached reality after jumping to her death) and that Dom, and perhaps the entire film, is set within a dream.
The facts behind the mysteries of Inception are never revealed, leaving the film to be interpreted in many different ways. The confusion between the realms of reality and dream are very apparent within the film and have a major effect on Dom and Mal's relationship. The hypnopompic state is what led to the destruction of their lives and their love. One perspective might be that Dom made sure not to leave Mal behind in limbo, and went so far as to incept his own wife. Mal, on the other hand, gave up on arguing with Dom, and took action without him by committing what Dom thinks to be suicide. It can not be sure which person lives in reality and which remains in the dream world, but either way, the confusion complicated their love and they were forced to eventually let go and move on.
To watch the trailer for Inception, click on the image below:
John Keats' poem, "Ode to a Nightingale," is a reaction to heartache which causes him to feel half-asleep, "as though of hemlock I had drunk." He wants to forget his troubles and pains, going so far as to ask for "a draught of vintage" (alcohol) so that he "might drink, and leave the world unseen." He writes this ode to a bird, the nightingale, because it has no troubles and, like the common expression states, is 'as free as a bird.' He realizes that he will not get over his heartache through drinking alcohol, but rather through poetry like the nightingale who uses music and song. As the poem continues, he admits that "Now more than ever seems it rich to die." He longs to die without pain while the nightingale goes on singing. He sees the nightingale as immortal, unlike himself. Ultimately the nightingale represents nature which goes on and constantly remakes itself. Keats wishes to erase himself and merge with nature which is the ideal way of living.
In his final stanza, Keats writes, "Forlorn!" to indicate gathering his senses and coming back to reality after feeling half-asleep. He yells goodbye to the nightingale as it disappears in the distance. Then he asks:
"Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: -- Do I wake or sleep?"
Without the nightingale's song, he is unsure if after all that time he had been awake or asleep. He does not even know if the nightingale was ever real!
"Ode to a Nightingale" is mostly set within the hypnopompic state, and not until the end of the poem does he realize that he might have imagined the whole thing. Like in the novel, Jane Eyre, love and heartache (or the possibility of heartache in Jane's case) lead to this confusing state between dream and reality. In Keats' poem, the nightingale, whether imaginary or real, provides a sense of hope for the heartbroken. If imaginary, the nightingale could be a reflection of the speakers' subconscious and will to live. If real, on the other hand, the bird is a source of inspiration, providing the inspiration to turn to poetry and art as a way of getting past one's sorrow, rather than giving into dark desires and the thought of death.
Although he is unsure of the nightingale's true presence, it does not really matter because the musical bird has made a lasting impact on the heartbroken speaker.
Dreams are a major theme in chapter twenty-five of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Throughout the novel Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester's relationship has been complex, to say the least. Tensions rise until Jane finally confesses her love to Mr. Rochester who surprisingly proposes marriage to her soon after her confession. Chapter twenty-five begins on the night before the wedding. Jane awaits Mr. Rochester's return to Thornfield Hall and once he finally arrives she expresses her worry and explains her ultimate worry that Mr. Rochester himself was a dream. He calms her down though and assures her that he is not a dream by asking her to touch him although she says, "...though I touch it, it is a dream."
Jane goes on to reveal to him strange things that had recently happened to her.
The First Dream
Jane describes a dream that she experienced where she carried a crying child in her arms while following a winding road in the rain. In the distance, she thought she could see Rochester, but she could not get his attention and as a result, he moved farther and farther away.
This dream obviously reflects Jane's fear that Rochester's marriage proposal was not real. Prior to sleeping, Jane had received her wedding dress and along with it her husband-to-be included a delicate veil as a gift. Upon seeing this veil, Jane grew worrisome that she was not fit to wear such a beautiful piece of clothing and that she would never be enough for Mr. Rochester. Additionally, I believe that the child she carries represents her own childhood and the crying indicates the struggles she has had to endure. The winding road acts as her path of her life and what she desires, Mr. Rochester, is at the end of that road. In this case, however, Jane's fears take over when Mr. Rochester slowly fades away.
The Second Dream
Jane continues to tell Mr. Rochester about another dream in which Thornfield Hall sat in ruin and Jane wandered through the enclosure with an unknown child still in her arms, clinging to her neck. At the sound of hooves, she climbed a wall to get a last look at Mr. Rochester. While attempting to climb, however, Jane loses her balance and the child falls from her arms.
Jane was so disturbed by this dream that she woke. Upon waking, Jane is in a hypnopompic state. Her blurred vision saw that candlelight still lit up the room and she heard rustling from the closet where she had placed her wedding dress. Jane called out only to see the tall figure of a mysterious woman with long hair emerge. The figure put Jane's veil atop her head and later proceeded to destroy the delicate wedding veil. Before exiting through the door, the figure held up the candlelight to Jane's face and then blew it out, causing Jane to lose consciousness.
Jane believes the vision she perceived to be real. Mr. Rochester, however, disagrees and compares her visions to her previous nightmares. He questions her hypnopompic state until Jane states that the remnants of the veil remained as evidence of the terrifying experience. Upon hearing that, Mr. Rochester agrees that someone must have occupied the room but blames the whole thing on Grace Poole, a mysterious house servant.
When I first read this novel, I agreed with Mr. Rochester. I thought Jane was too caught up in her fears surrounding her relationship with Mr. Rochester and their marriage that she must be imagining things. The fact that she had just woken up from a strange nightmare seemed to be the perfect explanation - she must be in the hypnopompic state confusing her dreams for reality. At the mention of the veil, however, I grew skeptical and wanted to know more.
Mr. Rochester's odd, doubtful reaction is later explained when it is revealed that the dark figure in Jane's room was actually his mentally unstable wife, Bertha Mason, whom he was hiding. Her dream scene functioned not only as a terrifying ghost story, but also as a foreshadowing detail. Bertha destroyed the veil because it reminded her of her own wedding to Mr. Rochester, a vow which he refused to acknowledge. She also examined Jane's face by candlelight most likely to compare his new love interest to herself. The fact that the figure appeared after Jane's strange nightmares indicates that her subconscious was not far off because Mr. Rochester was no longer part of her life once she discovered that he was a married man. The hypnopompic state that Jane experienced was confusing at first, but actually indicated a transfer of Jane's dreams from her imagination into the real world. Jane's previous fears turned out to be real. being married to Mr. Rochester was too good to be true. He remained a dream to her, but not because of anything she could have ever expected or imagined.
You are in the midst of a great adventure, defending the innocent and fighting evil. You are chasing the most evil villain of all when suddenly the bell tower you are climbing chimes identically to the sound of your alarm. You turn to your faithful sidekick who yells, "You're going to be late for work!" Your vision begins to blur and your hand no longer grips a gun but your blue, cotton bedsheets instead. Your drive to punish evil slowly diminishes as you regain your sense of reality, leaving your dream world behind in order to start the usual activities of your every day life.
That feeling between wakefulness and sleep can be one of confusion - was that a dream or was it reality? It is called the hypnopompic state and reflects the in-between cognition that occurs when one attempts to make sense of their dreams in relation to the real world. Wakefulness is often associated with a slow reaction time which causes people to shout out in reaction to something they were dreaming of, or act as if they were still in their dream world. This is largely the result of lingering imagery that the hypnopompic state can create when attempting to escape rapid eye movement sleep when dreams usually take place.
In particular, this cognitive state occurs when a person is waking from sleep. The hypnagogic state, on the other hand, focuses on the state of consciousness when falling asleep. Although closely related, I will be focusing on the hypnopompic state. This focus stems from the theory that dreams can tell a lot about an individual because they often reflect personal experiences, goals, and even fears. The hypnopompic state, therefore, is associated with emotion and can be compared to certain feelings such as love.
