Reality Decode in Movies

Over the last few weeks there has been a huge shift internally consciously with how I feel and perceive the world around me.

My insights and interaction with exterior reality and my own internal world is completely different to say a year ago. Perspectives have and will always continue to shift and change. This is one constant that has remained throughout my life.

Films can be a very useful feedback loop. A mirror to reality. I regularly experience huge synchronicities with things i’ve watched, its provided with many profound reference points and insights, assisting me to help navigate this strange human experience. 

I thought it would be useful to illustrate where i’m at the moment, in how feel reality operates, how it fundamentally reacts to our forever morphing consciousness, informing, seeding or influencing ideas.

There are deep questions concerning where some of these narratives and stories truly come from. This is an idea i’ve highlighted multiple times on this channel. 

Further more progressively i’m beginning to understand we are not purely just a viewer or bystander to these movie concepts. I think in someway we are apart in the formation of these stories. These films are reflecting back at us ideas and understandings of what we already know, it’s a form of remembrance.

The internet space, and news media appears more fictitious, comical, and illusionary by the day. In my opinion there is more truth in narratives emanating from books of fiction or some films. Mainstream news media tends to force feed people a narrative in a blanket coverage imposing way. A boxed in perspective. A marketing message mainly through use of emotion and fear.

Through the construct of fiction, this medium allows people to breathe fully and deeply. To dream, imagine, without constraint. 

Although of course Hollywood and other movie studios around the world can be an output of propaganda. Some of the most successful movies rise to the surface for a reason, because it strikes a deep profound cord with people. But maybe even sometimes a piece of propaganda can positive influence people in ways that the propagandist didn’t plan for.

 

The NeverEnding story

The NeverEnding Story was a firm childhood favourite which I recently rediscovered as an adult. I have been blown away by the profound messaging. Particularly now where i’m questioning external reality more intensely than ever.

The film was released in 1984. Visually the film and sets still seem more relevant than ever. Maybe some of the editing and music dates it. But visually with the increasingly prevalence of AI and CGI, the use of real sets, textures and animatronics gives the film a timeless mythical quality.

But the story as most of you know follows Bastian a bookish boy who lost his mum to illness. He’s bullied at school. On route to school he’s chased by some boys, he proceeds to seek shelter in a bookshop, run by a surly older man. 

As the shop owner answers a telephone call, Bastian borrows a large book leaving a note promising to return it. 

Bastian decides to skip school, by escaping to the attic of the school building. He engrosses himself in the book called The Never Ending story. 

The story is set in a mythical land of Fantasia which is being devoured and destroyed by a dark force called ‘The Nothing’. The disintegration of the realm is connected to the childlike empress, who is also gravely ill. 

Beings and creatures from all over Fantasia converge at the Empresses’ palace, the Ivory Tower to figure out what to do.

The Empress sends for Atreyu an unlikely boy warrior with his horse Artex. Both are sent out on a quest to find out how to stop The Nothing and heal the empress.

Atreyu’s quest as the story unfolds starts to indicate that Bastian who is reading the story narrative is not just a passive viewer but an active participant. The characters in the mythical drama are all aspects of him. Jungian archetypes, he’s on the hero’s journey, shadow aspects, the feminine and masculine all of these concepts are at play. This is why this film has blown my mind.

The first clip details when Atreyu comes into contact with G’Mork. He is the servant of ‘The Nothing’ I think it’s a perfect allegory to how power operates. It draws so many parallels to what we are experiencing now.

When all hope seems lost towards the end, Bastian realises he’s fundamental in saving and continuing on the dream of Fantasia, in fact everyone watching the film is also a direct participant, a manifestor of the story. This is where I think ‘The Never Ending Story’ becomes spookily accurate in my recent realisations. We can’t divorce ourselves from the dramas of the exterior reality.

This childhood film which I had on VHS, still to this day I can recite dialogue almost verbatim. Never in a million years could I have believe that this film was maybe strategically placed to act as the ultimate key and mirror to how this reality is constructed? I think it speaks to the idea of this reality having resets, and being never ending, with all things being connected. 

The external world is a reflection of Bastian. In the end Bastian and the child like empress hold the one remaining grain of sand belonging to Fantasia after its destruction. All thats left to do is to dream and imagine a new world.

 

Vanilla Sky

Vanilla Sky, a film released around the beginning of the millennium 2001. The dates of many of these reality bending films all seem to correlate around this particular era.

This was a Hollywood remake based on an original Spanish film called ‘Open Your Eyes’ which also stared Penélope Cruz as the same lead female character and love interest. 

The story follows a millionaire New York playboy who inherited a media empire from his father after his premature death. David Aemes played by Tom Cruise struggles to be taken seriously by the company board and also by people around him.

David meets the girl of his dreams Sofia. But a jealous casual partner played by Cameron Diaz, tries to kill both her and David in a car crash. She dies instantly. But David survives although with severe facial and head injuries.

The non linear format of the film eventually reveals that David eventually kills himself due to the physical and mental anguish he feels at loosing his old life and chance of happiness with Sofia. One interesting side note is the name Sofia and the connections to ideas of the rising of the divine feminine.

David’s suicide allows him to be cryogenically frozen and put into an artificial induced lucid dream until a time whereby he can be fully healed of his injuries.

But his subconscious starts to reject the reality around him, plus there is a glitch in the system so his lucid dream starts to become a nightmare.

There are few clips which I think contain very neat ideas or reflections on our own reality. The first is when Tech Support tires to convince David that his reality is a lucid dream and not real. He is more connected than he realises to the people around him, effectively he’s creating or dreaming the society, situations and even people around him.

I think reality is full of a certain amount of background people that helps this construct run. Ideas of 8 billion people on the planet I feel are illusionary. Plus is it possible that many of the people in our immediate sphere are fragments of ourselves reflecting back at us where we are spiritually on our journey? 

It is a well known spiritual concept that we are all one. For me personally this is becoming more and more viscerally true, everyday. But in a slightly different form to what I imagined. 

I think our consciousnesses are significantly larger than we can ever realise. Without consciousness, this world or larger universe can’t function. The universe or reality is consciousness in physical form. You, me, everyone is the universe.

The next clip shows us that when David fully understands his own self made nightmare, he amusingly cries out for Tech Support. 

The last few years for me have been very challenging, the idea that I could just scream tech support is very appealing. I would say the process of being here is really facing all of the challenges in yourself, in relationships, family, the exterior world.

Finding absolute love for yourself is the only way, trying to look outside of yourself for love, or acceptance will only create distortions in your reality and wider world.

Final clip David after meeting and talking with tech support is given a choice to remain with Sophia in a lucid dream, or to return to the real world where his injuries can be healed, but his finances and wealth won’t last long in the new world. In the end David takes a leap of faith to the unknown.

I really have no idea what is beyond the boundaries of this human experience, I have some feelings that 2026 maybe a pivotal year for something. 

For what I’m unsure. Ideas of an afterlife, or reincarnation i’m starting to feel maybe are part of the story of this reality, which as you can see everything is dissolving, all of its ideas. So what is beyond the threshold? 

It feels like there is a grand convergence of maybe all versions of yourself, fragments, timelines and lifetimes all merging.

Its probaby something we can’t even fathom..? But i’m more hopeful now than I ever have been.

 

Dark City

Dark City, released in 1998 stylistically and plot wise there are so many similarities to the juggernaut of The Matrix, which was released a year later. It’s a very good but significantly less well-known film. I find it fascinating that the both Dark City and The Matrix both came out during a similar time.

A few of the characters in the movie become awakened to the fact that their whole reality is a fabricated construct, a huge experiment. Extraterrestrials with a hive mind known as ‘The Strangers’, inhabit human corpses. Hidden from view, in the shadows they manipulate the architecture of a Noir style American City, which perpetually only operates at night. 

The inhabitants of the city have constant amnesia concerning their origins and their general day to day life. The Strangers are motivated to save their dying species by studying human individuality. They frequently change the profession and memories of the inhabitants along with redesigning the cities layout in an attempt to try and understand the core spark and magic of being human.

Eventually a police inspector John Murdoch, an anomaly is able to avoid their mind control methods which the strangers call ‘Tuning’ This tuning is a combined use of technology and psychic abilities to control the cities population from understanding their surroundings and everyday activities.

I think this clip illustrates the idea of amnesia really well, you come into a reality and take it for granted that the construction around you organically developed in a linear way, history happened before you arrived. That the memories, knowledge and understanding are all genuinely yours. 

Now more than ever i’m questioning the idea of reality and its linear progression. 

As an example just because we have ruins of lost civilisations around the world doesn’t mean necessarily that these ruins were actually anything. Our souls or consciousness came into this reality, and we are presented with all of this information and expected to believe and not really question, this goes for both mainstream and even alternative avenues of research. 

  

Donnie Darko

Another time bending dimensional driven film Donnie Darko again released pretty close to The Matrix and Dark City in 2002. Theses films were all released as I moved from my later teens into young adulthood, from the start of university through to my final graduation, which for me is interesting personal timing. Reality is way more of a personal active feedback experience than I ever previously thought. I can’t ignore the continuing and growing synchronicities.

Set in 1988 situated in idyllic suburban quaint America. Donnie a highly intelligent but troubled teenager starts to hear voices and visions of a character called Frank. Frank conveys to Donnie that the world will end in 28 days.

This film directly deals with themes of time travel, dimensions and portals. A planes jet engine collapses into Donnie’s family home over night from an alternative tangent universe.

The story follows the dramas in Donnie’s life. His family, school, friends as this tangent universe unfolds. Donnie during this process becomes awakened to the possibility of time travel and dimensions. On the outside to normal people, he appears to have troubling and worsening mental health issues. Frank his guide, is a trickster force who at times negatively influences Donnie’s behaviour. His actions create chaos, but also reveal great truths in their community of hidden darkness.

The local towns perceived crazy person is collectively known as Grandma Death. Donnie discovers the same old woman previously was a science teacher at his school. She even wrote a book on specifically on time travel. The books information heavily influenced Donnie’s understanding on what was about to unfold and how reality is structured.

Donnie towards the end carry’s out some horrific violent acts. But he manages to save the primary universe, through traveling back in time from the tangent universe before all the chaos unfolded in his community. But at the cost of his own life to save the people around him. 

Donnie Darko is a very multi layered film, I only started to understand its themes after  researching what other people had written concerning it’s storyline. For years I’ve been unconscious to some of the deeper themes and particulary the meaning of the end.

 

The Matrix

The Matrix released 1999. The film needs no introduction. It’s probably one of the most important movies or cultural artefacts to have been released in my opinion. Its had a huge effect on me and the collective as a whole. I think it’s probably challenged most peoples outlook on reality.

The main narrative concerns humanity being trapped in a digital simulation. With an Archontic AI based robotic force feeding off the energy of humanity. The film raises questions about technology, spirituality, our origins and humanities development. 

In our own reality I don’t discount these concepts but i’m starting to feel that these forces are there to be experienced as a mechanism of awakening. It operates as a shadow external fragment of ourselves. 

As you’ll know the basic premise is that Neo a hacker by night, office worker by day is contacted by a terrorist organisation. He eventually meets with this group who give him the choice to understand what the Matrix is. He takes a leap of faith by taking a red pill. This allows the group to release him from the bondage of the matrix. A virtual reality system that keeps humanity in a lucid dream so that robots and AI can use the human body as a battery.

For me the Matrix is an allegory for the drama that I see continually unfold on the internet. It’s seemingly becoming more and more illusionary, even bizarre. I’m realising the interconnected nature of everything. This global theatre is directly connected to us. Our spirit is potentially reflecting back energies that are emerging or healing from within us.

In The Matrix there is a scene where Neo waits to see the Oracle to find out if he’s The One, a christ like figure. In the understated city apartment there are other prospective individuals who might alsFo be The One. He has a conversation with one of the children about the nature of reality whilst the child manipulates and bends a series of spoons. The ideas of bending spoons stretches back to Uri Geller in the 1970’s, and even earlier via the popularisation of spiritualism in the victorian era. 

Moving on beyond the controlling AI and robotic narrative for some reason this scene seems like the most important one, when trying to represent the world we live in and our current reality context.

The knowledge of the spoon and interaction empowers Neo to truly eventually step onto his role and power. No longer rendering him a slave to the system and his outdated perception of reality around him. 

 

Conclusions

As a child of the 80’s and 90’s and then younger adult in 2000’s my mythology has come through films like this, its the basis for many of my hero archetypes. 

I think much of our lives we are tricked in thinking that we have no power and the mythical unseen force is constantly trying to trap us in illusion. To a degree it is true, but increasingly i’ve come to the conclusions these challenges are a mechanism of awakening.

Profoundly these films, many of them came out on the advent of my transition into an adulthood. Expecting to lead a normal adult life, under the impression all the systems in the world are correctly functioning to our benefit, I was ready to roll up my sleeves and try and become a success in the material world. 

These film narratives in hindsight are the precursors to questioning how the human experience is organised and the very fabric of reality around us. Little did I know I was being subconsciously changed for later years. It wasn’t until deep into my 30’s did I really start to then question everything.

This is a random off the cuff even tenuous thought, but the fact that The NeverEnding story specifically was released in 1984. Which makes me think immediately of George Orwell’s 1984, and oppressive regimes. I can’t help but think that the themes to The NeverEnding Story is the antidote to the system, the pervasive exterior world that appears to be more oppressive by the day? Have we peaked, is 2026 now the time to start dreaming in the ashes of the old world…

I think we need to not view ourselves as passive viewers of this drama but see the illusion and understand that we had the power and the words to shift things the whole time. The internet, movies, books, astrology, the people around your are all reflections. There are huge shifts in the sun and strange once in a lifetime planetary alignments have happeded in 2025 and now 2026. You’re not being affected by it, you’re doing it. You and I. We just forgot…

It is again and will always be about coming back to ourselves.