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"Row, row, row your boat. Gently down the stream... Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream."

Life can feel dream-like at times... and our dreams can feel eerily life-like. We know that one is real and the other is an illusion, but which is the illusion and which is the reality? Is reality the same for everyone? Does my reality affect my illusions? Or do my illusions affect my reality? Where exactly is the line between reality and illusion?

The line between reality and illusion is not just blurred, but shaken and stirred in The Waking Life, an award winning 2001 film, written and directed by Richard Linklater. The Waking Life is a uniquely animated film. It was shot on video with live actors, and then artists overlaid the video frames with animation, giving the film a fluid, yet sometimes quirky, animated feeling. The film examines dream states, man's purpose in the universe, and the meaning of life in a way that makes us question our very concepts of reality itself.

The film's main character, a nameless young man, seems to be having a very surreal day. He keeps waking up only to discover that he is still dreaming. During the course his day he has a series of encounters, (some of which are definitely dreamlike like the man driving the boat on the on the street,) with seemingly random characters. Some of these encounters are brief, some are longer, but each encounter is a conversation about some philosophical concept or idea. Most relate to man's search for meaning and his trying to understand reality. Do things that happen in our dreams affect our reality? Can we control our dreams? Is our life really real? Or is it all just a dream?

The Waking Life offers many points of view, and raises many questions about life and reality. On one level the film appears to be examining the line between the dream state and our waking reality, how they affect one another, and how they intertwine and may be inseparable. Are dreams, especially lucid dreams in which a person is aware that they are dreaming, a part of reality? Or is all of reality nothing more than a dream?

On a deeper level, The Waking Life is about how to live life from an awakened' state of being. In Buddhism, a person who has attained enlightenment is said to be awakened' they see through the illusion that is our reality and experience life from a different perspective than the rest of us, who are still stuck in the illusion that we created for ourselves. To wake up' is to see through all the ideas and concepts that the movie raises in a way that cuts to the core of them.

With its distinctive animation and a thought provoking story line, The Waking Life is a unique look at some of the eternal questions that have plagued mankind. The Waking Life doesn't try to give answers to any of the questions raised in the film, but it does present those questions in a way that begs further thought and discussion.

Learn more about this author, Bob Crawford.
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