For 15 years, Tom Cruise was the face of Hollywood, and of America.
He portrayed the successful, cocky, young American go-getter of the '80s-'90s.
in Vanilla Sky (2001) that face is disfigured, the mask is removed.
The American dream has become a nightmare.
The last thing he sees before leaping and hitting ground zero is south Manhattan.
Open Your Eyes
David Aames
or should we say, David Aims.
Major Tom as David the Bow Man.
or David Bowman, in his lifelong dream odyssey in the year 2001.
David is plunged from the 27th path of the Tree of Life, the path of The Tower
and down the 25th path, that of Art/Temperance
which is attributed to the Zodiac of Sagittarius, the Bowman.
When the Thoth Tarot deck is arranged in a Vesica Piscis, the Cupid on the Lovers card aims his arrow down towards the Art card.
As has been pointed out here, by Alan A. Green, the Egyptian constellation Horus was directly over the WTC on 9/11/2001.
It's almost 9-11 as David's surgery is performed.
Vanilla Sky was based on the 1997 Spanish film Obre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes).
Towards the end of that film, when Cesar enters the Life Extensions office
the clock for Tokyo is at 9-11.
As they go out onto the roof, the first thing we see are these two leaning twin towers.
Obre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky seem to be largely inspired by Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik.
A futuristic story of deceased people who are put into a state of suspended animation where they exist in their own dream world; which can also be shared by those around them.
The characters in the story witness everything in the world around them regress historically, everything except the coin-operated doors.
UBIK - You Be 9/11
or, 21-2-9-11
21 x 2 = 42.
UBIK = 42 - 9/11
(Cruise next starred in Minority Report, which is an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name)
9/11 wasn't the only Double Fantasy tragedy to happen in New York.
David Aims lives at The Dakota, the home and place of death for John Lennon.
and what does his Spanish counterpart drive?
A white VW Beetle.
On December 5th, David decides to ask Sofia (Cruz) out again that coming weekend.
December 8th falls on the weekend in 2001.
December 8th is the date John Lennon died.
The Top Gunner's planes buzzing the tower.
Life Extensions promotional video.
"From the moment you woke up in that dream, nothing was real in the traditional sense" - Ventura
In the commentary, director Cameron Crowe says "the man in the 'Revolution 9' shirt is a clue."
David's comment here is in reference to McCartney's response to the rumors of his death when he replied "the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Which is a quotation of Mark Twain.
And if you still think I'm just reading Beatles lore into some of the films I see, in the making-of special feature, you can see in Crowe's notes "Abbey Road, Paul is dead", and he later says he wanted the film "to be full of clues, kind of like the cover of Sgt. Pepper."
The Magical Mystery Tour film began filming on 9/11/67
In the first scene we see Lennon standing next to a sign featuring the initials M D C.
The MMT double-EP was released on 12/8/67, exactly 13 years to the day before Lennon's death.
The MMT film premiered on 12/26/67
the day David dies in Vanilla Sky
12/26/65 is the day Paul McCartney crashed on his moped causing his chipped tooth and scarred lip.
McCartney wrote the theme song to Vanilla Sky, which plays during the closing credits.
David Aames was born in 1968
Just as 2001:ASO
David meets Sofia on his 33rd birthday
which is 11 days after 9/11/2001
The first thing he does with Sofia is show her his Art.
Later that night they draw portraits of each other.
"That's a very nice rendering, Dave."
(Sofia tells David that she is an arms dealer. In the 2010 film Knight & Day, Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz get tangled up with an evil Spanish arms dealer).
The following morning, David succumbs to temptation and takes a ride with Julie,
which changes his life forever.
(Julie exclaims, "I fucking love you!" and steps on the gas at precisely the 42-minute mark)
He has plunged from Tiphareth down to Malkuth
the world of illusions spun by the Scarlet Woman.
who resembles David Bowie, in The Man Who Fell To Earth, character's name: Tom.
The Space Oddity.
as pointed out by MaskOfGod
Earth, the World, the second half of the path from Tiphareth to Malkuth.
David meets up with Sofia & Brian on December 8th.
Things don't go well and David says...
Tommorow Never Knows
I'm only sleeping.
Afterwards, David sees Sofia & Brian run off together.
Devastated, he collapses in the street and falls asleep.
That is the moment he chose for the "splice".
David begins his dream life on what most likely would be December 9th.
Here he undergoes a Dark Night of the Soul, or perhaps something of a Jungian descent into the hellish depths of his unsonscious to regain his soul and remove his egoic mask.
A copy of Carl Jung's 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections' sits on the desk as McCabe (Kurt Russel) analyzes David.
(Remember, K. Russel lands his plane on the roof of one of the Twin Towers in Escape From New York).
The book is about Jung's personal dreams and how they helped him uncover his "shadow" and remove his persona or mask.
I would go so far as to say David is undergoing the process of Individuation, much like which Jung chronicled in his magnum opus, The Red Book.
Seen in Kubrick's The Shining, before it was available to the public.
In David's dream world, Sofia represents his Anima
and Julie being the blonde Marilyn claiming to be Sofia,
taking over Sofia's identity Agent Smith style.
Which actually seems to be inspired again by PKD's Ubik, in which a young man, Jory, supplants the lives of the half-lifers in the chambers around him.
Interesting that David kills Sofia/Julie while making love to her(s), in that many psychologists equate the pleasure principle and the death principle as one in the same.
But as we find out, David didn't kill anybody, other than himself.
Jung states in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
"[My client] was a murderess, but on top of all that she had also murdered herself. For one who commits such a crime destroys his own soul, the murderer has already passed sentence on himself.
If someone has committed a crime and is caught, he suffers judicial punishment. If he has done it secretly without moral consciousness of it, and remains undiscovered, the punishment can never the less be visited upon him."
David's predicament seems to be the reverse of this.
Havng repressed the memory of committing suicide, his subconscious is creating the compensatory experience of killing Sofia, which could be taken as his "Greater Personality".
Interestingly, in the commentary, Crowe says he originally tried to score the suicide scene to Strawberry Fields Forever.
One of the recurring memories from David's life is the film To Kill A Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck. Peck also starred in the Hitchcock film Spellbound, which involves a long dream sequence and is about Peck repressing the memory of a murder.
In the film 2010, we see that H. Floyd filed his report on the Discovery Mission on December 9th, 2001.
Now, how much of Vanilla Sky can we really differentiate between what was his dream, and what was his waking life before being put into the dream state?
In the first scene in the film that's not supposed to be in his dream, Julie's cell phone rings to the tone of "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream."
In the next scene, the sticker on his car window read 02/30/01.
the date February 30th does not exist.
The sticker on Julie's windshield also reads 02/30/01, btw.
Vanilla Sky isn't the only Tom Cruise movie that diverges from the path of the waking life.
Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut is rife with anomalies that inform the viewer, even if only subconsciously, that the story is not to be taken at face value.
It is in fact, much more of what you would call a
Dream Story.
Early in the story, Dr. Bill visits Mariam, the daughter of a recently deceased patient.
As he walks toward his bedroom, we see a jade statue on both tables.
Mere minutes later, as her boyfriend Carl arrives, we do not see the statue on the nearer table.
Later that night as he enters Domino's apartment, we see her vibrant Christmas tree.
Less than 24 hours later, it is in a very sorry state.
A stuffed tiger sits on Domino's bed, facing towards her.
Wait, no, seconds later it's facing away.
Between the two tiger shots, Alice calls Bill on his cell phone. In the first shot, she is eating a cookie, there are 5 left in the package.
Cut to Bill - cut back to Alice, now there are 6 cookies, and she is done eating.
Cut back to Bill - Cut back to Alice, now there are 5 cookies again.
The display outside the Sonata Cafe states:
Kip Fleming is on bass
Larry McKay on drums
Nick Nightengale on piano
and Bobby Berman on guitar.
However, once inside, Nick announces to the audience:
Kip Fleming on drums
Larry McKay on bass
At Ziegler's party, Nick's hair is parted on his left.
Two nights later it's parted on his right; at the Sonata Cafe, and at the masked ball.
Notice the signs outside the Sonata Cafe.
And Gillespie's with the distinct neon "Diner", etc.
Minutes later, Bill takes a taxi across town to rent a costume, yet behind him we see Gillespie's Diner.
When Bill's cab first pulls up to the costume shop, we see the mannequins in the window are clothed
black, black, white, black.
Once inside, notice the different arrangement. Not only in the cloting, but also notice the top hat has moved to a different mannequin.
The previous night, before leaving for the Christmas party, we see the Harford's have a brass lamp on their night-stand.
The following night, after Bill returns from the orgy, they now have a ceramic lamp.
Different bedding, as well.
Day 2, Bill tries to locate Nick and steps into Gillespies.
Notice as he's entering the door, the customer on the far end of the bar is the woman in the red jacket.
No time has passed, but the camera then cuts to the inside as Bill enters. Now there is a woman in a blue jacket at the end of the bar.
When Bill first visited the costume shop, they pass a mannequin in white, a row of shelves and a door.
The next day, mere hours later, when Bill returns the suit, the counter has moved in front of the door, and the shelves now have shoes instead of shirts.
After noticing he's being followed, Bill hails a cab, right as he passes address 237.
Bill then retreats into a cafe.
Later that night he is called to Ziegler's.
Notice the same Christmas decoration.
There's also the Sewing Thread building, which we first see when Bill meets Domino.
It is at the end of street, on our far right.
Bill then taxies across town to the costume shop, and what do we see, the Sewing Thread building.
This time, however, there is no yellow Auto Repair sign on the building.
Also notice the other buildings along the street have changed.
On day 2 we see the Sewing Thread building again, with the Auto Repair sign, yet this is not Domino's street, as seen above.
This is when he returns to the Sonata Cafe to find Nick, which was supposed to be a full drive away from the costume shop.
After leaving Gillespie's on day 2, it's time for him to return his costume.
However, notice the costume shop's building is across the street, albeit vacant.
But still, as we know, he will drive across town and return his costume.
There's also the mailbox that follows Dr. Bill around town. The one with the distinctive graffiti.
Outside the costume shop
outside Nick's hotel
and outside the 237 restaurant.
David Aames passes by a similar one just before getting into Julia's car.
And look, in the last scene it's Domino's stuffed tigers.
I noticed these anomalies on my own before looking around the net for others. And sure enough there are dozens more. Juli Kearns goes over many of those and more here.
So, was Eyes Wide Shut all a dream, a fantasy, a hallucination?
Or, did Bill just need to realize that he was an actor in a film?
Much like David Bowman
The part of Victor Zeigler was played by Syndey Pollack
who directed Tom Cruise in The Firm (1993)
Major Tom between the two pillars
Remember the 1993 WTC bombing.
Interesting that the surveilling head honcho of the firm is played by HAL Holbrook, and Cruise's mentor is played by 9/11 figure extraordinaire Gene Hackman. (see 9/11 Hackman post here).
Also that all of the deaths in the film occur in twos.
Much like dominoes. Or should we say Domino & Mandy from EWS.
Also in 1993, David Bowie releases his heavily Kubrick-inspired video Jump They Say. Very Vanilla Sky precog, as well.
At 17:45 Dr. Bill tells Zeigler to keep Mandy there for another hour.
Exactly one hour later, in the film, Mandy approaches Bill at the masked ball and kisses him.
David Aames was no stranger to big-time directors either, Steven Spielberg was at his birthday party.
Was Vanilla Sky director Cameron Crowe putting himself into the film as Cameron Diaz?
Incidentally, Sydney Pollack also directed the 1995 remake of Sabrina.
David watches the 1954 version in the first scene of Vanilla Sky.
in Eyes Wide Shut, their daughter wants a stroller for her doll Sabrina.
Cruise starred with Kevin Pollak in A Few Good Men.
Cruise's name in the film is Danny.
His reply when Nicholson calls him son:
Danny thinks better with his bat. "Gimme the bat."
Danny prints out a list of calls made by Nicholson
the one in the middle is area code 723
the last four digits are 0666.
the time was at 17:42
Who ordered the Code Red? Kiefer Sutherland's name in the film is Jack, a subordinate of Nicholson's character.
Justice goading the Fool into a confession.
Private Louden calls his friend Hal. (code red eye)
(pro tip: watch AFGM as if the prosecuting lawyers are Jerry, George & Elaine).
'Maybe I'm missing something here. You call it code, honor... Do you mind telling me what kind of fucking Code Red ends up with somebody turning up dead?!'
Danny's afraid to fly in planes, and David Aames is afraid of heights.
Aames is a "pleasure delayer", Danny is "pacing himself".
Danny and Dr. Bill's secretaries are both named Janelle.
Aames' Mustang is in the shop, Dr. Bill's Jeep is in the shop.
Aames owns 51% of his father's company, Dr. Bill lives in apt 5A.
Dr. Bill & Alice also live at Central Park West, and the film takes place in December.
All the women in Eyes Wide Shut are redheads.
In Vanilla Sky, the redhead from Jules & Jim (1962) serves as an archetypal target David's aspirations.
Aames and Dr. Bill both do the prolonged hand-on-face shot.
Alice's disconcerting dream begins with
Vanilla Sky begins with
Dr. Bill must kindly remove his mask, David Aames must also remove his mask.
(notice Alice is now sleeping on the other side of the bed)
David from A.I. discovers that he's not unique when he steps into this mask.
When his adopted mother calls his name we're given a close-up shot of him opening his eye
Much like our other Davids.
A.I., also released in 2001, was handed to Spielberg by Kubrick when he decided to do Eyes Wide Shut.
Do dream androids dream of electric sheep?
The eye of Horus and of Shiva oversees the destruction of the tower.
from Polanski's 1999 film The Ninth Gate, as Corso is on his way to the castle.
Crowley says thusly on the Art card in The Book of Thoth:
The arrow of True Will, with which the Philosopher's Stone is used to fertilize and bring to Life the Orphic Egg.
Alluding to David Bowman's female counterpart Ellie Arroway from Contact.
David Aames is cryogenically frozen by LE: Life Extensions.
The Art card represents the Consummation of the Royal Marriage depicted in The Lovers card. The coming together of contradictory opposites, or the Coniunctio.
The quintessential example at the bottom of the card is seen as Fire and Water are harmoniously mingled.
This is expressed in Alchemy with the merging of the triangle and the inverse triangle. Which is also known as the Star of David.
The Hebrew word David (DVD) means 'to boil'.
The Greek word Thelema is written upon the shaft of Cupid's arrow, which means 'Will'.
The Will and the Egg-man.
Arguing in front of the stark blue light.
"If you men only knew..."
Kidman is shot and passes out in front of the Christmas tree.
Cruise runs through the streets of Boston. The acting is basically the same as the scene in Vanilla Sky when Brian & Sofia run off to their secret tryst.
The scene then cuts to this explosion.
(Boston Marathon? The Firm also begins and ends in Boston)
I can't help but note the similarity between Far & Away and EWS, in that in Far & Away Cruise & Kidman live together under the pretense of being siblings, thus resisting their urges for an intimate relationship - the whole film is about how they need to fuck.
Near the end of the film, Kidman says this to dead Cruise.
I also feel EWS is a sequel of sorts to the 1966 film The Family Way, which follows the lives of a newlywed couple in which the man is unable to have sex with his bride.
The soundtrack was composed of course, by, Paul McCartney.
Kidman & Cruise broke up shortly after filming Eyes Wide Shut. Cruise began dating Cruz during the filming of Vanilla Sky.
When David & Sofia first meet, this Kidman-looking woman bumps into Sofia and they glare at each other.
Cruz is Spanish for cross.
Cruz & Cruise, the two crosses.
RosenCruz
The babysitter in Eyes Wide Shut is named Roz.
The song which plays while David is falling from the tower is by Sigur Ros.
Which is Icelandic for Victory Rose.
the 1999 film American Beauty closing credits end with "Special thanks to Dr. Bill and Alice"
This was the only TV Digest shown.
in Top Gun, Cruise talks about how his mother loved the song "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay".
The skies in Vanilla Sky were based on the Monet painting that was David's mom's favorite.
There's no place like Holmes.
Was The Wizard of Oz another dream story?
Was it
an Inception?
The similarities between Inception and Vanilla Sky go without saying.
One of the only major differences is that Mal wants Cobb to stay in their dream world, by jumping from the tower
and Sofia wants David to wake up by jumping from the tower.
The waters of the subconscious.
Remember, Cobb was the Man in the Iron Mask, and Cameron Diaz was the femme fatale in Mask.
Ariadne shatters the mirror of the dream world just like Sarah in Bowie's Labyrinth, another dream story.
MaskOfGod notes: the EWS masked ball is the same as the one in Labyrinth. The Omega Point is with Penelope at the end of David's Space Odyssey.
Jay adds: Ariadne constructs the labyrinth in Greek myth.
In Inception, she is the projection of Cobb's psyche that grounds him - the anima of Jung. We enter Sarah's psyche just as we enter Cobb's. Both are labyrinthine.
Jung scholar M.L. von Fronz explains of the meaning of the labyrinth as subconscious:
"The maze of strange passages, chambers, and unlocked exits in the cellar recalls the old Egyptian representation of the underworld, which is a well-known symbol of the unconscious with it's abilities. It also shows how one is "open" to other influences in one's unconscious shadow side and how uncanny and alien elements can break in."
Inception and Vanilla Sky also feature the sub-plot of wresting control of the family business.
David deals with the 7 Dwarves as Fischer deals with Saito and the 6-man Inception team.
Ventura literally plays the same role as Cobb.
To leave the dream, one needs a "kick".
in Vanilla Sky, David chose jumping from a tower.
He also had to come to terms with his vices, stop thinking with his dick, conquer his paranoia, get over superficial appearances, experience the sweet and the sour, and stop merely snowboarding through life.
Most of all he had to become reconciled with his own Self - shadow and all, and reintegrate with his Anima.
David doesn't want to live a dream story anymore. He wants to live a real life.
What was our "kick"?
David Aims has transcended the game, or furthermore, the screen, much like David Bowman in 1968's 2001.
They see through the illusion and have developed to a higher state of consciousness.
"And what one person accomplishes, we all accomplish." - MKUltrasound
Just remember, the sweet isn't as sweet...
Jung states, "If the individual is not truly integrated in spirit, society cannot be either, for society is sum total of individuals in need of redemption.
If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and all fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin.
What does lie within our reach is the change in individuals who have or create for themselves an opportunity to influence others of like mind. I do not mean by persuading or preaching, I'm thinking rather of the well-known fact that anyone who has insight into his own actions, and has thus found access to the unconscious, involuntarily exercises an influence on his environment."
As Jung scholar Edward Edinger put it in 1988: "The world is torn asunder by the strife between the opposites - a state of affairs that's grown progressively worse in the past 500 years.
These individuals with insight into their own actions are the ones who by a greater or lesser extent have experienced the Coniunctio. They are the ones who are aware of the fact that the opposites go to make up the Psyche itself and therefore go to make up one's own psyche, and therefore they become carriers of the opposites, rather than exteriorizers of the opposites.
And if society is to be redeemed it will be done to the cumulative affect of such individuals.
The idea is that when enough individuals can carry the consciousness of wholeness, the world itself will become whole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1OrL4A_b5M
It is precisely the work of Individuation which creates the Coniunctio and in the process promotes a net increase of consciousness in the world.
Seems that our best chance to spare ourselves of a collective catastrophe resides in the possibility that enough people will have individual conscious encounters with the Greater Personality, and thereby will contribute to the process of immunizing the Body-Social against a mass atheistic inflation.
If each individual can work towards that end by diligently assimilating his projections and seeking his own individual unique encounter, then he will contribute to that immunizing process to the extent that it can take place in the arena of the individual psyche, so it will not have to take place in that dreadful arena of the collective psyche."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAlCeJ4LuRk
In the words of Jung in Approaching the Unconscious: "As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who must experience it and carry it through. But since nobody seems to know what to do, it might be worth while for each of us to ask himself whether by any chance his or her unconscious may know something that will help us. Certainly the conscious mind seems unable to do anything useful in this respect."
In Mysterium Coniunctionis, he adds: "One must celebrate a Last Supper with one's self. Eat his own flesh and drink his own blood. Which means that he must recognize and accept the Other in himself. The ego must have an encounter with the Self."
Know Thyself
to see the matrix for what it is.
if you can handle the truth.
Like Jesus, David Aims is betrayed by his Judas and dies publicly for the world to see.
And still akin to Jesus, David then descends into the hell of his own subconscious, only to reemerge anew having resolved his adversarial counter-part/shadow.
For David, the opposites have been reconciled, entering into the final stage of the Great Work.
What was "divided for Love's sake" has now been reunited.
The Twin Pillars of the Tree of Life have been made into one, the Tree has been folded back into it's proper form; the hexagram.
(implications of this can be found in the writings of Ramak)
David's star.
"I'll see you in another life when we're both cats."
So what figure is Major Tom Cruise archetypecast as. Osiris? Horus?
He seems to resonate as a transitional figure. As the Aeon of Osiris cruises into the Aeon of Horus.
A reference to Osiris' phallus, which Isis used to conceive Horus?
Alan Green makes the point: It wasn't Osiris' phallus, it was Isis' dildo.
On that note, thanks for reading!
David Aames
or should we say, David Aims.
Major Tom as David the Bow Man.
or David Bowman, in his lifelong dream odyssey in the year 2001.
David is plunged from the 27th path of the Tree of Life, the path of The Tower
and down the 25th path, that of Art/Temperance
which is attributed to the Zodiac of Sagittarius, the Bowman.
When the Thoth Tarot deck is arranged in a Vesica Piscis, the Cupid on the Lovers card aims his arrow down towards the Art card.
As has been pointed out here, by Alan A. Green, the Egyptian constellation Horus was directly over the WTC on 9/11/2001.
It's almost 9-11 as David's surgery is performed.
Vanilla Sky was based on the 1997 Spanish film Obre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes).
Towards the end of that film, when Cesar enters the Life Extensions office
the clock for Tokyo is at 9-11.
As they go out onto the roof, the first thing we see are these two leaning twin towers.
Obre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky seem to be largely inspired by Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik.
A futuristic story of deceased people who are put into a state of suspended animation where they exist in their own dream world; which can also be shared by those around them.
The characters in the story witness everything in the world around them regress historically, everything except the coin-operated doors.
UBIK - You Be 9/11
or, 21-2-9-11
21 x 2 = 42.
UBIK = 42 - 9/11
(Cruise next starred in Minority Report, which is an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name)
9/11 wasn't the only Double Fantasy tragedy to happen in New York.
David Aims lives at The Dakota, the home and place of death for John Lennon.
and what does his Spanish counterpart drive?
A white VW Beetle.
On December 5th, David decides to ask Sofia (Cruz) out again that coming weekend.
December 8th falls on the weekend in 2001.
December 8th is the date John Lennon died.
The Top Gunner's planes buzzing the tower.
Life Extensions promotional video.
"From the moment you woke up in that dream, nothing was real in the traditional sense" - Ventura
In the commentary, director Cameron Crowe says "the man in the 'Revolution 9' shirt is a clue."
David's comment here is in reference to McCartney's response to the rumors of his death when he replied "the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Which is a quotation of Mark Twain.
And if you still think I'm just reading Beatles lore into some of the films I see, in the making-of special feature, you can see in Crowe's notes "Abbey Road, Paul is dead", and he later says he wanted the film "to be full of clues, kind of like the cover of Sgt. Pepper."
The Magical Mystery Tour film began filming on 9/11/67
In the first scene we see Lennon standing next to a sign featuring the initials M D C.
The MMT double-EP was released on 12/8/67, exactly 13 years to the day before Lennon's death.
The MMT film premiered on 12/26/67
the day David dies in Vanilla Sky
12/26/65 is the day Paul McCartney crashed on his moped causing his chipped tooth and scarred lip.
McCartney wrote the theme song to Vanilla Sky, which plays during the closing credits.
David Aames was born in 1968
Just as 2001:ASO
David meets Sofia on his 33rd birthday
which is 11 days after 9/11/2001
The first thing he does with Sofia is show her his Art.
Later that night they draw portraits of each other.
"That's a very nice rendering, Dave."
(Sofia tells David that she is an arms dealer. In the 2010 film Knight & Day, Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz get tangled up with an evil Spanish arms dealer).
The following morning, David succumbs to temptation and takes a ride with Julie,
which changes his life forever.
(Julie exclaims, "I fucking love you!" and steps on the gas at precisely the 42-minute mark)
He has plunged from Tiphareth down to Malkuth
the world of illusions spun by the Scarlet Woman.
who resembles David Bowie, in The Man Who Fell To Earth, character's name: Tom.
The Space Oddity.
as pointed out by MaskOfGod
Earth, the World, the second half of the path from Tiphareth to Malkuth.
David meets up with Sofia & Brian on December 8th.
Things don't go well and David says...
Tommorow Never Knows
I'm only sleeping.
Afterwards, David sees Sofia & Brian run off together.
Devastated, he collapses in the street and falls asleep.
That is the moment he chose for the "splice".
David begins his dream life on what most likely would be December 9th.
Here he undergoes a Dark Night of the Soul, or perhaps something of a Jungian descent into the hellish depths of his unsonscious to regain his soul and remove his egoic mask.
A copy of Carl Jung's 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections' sits on the desk as McCabe (Kurt Russel) analyzes David.
(Remember, K. Russel lands his plane on the roof of one of the Twin Towers in Escape From New York).
The book is about Jung's personal dreams and how they helped him uncover his "shadow" and remove his persona or mask.
I would go so far as to say David is undergoing the process of Individuation, much like which Jung chronicled in his magnum opus, The Red Book.
Seen in Kubrick's The Shining, before it was available to the public.
In David's dream world, Sofia represents his Anima
and Julie being the blonde Marilyn claiming to be Sofia,
taking over Sofia's identity Agent Smith style.
Which actually seems to be inspired again by PKD's Ubik, in which a young man, Jory, supplants the lives of the half-lifers in the chambers around him.
Interesting that David kills Sofia/Julie while making love to her(s), in that many psychologists equate the pleasure principle and the death principle as one in the same.
But as we find out, David didn't kill anybody, other than himself.
Jung states in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
"[My client] was a murderess, but on top of all that she had also murdered herself. For one who commits such a crime destroys his own soul, the murderer has already passed sentence on himself.
If someone has committed a crime and is caught, he suffers judicial punishment. If he has done it secretly without moral consciousness of it, and remains undiscovered, the punishment can never the less be visited upon him."
David's predicament seems to be the reverse of this.
Havng repressed the memory of committing suicide, his subconscious is creating the compensatory experience of killing Sofia, which could be taken as his "Greater Personality".
Interestingly, in the commentary, Crowe says he originally tried to score the suicide scene to Strawberry Fields Forever.
One of the recurring memories from David's life is the film To Kill A Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck. Peck also starred in the Hitchcock film Spellbound, which involves a long dream sequence and is about Peck repressing the memory of a murder.
In the film 2010, we see that H. Floyd filed his report on the Discovery Mission on December 9th, 2001.
Now, how much of Vanilla Sky can we really differentiate between what was his dream, and what was his waking life before being put into the dream state?
In the first scene in the film that's not supposed to be in his dream, Julie's cell phone rings to the tone of "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream."
In the next scene, the sticker on his car window read 02/30/01.
the date February 30th does not exist.
At the party, when asked how he's doing, David replies "Living the dream!"
There's more than one appearance of an MLK poster. "I have a dream!"
How accurate is the story of David being in the crash? During his flashback scene we see Julie looking down from the bridge.The sticker on Julie's windshield also reads 02/30/01, btw.
Vanilla Sky isn't the only Tom Cruise movie that diverges from the path of the waking life.
Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut is rife with anomalies that inform the viewer, even if only subconsciously, that the story is not to be taken at face value.
It is in fact, much more of what you would call a
Dream Story.
Early in the story, Dr. Bill visits Mariam, the daughter of a recently deceased patient.
As he walks toward his bedroom, we see a jade statue on both tables.
Mere minutes later, as her boyfriend Carl arrives, we do not see the statue on the nearer table.
Later that night as he enters Domino's apartment, we see her vibrant Christmas tree.
Less than 24 hours later, it is in a very sorry state.
A stuffed tiger sits on Domino's bed, facing towards her.
Wait, no, seconds later it's facing away.
Between the two tiger shots, Alice calls Bill on his cell phone. In the first shot, she is eating a cookie, there are 5 left in the package.
Cut to Bill - cut back to Alice, now there are 6 cookies, and she is done eating.
Cut back to Bill - Cut back to Alice, now there are 5 cookies again.
The display outside the Sonata Cafe states:
Kip Fleming is on bass
Larry McKay on drums
Nick Nightengale on piano
and Bobby Berman on guitar.
However, once inside, Nick announces to the audience:
Kip Fleming on drums
Larry McKay on bass
At Ziegler's party, Nick's hair is parted on his left.
Two nights later it's parted on his right; at the Sonata Cafe, and at the masked ball.
Notice the signs outside the Sonata Cafe.
And Gillespie's with the distinct neon "Diner", etc.
Minutes later, Bill takes a taxi across town to rent a costume, yet behind him we see Gillespie's Diner.
When Bill's cab first pulls up to the costume shop, we see the mannequins in the window are clothed
black, black, white, black.
Once inside, notice the different arrangement. Not only in the cloting, but also notice the top hat has moved to a different mannequin.
The previous night, before leaving for the Christmas party, we see the Harford's have a brass lamp on their night-stand.
The following night, after Bill returns from the orgy, they now have a ceramic lamp.
Different bedding, as well.
Day 2, Bill tries to locate Nick and steps into Gillespies.
Notice as he's entering the door, the customer on the far end of the bar is the woman in the red jacket.
No time has passed, but the camera then cuts to the inside as Bill enters. Now there is a woman in a blue jacket at the end of the bar.
When Bill first visited the costume shop, they pass a mannequin in white, a row of shelves and a door.
The next day, mere hours later, when Bill returns the suit, the counter has moved in front of the door, and the shelves now have shoes instead of shirts.
After noticing he's being followed, Bill hails a cab, right as he passes address 237.
Bill then retreats into a cafe.
Later that night he is called to Ziegler's.
Notice the same Christmas decoration.
There's also the Sewing Thread building, which we first see when Bill meets Domino.
It is at the end of street, on our far right.
Bill then taxies across town to the costume shop, and what do we see, the Sewing Thread building.
This time, however, there is no yellow Auto Repair sign on the building.
Also notice the other buildings along the street have changed.
On day 2 we see the Sewing Thread building again, with the Auto Repair sign, yet this is not Domino's street, as seen above.
This is when he returns to the Sonata Cafe to find Nick, which was supposed to be a full drive away from the costume shop.
After leaving Gillespie's on day 2, it's time for him to return his costume.
However, notice the costume shop's building is across the street, albeit vacant.
But still, as we know, he will drive across town and return his costume.
There's also the mailbox that follows Dr. Bill around town. The one with the distinctive graffiti.
Outside the costume shop
outside Nick's hotel
and outside the 237 restaurant.
David Aames passes by a similar one just before getting into Julia's car.
And look, in the last scene it's Domino's stuffed tigers.
I noticed these anomalies on my own before looking around the net for others. And sure enough there are dozens more. Juli Kearns goes over many of those and more here.
So, was Eyes Wide Shut all a dream, a fantasy, a hallucination?
Or, did Bill just need to realize that he was an actor in a film?
Much like David Bowman
The part of Victor Zeigler was played by Syndey Pollack
who directed Tom Cruise in The Firm (1993)
Major Tom between the two pillars
Remember the 1993 WTC bombing.
Interesting that the surveilling head honcho of the firm is played by HAL Holbrook, and Cruise's mentor is played by 9/11 figure extraordinaire Gene Hackman. (see 9/11 Hackman post here).
Also that all of the deaths in the film occur in twos.
Much like dominoes. Or should we say Domino & Mandy from EWS.
Also in 1993, David Bowie releases his heavily Kubrick-inspired video Jump They Say. Very Vanilla Sky precog, as well.
Eyes Wide Shut is full of shots with lens flare, causing the viewer to realize he's watching actors performing in front of a camera.
And it was Zeigler who had Bill 'followed' and 'watched'.
At 17:45 Dr. Bill tells Zeigler to keep Mandy there for another hour.
Exactly one hour later, in the film, Mandy approaches Bill at the masked ball and kisses him.
David Aames was no stranger to big-time directors either, Steven Spielberg was at his birthday party.
Was Vanilla Sky director Cameron Crowe putting himself into the film as Cameron Diaz?
Incidentally, Sydney Pollack also directed the 1995 remake of Sabrina.
David watches the 1954 version in the first scene of Vanilla Sky.
in Eyes Wide Shut, their daughter wants a stroller for her doll Sabrina.
Cruise starred with Kevin Pollak in A Few Good Men.
Cruise's name in the film is Danny.
His reply when Nicholson calls him son:
Danny thinks better with his bat. "Gimme the bat."
Danny prints out a list of calls made by Nicholson
the one in the middle is area code 723
the last four digits are 0666.
the time was at 17:42
Who ordered the Code Red? Kiefer Sutherland's name in the film is Jack, a subordinate of Nicholson's character.
Justice goading the Fool into a confession.
Private Louden calls his friend Hal. (code red eye)
(pro tip: watch AFGM as if the prosecuting lawyers are Jerry, George & Elaine).
'Maybe I'm missing something here. You call it code, honor... Do you mind telling me what kind of fucking Code Red ends up with somebody turning up dead?!'
Danny's afraid to fly in planes, and David Aames is afraid of heights.
Aames is a "pleasure delayer", Danny is "pacing himself".
Danny and Dr. Bill's secretaries are both named Janelle.
Aames' Mustang is in the shop, Dr. Bill's Jeep is in the shop.
Aames owns 51% of his father's company, Dr. Bill lives in apt 5A.
Dr. Bill & Alice also live at Central Park West, and the film takes place in December.
All the women in Eyes Wide Shut are redheads.
In Vanilla Sky, the redhead from Jules & Jim (1962) serves as an archetypal target David's aspirations.
Aames and Dr. Bill both do the prolonged hand-on-face shot.
Alice's disconcerting dream begins with
Vanilla Sky begins with
Being played on the jumbo-tron is an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Shadow Play".
In which a man has a recurring nightmare every night. The only difference is that each night the roles of the characters get switched around.
Dr. Bill must kindly remove his mask, David Aames must also remove his mask.
(notice Alice is now sleeping on the other side of the bed)
David from A.I. discovers that he's not unique when he steps into this mask.
When his adopted mother calls his name we're given a close-up shot of him opening his eye
Much like our other Davids.
A.I., also released in 2001, was handed to Spielberg by Kubrick when he decided to do Eyes Wide Shut.
Do dream androids dream of electric sheep?
The eye of Horus and of Shiva oversees the destruction of the tower.
from Polanski's 1999 film The Ninth Gate, as Corso is on his way to the castle.
Crowley says thusly on the Art card in The Book of Thoth:
The arrow of True Will, with which the Philosopher's Stone is used to fertilize and bring to Life the Orphic Egg.
Alluding to David Bowman's female counterpart Ellie Arroway from Contact.
David Aames is cryogenically frozen by LE: Life Extensions.
The Art card represents the Consummation of the Royal Marriage depicted in The Lovers card. The coming together of contradictory opposites, or the Coniunctio.
The quintessential example at the bottom of the card is seen as Fire and Water are harmoniously mingled.
This is expressed in Alchemy with the merging of the triangle and the inverse triangle. Which is also known as the Star of David.
The Hebrew word David (DVD) means 'to boil'.
Crowley also adds, regarding the Art card:
Arranged in a Vesica Piscis, The Lovers card is directly over The Tower card.
And The Moon card, which represents the Dark Night of the Soul, features twin towers.
And a beetle pushing the Sun up the river.
The Greek word Thelema is written upon the shaft of Cupid's arrow, which means 'Will'.
The Will and the Egg-man.
Incidentally, in the first Cruise/Kidman film Far & Away (1992), her beau is none other than Carl from Eyes Wide Shut.
The boyfriend of the woman who's father died. Many perceive Carl & Mariam to be subconscious representations of Bill & Alice.
"If you men only knew..."
Kidman is shot and passes out in front of the Christmas tree.
Cruise runs through the streets of Boston. The acting is basically the same as the scene in Vanilla Sky when Brian & Sofia run off to their secret tryst.
The scene then cuts to this explosion.
(Boston Marathon? The Firm also begins and ends in Boston)
I can't help but note the similarity between Far & Away and EWS, in that in Far & Away Cruise & Kidman live together under the pretense of being siblings, thus resisting their urges for an intimate relationship - the whole film is about how they need to fuck.
Near the end of the film, Kidman says this to dead Cruise.
I also feel EWS is a sequel of sorts to the 1966 film The Family Way, which follows the lives of a newlywed couple in which the man is unable to have sex with his bride.
The soundtrack was composed of course, by, Paul McCartney.
Kidman & Cruise broke up shortly after filming Eyes Wide Shut. Cruise began dating Cruz during the filming of Vanilla Sky.
When David & Sofia first meet, this Kidman-looking woman bumps into Sofia and they glare at each other.
Cruz is Spanish for cross.
Cruz & Cruise, the two crosses.
RosenCruz
The babysitter in Eyes Wide Shut is named Roz.
The song which plays while David is falling from the tower is by Sigur Ros.
Which is Icelandic for Victory Rose.
the 1999 film American Beauty closing credits end with "Special thanks to Dr. Bill and Alice"
Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes named their daughter Suri, which is Persian for Red Rose.
Nicole Kidman has a daughter named Sunday Rose.
One of the magazines in David's nightmare run through a deserted Times Square.
There were only a handful all together, all of which were mags he published.One of the magazines in David's nightmare run through a deserted Times Square.
This was the only TV Digest shown.
in Top Gun, Cruise talks about how his mother loved the song "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay".
The skies in Vanilla Sky were based on the Monet painting that was David's mom's favorite.
There's no place like Holmes.
Was The Wizard of Oz another dream story?
Was it
an Inception?
The similarities between Inception and Vanilla Sky go without saying.
One of the only major differences is that Mal wants Cobb to stay in their dream world, by jumping from the tower
and Sofia wants David to wake up by jumping from the tower.
The waters of the subconscious.
Remember, Cobb was the Man in the Iron Mask, and Cameron Diaz was the femme fatale in Mask.
Ariadne shatters the mirror of the dream world just like Sarah in Bowie's Labyrinth, another dream story.
MaskOfGod notes: the EWS masked ball is the same as the one in Labyrinth. The Omega Point is with Penelope at the end of David's Space Odyssey.
Jay adds: Ariadne constructs the labyrinth in Greek myth.
In Inception, she is the projection of Cobb's psyche that grounds him - the anima of Jung. We enter Sarah's psyche just as we enter Cobb's. Both are labyrinthine.
Jung scholar M.L. von Fronz explains of the meaning of the labyrinth as subconscious:
"The maze of strange passages, chambers, and unlocked exits in the cellar recalls the old Egyptian representation of the underworld, which is a well-known symbol of the unconscious with it's abilities. It also shows how one is "open" to other influences in one's unconscious shadow side and how uncanny and alien elements can break in."
Inception and Vanilla Sky also feature the sub-plot of wresting control of the family business.
David deals with the 7 Dwarves as Fischer deals with Saito and the 6-man Inception team.
Ventura literally plays the same role as Cobb.
To leave the dream, one needs a "kick".
in Vanilla Sky, David chose jumping from a tower.
The Fool begins his journey by falling off the cliff.
This is how David end's his odyssey and begins a new one.
Bill delivers the first line of EWS
The word Fool comes from the Latin word follis which means 'leather bag', and in Roman and Byzantine times The Follis was a type of coin, and could also refer to a sealed bag of coins; or in modern terms, a wallet.
Crowley's Fool holds a coin bag to signify this.
David Bowie released his 22nd studio album in 1999, completing the cycle of the Tarot.
The year Kubrick died. His death occurring 666 days before 1/1/2001.
Incidentally, Bowie's album Scary Monsters came out on Sept. 12th, 1980. See Full Circle post.
The first track features a Japanese woman speaking lines in Japanese as Bowie repeats them in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_XoOe51QpM
One of the lines is "Put a bullet in my brain..." The song is titled 'It's No Game no. 1', and the album ends with 'It's No Game no. 2' - the cycle looping back into itself.
On the cover, Bowie is dressed as The Fool. Track 2 is titled 'Up the Hill Backwards'.
Veruca Salt has an ode to Bowie titled 'With David Bowie' on their album Eight Arms to Hold You. Which was the working title for the Beatles film Help!
Remember in Kubrick's The Shining, Wendy reads Catcher in the Rye, which Mark David Chapman was obsessed with in the weeks leading up to his shooting of John Lennon.
Coming to terms with his fear of heights wasn't the only lesson David needed to learn.The word Fool comes from the Latin word follis which means 'leather bag', and in Roman and Byzantine times The Follis was a type of coin, and could also refer to a sealed bag of coins; or in modern terms, a wallet.
Crowley's Fool holds a coin bag to signify this.
David Bowie released his 22nd studio album in 1999, completing the cycle of the Tarot.
The year Kubrick died. His death occurring 666 days before 1/1/2001.
Incidentally, Bowie's album Scary Monsters came out on Sept. 12th, 1980. See Full Circle post.
The first track features a Japanese woman speaking lines in Japanese as Bowie repeats them in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_XoOe51QpM
One of the lines is "Put a bullet in my brain..." The song is titled 'It's No Game no. 1', and the album ends with 'It's No Game no. 2' - the cycle looping back into itself.
On the cover, Bowie is dressed as The Fool. Track 2 is titled 'Up the Hill Backwards'.
Veruca Salt has an ode to Bowie titled 'With David Bowie' on their album Eight Arms to Hold You. Which was the working title for the Beatles film Help!
Remember in Kubrick's The Shining, Wendy reads Catcher in the Rye, which Mark David Chapman was obsessed with in the weeks leading up to his shooting of John Lennon.
He also had to come to terms with his vices, stop thinking with his dick, conquer his paranoia, get over superficial appearances, experience the sweet and the sour, and stop merely snowboarding through life.
Most of all he had to become reconciled with his own Self - shadow and all, and reintegrate with his Anima.
David doesn't want to live a dream story anymore. He wants to live a real life.
What was our "kick"?
David Aims has transcended the game, or furthermore, the screen, much like David Bowman in 1968's 2001.
They see through the illusion and have developed to a higher state of consciousness.
"And what one person accomplishes, we all accomplish." - MKUltrasound
Just remember, the sweet isn't as sweet...
Jung states, "If the individual is not truly integrated in spirit, society cannot be either, for society is sum total of individuals in need of redemption.
If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and all fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin.
What does lie within our reach is the change in individuals who have or create for themselves an opportunity to influence others of like mind. I do not mean by persuading or preaching, I'm thinking rather of the well-known fact that anyone who has insight into his own actions, and has thus found access to the unconscious, involuntarily exercises an influence on his environment."
As Jung scholar Edward Edinger put it in 1988: "The world is torn asunder by the strife between the opposites - a state of affairs that's grown progressively worse in the past 500 years.
These individuals with insight into their own actions are the ones who by a greater or lesser extent have experienced the Coniunctio. They are the ones who are aware of the fact that the opposites go to make up the Psyche itself and therefore go to make up one's own psyche, and therefore they become carriers of the opposites, rather than exteriorizers of the opposites.
And if society is to be redeemed it will be done to the cumulative affect of such individuals.
The idea is that when enough individuals can carry the consciousness of wholeness, the world itself will become whole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1OrL4A_b5M
It is precisely the work of Individuation which creates the Coniunctio and in the process promotes a net increase of consciousness in the world.
Seems that our best chance to spare ourselves of a collective catastrophe resides in the possibility that enough people will have individual conscious encounters with the Greater Personality, and thereby will contribute to the process of immunizing the Body-Social against a mass atheistic inflation.
If each individual can work towards that end by diligently assimilating his projections and seeking his own individual unique encounter, then he will contribute to that immunizing process to the extent that it can take place in the arena of the individual psyche, so it will not have to take place in that dreadful arena of the collective psyche."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAlCeJ4LuRk
In the words of Jung in Approaching the Unconscious: "As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who must experience it and carry it through. But since nobody seems to know what to do, it might be worth while for each of us to ask himself whether by any chance his or her unconscious may know something that will help us. Certainly the conscious mind seems unable to do anything useful in this respect."
In Mysterium Coniunctionis, he adds: "One must celebrate a Last Supper with one's self. Eat his own flesh and drink his own blood. Which means that he must recognize and accept the Other in himself. The ego must have an encounter with the Self."
Know Thyself
to see the matrix for what it is.
if you can handle the truth.
Like Jesus, David Aims is betrayed by his Judas and dies publicly for the world to see.
And still akin to Jesus, David then descends into the hell of his own subconscious, only to reemerge anew having resolved his adversarial counter-part/shadow.
For David, the opposites have been reconciled, entering into the final stage of the Great Work.
What was "divided for Love's sake" has now been reunited.
The Twin Pillars of the Tree of Life have been made into one, the Tree has been folded back into it's proper form; the hexagram.
(implications of this can be found in the writings of Ramak)
David's star.
"I'll see you in another life when we're both cats."
So what figure is Major Tom Cruise archetypecast as. Osiris? Horus?
He seems to resonate as a transitional figure. As the Aeon of Osiris cruises into the Aeon of Horus.
A reference to Osiris' phallus, which Isis used to conceive Horus?
Alan Green makes the point: It wasn't Osiris' phallus, it was Isis' dildo.
On that note, thanks for reading!
Thanks for brainstorming this with me MKUltrasound, MaskOfGod, Noah Sherrill and Psonik.
