Vanilla Sky: The Journey of David Aames (Tom Cruise)
Vanilla Sky is a science-fiction thriller film that reveals the mentally, emotionally, and physically challenging process of psychological integration. The story is about the life of David Aames (played by Tom Cruise), a young and self-absorbed owner of a publishing company who is forced to confront the contents of his own mind to achieve what we call self-realization. In this article, allow me to share with you the story of how David finds his own myth during his journey into the depths of the unconscious mind in Vanilla Sky.
Directed by Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous), the movie Vanilla Sky is an English-language remake of the 1997 Spanish movie Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes) written by the Spanish directors Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The movie depicts the life of David Aames, an egocentric son of a deceased publishing tycoon who inexplicably falls in love with an enigmatic young woman only to see his life turned upside down. Eventually, he is compelled to make a complete re-examination of his life and character.
While it may appear on the surface as just another one of those romantic Hollywood films, this movie actually touches upon a number of deep philosophical topics such as consciousness, dreaming, life after death, simulated reality, free will, biological immortality, and many others. It’s also equipped with a mind-bending narrative mode, which makes its presentation a sweet trip to the candy store for those who are immune to cerebral agony. However, Vanilla Sky is not just about all this. What it actually gives its audience is a preview of what to expect once you decide, consciously or unconsciously, to undergo the process of self-transformation.
David is out of touch with some aspect of his life and he focuses his attention somewhere else in order to avoid facing it, but what exactly is his problem? Does it have something to do with the way he handles his relationships with women or is it something much deeper than that? What is the role of Sofia in David’s life and why does she keep telling him to open his eyes? The answers to these questions will gradually emerge as we examine the psychological implications and spiritual symbolism in the movie.
SPOILER ALERT: Better watch the movie first. If you've seen it already, make sure to check out the Power of Myth.
Departure/Separation
The film begins with David Aames (Tom Cruise) experiencing a false awakening as he wakes up to the voice of Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz) coming from his talking alarm clock saying, "Open your eyes!" (abre los ojos in Spanish). David gets up and prepares to go to work. He drives off with his 1967 Ford Mustang and leaves the parking lot. On the road, he notices something really odd; the streets of Manhattan seem to be completely empty of people. When he gets to Times Square, he steps out of his car, runs for a few seconds, and then looks up to the sky and screams.
David wakes up again, this time for real, and now the voice from his alarm clock is that of Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz) still commanding him to open his eyes. Again, he prepares to go to work doing exactly the same routine. As he walks by his bed, Julie comes out of the sheets and greets him. David only considers Julie as his friend, but they obviously spent the night together so he must be getting a lot of other benefits from their relationship.
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| World of Common Day: David is so absorbed with his good looks. Most people would normally go to the bathroom in the morning to take a piss. David, however, goes straight to the mirror to admire his face, which reminds us of the myth of Narcissus. |
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| Echo and Narcissus (1903) by John William Waterhouse |
David, a narcissistic and shallow person, is much like Narcissus, the beautiful youth in Greek mythology, who, because of his vanity and arrogance, rejected true sexuality and falls in love with his own reflection. In the beginning of the movie, we hear Sofia telling David during his false awakening to open his eyes. When he truly wakes up, Julie says the same thing to him. Coincidentally, their voices are recorded on his alarm clock, which perhaps implies that it’s “time” for David’s self-renewal. But why does he need to open his eyes?
"Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward, psychological self observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction."
(Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p.303)
On his way to work, David drops by the house of his best friend, Brian Shelby (Jason Lee), to pick him up. As they head to David’s office, we learn that he is late for a meeting and that he is actually the owner of a large publishing company in New York City. Brian, seeming as if he doesn’t already know, asks David if he spent the night with Sofia and as to exactly what kind of relationship they have, but David refuses to give him information.
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| Call to Adventure: Brain warns David by saying, "You can do whatever you want with your life, but one day you'll know what love is, it's the sour and the sweet." |
Brian is the archetypal herald in the story of David’s life. According to Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey:
“Heralds have the important psychological function of announcing the need for change. Something deep inside us knows when we are ready to change and sends us a messenger. This may be a dream figure, a real person, or a new idea we encounter. The Call might come from a book we read, or a movie we see. But something inside us has been struck like a bell, and the resulting vibrations spread out through our lives until change is inevitable.”
In this scene, Brian seems to be giving David a lesson on non-duality and tells him further that he "knows sour, which allows him to appreciate the sweet.” Brian is a mirror for David who is telling him to observe his own imperfections and accept the “sour” aspects of reality (personal responsibility, rejection, isolation, etc.), but instead, he only looks at the “sweet” facets of his own life (wealth, physical appearance, superficial relationships, etc.).
Normally, someone with a sense of humor would retaliate to a friend with an equally cliched counter statement, but David just brushes off Brian's remark indicative of his lack of insight into the matter or possibly because he is just deliberately trying to push down the thought in order to continue behaving in his own self-absorbed ways (Refusal of the Call). What is hidden from David’s awareness is that an impending event is going to remove much of the confidence he has invested in the world of polar opposites by throwing him into a world of perplexity and profound emptiness. More on this later.
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| Supernatural Aid: David is being held for murder. Dr. Curtis McCabe (Kurt Russell), a psychiatrist, is trying to connect the dots to help David before he faces trial in court. |
After David arrives in his office, the scene cuts and we find out that he is actually in prison narrating his life from the start of the film up to this point to a psychiatrist named Dr. Curtis McCabe (mentor, father-figure, guide). David gives McCabe a summary of how he inherited his business from his prominent and adventurous father after his parents both died in a car accident when he was eleven years old. Unlike his daring father, David is afraid of heights (something explained later in the film). David adds that 49% of the business is controlled by the old board of directors he refers to as the Seven Dwarfs.
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| David projects his own unwanted thoughts and feelings to the board members of his company, the Seven Dwarfs, who “drive him nuts” according to Brian. |
McCabe wants David to talk about the dreams he’s having and his murder case so that he can figure out what is wrong with him, but David is reluctant to open up fearing that McCabe would think he’s crazy. David thinks that the board members (Seven Dwarfs) are conspiring against him so that they can take full control of his company.
In the context of self-awakening, the Seven Dwarfs (or “Dwarves” in the original Brothers Grimm version) is an allusion to the seven subtle energy centers or chakras of the body. Considering that David is already in his 30s, a period in life that is ripe for psychospiritual advancement, he should have by now discovered the importance of these elements.
In various spiritual traditions, it is widely understood that maintaining the balance of the energy that flows from these centers through disciplinary practice is essential for a well-rounded and fruitful life. Conversely, its neglect may lead to serious health and psychological problems. In the fairy tale of Snow White, the dwarves say to her, “If you will take care of our house, cook, make the beds, wash, sew and knit, and if you will keep everything neat and clean you can stay with us and you shall want for nothing else.”
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| Crossing the First Threshold: During David’s extravagant birthday party, Brian shows up with his date, Sofia. They just met earlier that day. Much to Brian's detriment, David and Sofia are instantly attracted to one another. |
Sofia Serrano (Penélope Cruz) is David’s anima, which in Jungian psychology is the “totality of the feminine psychological qualities in the male unconscious.” When David sees his anima in the person of Sofia, he finds her completely irresistible. Given the notion that David is afraid of getting into a serious relationship and probably has never been in one, in this occasion, he is stepping into unknown territory by falling in love with her. A few scenes later, we see David walking Sofia home to her apartment where they spend the whole night together just having a conversation.
Carl Jung explained why this kind of "instant attraction" happens to most of us:
"When animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight). The language of love is of astonishing uniformity, using the well-worn formulas with the utmost devotion and fidelity, so that once again the two partners find themselves in a banal collective situation. Yet they live in the illusion that they are related to one another in a most individual way.
In both its positive and its negative aspects the anima/animus relationship is always full of "animosity/' i.e., it is emotional, and hence collective... Very often the relationship runs its course heedless of its human performers, who afterwards do not know what happened to them."
(Aion: Researches Into The Phenomenology of the Self, 1959, p. 15-16)
In the morning, as they are watching television, they see a commercial about L.E. or Life Extension through the use of cryonics (its connection to the story will be explained later). David, seemingly excited about this new adventure (having a relationship with Sofia), tells her that he promises to change himself for the better; he will be nicer to people and give more attention to his business. He then leaves Sofia’s apartment, but as soon as he gets to his car, his obsessive/stalker friend, Julie, pulls up.
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| Remembering the oath he made earlier about changing his life and becoming a better person, David accepts Julie’s invitation for a ride. |
David and Julie talk for a while, but then suddenly Julie starts to flip out. She brings up her insecurities telling David how she feels being mistreated by him and why he just thinks of her as his sex buddy. Apparently, Brain told this to her during the party to get even with David for stealing Sofia from him. Karma comes back around, as the old saying goes. She drives the car off a bridge and they crash into a street below. Julie dies on the spot and David is severely disfigured.
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| Belly of the Whale: David is almost killed in the car crash and is physically and psychologically traumatized by the accident. |
David’s brush with death is a symbolic representation that he has now entered the world of the unknown. He now faces a situation that will ultimately force him to abandon the sense of meaning and purpose that he presently holds, leaving him in a state of meaninglessness. Just like David, each of us may also experience entering the belly of the whale even though the situation may be different. A divorce, pregnancy, unemployment, death of a loved one, poverty, middle age, old age, etc.; these are the kinds of events that compel us to look into ourselves. Despite the pain and suffering these experiences may bring us, however, they give us the impetus to explore the darker aspects of reality, which eventually leads to the revelation of our true selves.
Initiation
In the next scene, we see David with Sofia together and it seems like they are having a great time together in a park, but while talking to Sofia, he notices something peculiar. He suddenly realizes that he is just dreaming. Actually David is narrating his life again to his guide (McCabe) telling him that his dreams seem like they are taunting him. Next, he tells McCabe that he was in a coma for 3 1/2 weeks after the accident.
Although David is alive, his face and his body are severely disfigured. He becomes obsessed with his physical appearance and gets quite defensive in the way he deals with other people.
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| Road of Trials: David struggles with the agonizing fact that he can no longer function in society the way he did before because of his appearance. He is having difficulty accepting his new persona. A team of plastic surgeons gives him a mask. |
The mask represents David’s attempt to cover up the repressed aspects of his personality, his shadow. Since many of the thoughts and feelings that he has been avoiding are now coming back to the surface of his consciousness with full force, he is left with no choice but to conceal them.
"When an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in other people ― such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions ― in short, all the little sins about which he might previously have told himself: " That doesn't matter; nobody will notice it, and in any case other people do it too."
(Marie-Louise von Franz, Man and His Symbols. p. 168)
Eventually, David begins to accept and deal with his shadow, although not completely. He plans his reemergence so that he can run his company once again. He also gets the courage to see Sofia even though he doesn’t know how she would react. However, David is amazed when Sofia agrees to go out with him to a club after he invites her.
That night, David arrives at the club with his mask on and is surprised to see Sofia with Brian at the club. He gets himself drunk because he’s pretty sure something is going on between them. Sofia later tells David that they can’t be together anymore, but is unable to explain to him why. David insists, so Sofia tells him that she will just explain it in another lifetime, maybe when they are both cats. Reincarnation, anyone?
After a disappointing evening clubbing with Sofia and Brian, David passes out and lands on the ground.
The next morning, we see David sleeping on the pavement. To his surprise, Sofia is there saying to him, "Open your eyes." This is the part of the story that confuses most viewers. Everything from this point onwards is a dream projected by David’s mind while he is in a cryogenic state. Even the part where he is in prison belongs to this dream. But this is not revealed until the end of the film.
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| Meeting with the Goddess: David’s dream to be together with Sofia (Sophia) starts when he wakes up and discovers he slept on the sidewalk. |
Sofia tells David that he has to pull himself back together. She’s going to invite him back to her apartment, but if that is a mistake, she can fall out of love with him in a snap. She also says, “Listen, I do not have a mother-savior bone in my body…” an allusion perhaps to the female goddess of wisdom in Gnosticism, Sophia.
“After the natural structure of the immortal beings had completely developed out of the infinite, a likeness then emanated from Pistis (Faith); it is called Sophia (Wisdom). It exercised volition and became a product resembling the primeval light. And immediately her will manifested itself as a likeness of heaven, having an unimaginable magnitude; it was between the immortal beings and those things that came into being after them, like [...]: she (Sophia) functioned as a veil dividing mankind from the things above.”
(J.M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library in English. Codex XIII, p. 284)
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| Sophia, the Holy Wisdom and syzygy. Sophia with Jesus Christ |
Suddenly, everything seems to be going smoothly for David. After all, he’s now living his dream walking hand in hand with his goddess, Sofia, under the magnificent Vanilla Sky. Later, something miraculous happens; his plastic surgeon tells him that they discovered a new form of reconstructive surgery and that they can now fix his face.
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| David and Sofia are now together and their relationship seems to be going ok. She asks David to remove his mask and reassures him that his face is already fixed, but he’s resistant. Sofia slowly removes the mask and David’s normal face is revealed. |
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| Apotheosis: David is having the time of his life with Sofia. In this scene, they get passionate and express their love for each other. |
In the real world, David actually died a physical death after plunging into a full-blown depression when he discovered that Sofia and Brian were together. In his dream, however, he is able to become reunited with his anima, his soul, his Sophia/Sofia. As Victor Hugo wrote in his famous novel, Les Misérables, “There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.” This profound experience is something that David has been longing for (The Ultimate Boon) but is unable to attain because of the many distractions that he must confront in the objective/outer reality.
Some people might see this as just one of those obligatory sex scenes in Hollywood films, but the sexual union between David and Sofia is a symbolic act in its own right. In eastern spiritual traditions, most notably Tantra, there is a form of mental practice called yab-yum wherein the advanced student aims to control his or her own sexual energy. Associated with this practice are the many depictions of deities we see in their artwork.
“Tantrism involves an integration of the feminine and is a doctrine concerned with embracing the opposites. In Tantra, the Buddha was raised to the level of an ideal spiritual image from meditative experience; his essence as the embodiment of the doctrine was portrayed in various forms and images, in order to show various aspects of awareness and psychic attachments. Or, to put it another way, certain virtues, meditative qualities, levels of awareness, and basic psychological truths were expressed by means of different kinds of images of the Buddha..."
(Detlef Ingo Lauf, Secret Doctrines of the Tibetan Books of the Dead, p. 50-51)
"This is the meaning of those Tibetan images of the union of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with their own feminine aspects that have seemed so indecent to many Christian critics. According to one of the traditional ways of looking at these supports of meditation, the female form (Tibetan: yum) is to be regarded as time and the male {yab) as eternity. The union of the two is productive of the world, in which all things are at once temporal and eternal, created in the image of this self-knowing male-female God. The initiate, through meditation, is led to the recollection of this Form of forms {yab-yum) within himself."
(Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 157)
Going back to the story, David wakes up one morning and goes to the bathroom only to be horrified upon seeing his disfigured face again. He wakes up again and realizes it’s just another one of those false awakenings. He checks his face on the mirror, which goes back to being normal; just to make sure he’s not dreaming anymore. At this point, another weird thing happens to David.
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| The Woman as Temptress: Julie, a psychic manifestation of David’s unwanted thoughts and feelings, is trying to take over the form of Sofia. |
David goes nuts and asks Julie what happened to Sofia, but she just keeps repeating that she is Sofia. He furiously ties Julie/Sofia to the bed and calls the police. When the scene cuts, we find David in jail after being arrested for beating up Julie, who is, in fact, Sofia. His lawyers bail him out, but David thinks he’s becoming insane; nothing makes sense. Of course, he doesn’t realize that he’s still dreaming and that some part of his psyche (Julie) is just trying to merge with his image of Sofia. It appears that some elements of David’s shadow aspect are still alive and kicking. In Carl Jung’s words, “What you resist persists.” For David to complete his journey, he must be able to integrate this with his self.
Return
David goes to a restaurant to try to make sense of what happened; why Sofia is turning into Julie. As he ponders, a strange man suddenly approaches him seemingly aware of what he is going through. The man tells David that he can take control over his life/dream again and explains that the people in the restaurant are just the creation of his mind. The man tells David: “You are their God. You can make them obey you or destroy you.” He doesn’t quite get it and is now getting irritated, so he tells the man to shut up. Instantly, the whole restaurant becomes silent and everyone looks at David.
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| Refusal of the Return: David refuses to listen to the strange guy (tech support) and freaks out after he is told that he’s actually in a dream created by his own mind. |
Having found happiness with his dream image of Sofia, David refuses to listen to the “man in the restaurant” because he doesn’t want to leave his new world. His attachment to this fantasy world is so strong that he ignores hints that he must now return to the “real” world. Of course, who would want to wake up from a sweet dream (or a beautiful nightmare)?
Back at the prison, McCabe inquires about the “man in the restaurant,” but David seems clueless. McCabe then tries to help David bring back to the surface his repressed memories to find out who really died. Was it Sofia or Julie? Remember that from the very beginning, McCabe was telling David that someone died and he is being accused of murder.
As David tries to recall his memories, it turns out that he really did kill Sofia (thinking that she was Julie). His shadow has gained enough strength to make David commit a crime. McCabe then tells David, “Sometimes the mind behaves as if we’re a dream, faces change, people become other people. The subconscious is a powerful thing. You treated Julie carelessly, didn’t you?” McCabe then informs David that their sessions are over and that he will plead for temporary derangement in court.
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| The Magic Flight: As McCabe leaves the prison room, David notices the advertisement being shown on the guard’s television. It’s about the cryogenic company called L.E. or Life Extension (Ellie). In this eureka moment, he frantically calls back McCabe who then rushes to take him to the L.E. office. |
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| Rescue from Without: As David listens to the sales pitch, he experiences another eureka moment; he discovers that he’s dreaming. Hysterical, he calls out for L.E. tech support who is, in fact, the man from the restaurant. He takes David to the building’s rooftop where he explains everything |
The tech support representative of L.E. reveals the truth to David: He’s just having a dream and that everything that is happening in this world that he created is only a product of his own mind. He never really got back with Sofia after he woke up that morning and found himself lying on the pavement. Actually, he became so depressed that he signed up for a program that allows people to have their bodies frozen and suspended through the use of cryopreservation while their consciousness remains in a dream state. The idea behind life extension is that someday in the future, the person can be revived through advanced technology. David committed suicide after signing a contract with L.E. so that they can take his body and preserve it. He never really murdered anyone; he killed himself.
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| Crossing the Threshold: David is given two options: to stay in his dream (a world he’s been living in for 150 years) with the agreement that L.E. will fix the issues so he can have a better dream or he can go back to the “real” world by jumping off the building. |
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| Freedom to Live: David chooses to go back. Having confronted the dark aspects of the unconscious mind (as well as his fear of heights), he’s now ready to face life with a new perspective. |
The end of the film shows David's entire life flashing back to his memory; a phenomenon commonly reported by many people after a near death experience. In the very last scene, he opens his eyes and wakes up to the real world.
Now What?
Vanilla Sky is not an easy movie that you can just watch with a blank state of mind while holding a fist full of popcorn and munching it out of your hand. Even if you short circuit your neurons after putting pieces of the film’s puzzle together, you are still left with a battery of philosophical questions to deal with: Does time slow down in the dream world? Is consciousness contained in the body? Is it really possible to resurrect a dead person with advanced technology? Does the soul remain in the body after a person dies? If not, then where does it go? Is there really such a thing as a soul? Are we living in a simulation? Are the people around you real or are they just products of your own mind? What is real? Do you want to live forever? The questions are seemingly endless.
This is probably why many viewers and critics did not appreciate this film when it was released several years ago. Many were turned off by its confusing plot and idealistic undertones (not to mention the lead actor). But I think that’s exactly the intention of this movie; it wants to impart the significance of self-examination by forcing you to identify with a narcissistic character as you simulate the experience of being inside a dream.
Pioneers in human psychology like Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud recognized the importance of analyzing dreams because they thought that it could lead to a better understanding of one’s self, but in fact, people have been using this approach to self-realization long before psychology even became a science of the mind. Followers of Tibetan Buddhism, for example, go directly inside their dreams, just like David Aames, to face their own demons.
“The first step in dream practice is quite simple: one must recognize the great potential that dream holds for the spiritual journey. Normally, the dream is thought to be "unreal," as opposed to "real" waking life. But there is nothing more real than dream. This statement only makes sense once it is understood that normal waking life is as unreal as dream, and in exactly the same way. Then it can be understood that dream yoga applies to all experience, to dreams of the day as well as the dreams of the night.”
(Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, p. 23)
We all want to understand reality and we all want to be happy with our lives, but in order to do so, we must be ready to face the chaotic, disordered, and dark forces of the mind. It doesn’t really matter whether we are dreaming or awake. Everything is right here, right now. The answer that we seek is right in front of us. We just don’t see it because we pay more attention to external things instead of looking within ourselves. As the movie tells us from the very beginning, if you want to "wake up" and know your self, you first need to “open your eyes.”