| Dreams: A Fine Line Between Fantasy and Reality By Trapp |
| "Dreams are peaceful. Reality is the nightmare." Dreams was a powerful M*A*S*H episode. It got critics' acclaim and M*A*S*H fans around the world hail it a television masterpiece. Why was this episode so scary, yet so touching? Why is it that every time I watch it I still get shivers down my spine? Where did Alan Alda get such an ingenius idea? Dreams is an episode based purely upon the dreams of the personnel in the 4077th M.A.S.H. Unit. Each person's dream depicted their inner most desires and longings, but each dream is slightly warped by the horrors each has to endure every day(except for Colonel Potter's). Each charcter is very tired after many days of work in the operating room and they drift off into "dreamland" in various places in the episode. The episode starts off with Margaret dreaming that she has just gotten married and she is about to kiss her husband on a bed in the middle of a field, but a group of soldiers comes marching by and her husband gets up and joins them. Wounded men start appearing on the bed and Hawkeye appears and starts operating on them. Hawkeye asks Margaret for an instrument, but her tray is empty. Margaret then appears standing in the middle of the field alone in her bloody wedding dress. BJ drifts off to sleep in Post-Op. He dreams that he is all dressed up and is dancing with his wife, Peg. There are nicely dressed people dancing around them. They dance into the operating room and Colonel Potter hands BJ an operatind instrument. BJ starts operating on a patient and Peg leaves through the door. Colonel Potter dreams of himself as a child riding on a horse and his mother is calling him. Klinger woke him up. Colonel Potter was the only one whose dream was not disturbing. Klinger dreams that he is back in Toledo and he walks up to Packo's. Inside the window he sees Colonel Potter operating on someone. The man he is operating on turns his head and it is Klinger! Fr. Mulcahy dreams that he is the Pope or possibly a high Bishop. He is being carried on a litter and people are cheering all around him. He sits down in front of the Bible and opens it. All the people are now kneeling. Blood starts to drip onto the Bible and he looks up at the crucifix next to him. A wounded man is nailed to it and bleeding. He looks out to the crowd and everyone isn't kneeling anymore, they're operating. Charles dreams that he is performing magic tricks for the personnel in the operating room. Colonel Potter brings in a dying patient in front of Charles. Charles keeps on performing and everyone starts getting worried as the patient chokes and coughs. The patient stops breathing is is taken away. Hawkeye slips into a quite disturbing dream. He dreams that his old college professor is scolding him because he fell asleep. The professor asks Hawkeye to take out one of his arms and he does. Then the professor has Charles take out Hawkeye's other arm (his arms turned into prosthetic arms). Next Hawkeye is in a boat without his arms floating down a river full of prosthetic arms and legs. He sees a little girl on shore who needs operating. A nurse has the girl all ready for surgery, but Hawkeye can't help her because he has no arms (his sleeves are blowing eerily in the wind) he screams, "Nooooooooo!" So what does this all mean? Is there a fine line between fantasy and reality? Maybe there is. This episode displays that dreams can even be affected by the hardships of war. It shows that each one of these characters is deeply disturbed by the raging war. Sidney Freedman said that dreams depicted people and events you were trying to remember or trying to forget in this case. The definition for dream is "a sequence of sensations, images, thoughts, etc. passing through a sleeping person's mind." So are dreams only fantasies? Do they carry no meaning? Maybe these people's dreams are the only thing that helps them keep a grip on reality; the only thing that keeps them from going over the edge. Dreams are supposed to be an outlet for your feelings and your desires, but the nightmares of the biting reality sneak in and disturb your peaceful slumber. Each one of these people wanted to remember something from their past, but the things they were trying to forget got in the way. It's kind of like life. Life is a quest to to fulfill your dreams, but the bumps in the pathway always get in the way and throw you off course. Maybe that was the symbolism of the episode. The dreams represented the messed up lives each character and every person has to lead. So is there a difference between dreams and reality or is it all the same thing? I guess the only thing that is difference is that you can run away from your dreams, but the nightmare of reality will always get you. |
| "You dream to escape, but the war invades your dream and you wake up screaming"-Sidney Freedman |
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