"The Matrix is essentially a computer-generated dream world. It is the illusion of a world that no longer exists – a world of human technology and culture as it was at the end of the 20th Century" (Lawrence). In The Matrix, Neo, the protagonist in the film, is tasked with freeing humanity from the Matrix and ending the war against the machines. Within the matrix the select few who understand that it is not real have superhuman abilities that those trapped in the matrix cannot even dream of. My philosophy professor, Matt Lawrence, discusses the ideas behind the film with great detail and even asks whether or not the life we perceive to be real is actually a dream. We go to sleep every night and wake up every morning in our daily lives. During sleep, even though we may not realize it, our mind creates a world that is completely our own. This sensation is what we call a dream. Dreaming is very complex and therefore hard to interpret since some can be controlled or linked to our feelings from a particular experience.
A dream is a series of thoughts, images, and emotions that one visualizes while they are sleeping. According to Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Neurologist, dreams have a meaning which can be deciphered if one looks deeply enough. In his view, the dreams concerns the dreamers past and present, and it arises from unknown regions within our minds. On the surface, they appear meaningless and bizarre, but they become understandable when understood as expressions of an unconscious clash between competing motives. He understood that dreams held high significance and we only have to understand them. Dreams occur during the later stages of sleep and on when one achieves REM, Rapid Eye Movement, sleep. In The Matrix movies, Zion, the last human city on planet Earth (after the cataclysmic nuclear war between mankind and sentient Machines), is the base of operations for the last remaining humans in the fight against the Machines.
