movie: On Body And Soul

[mellowtigger]

"On Body And Soul" is a good movie, and it's currently available on Netflix USA. It's nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year. It has some disturbing aspects, but it's also unusually interesting for a romantic drama. Not only do critics like it, but it also currently scores 80% with audiences at Rotten Tomatoes.

It's set in Budapest, Hungary, at a slaughterhouse. An older man and a younger woman discover (after being interviewed by a psychologist trying to locate a thief at the business) that they are sharing the same recurring dreams. They walk together peacefully as deer and doe in a quiet forest. The woman is clearly autistic (although I don't think it's officially declared as such in the film), and she even shares my tactile sensitivities. This story is about their discovery of their dream life together and then the possibility of romance between them.

Fair warning, though, the film is set in a slaughterhouse and does show (non-explicitly) animals that are actually killed and harvested for meat. The credits of the film end with a statement to that effect. The animals were not harmed for the purpose of filming, merely as documentation of what is normal operation in a slaughterhouse. Also, and here's the one that might kick you in the emotional gut, it shows her disturbingly realistic suicide attempt. There's no way to talk around that scene. Her character survives, but that outcome doesn't make it any less graphic and disturbing.

The thing about the film that truly intrigues me though is their shared dreaming. I'm not sure that I've explicitly written about these events, but that sort of thing has happened to me before.

First, there was John. You know that scene in Star Trek: Insurrection where Picard's love interest slows down time for him?  She later teaches him about "perfect moments" in time. It was like that for me. There was a day when I traveled from college to visit John as he was also visiting Austin, Texas, for the SXSW music festival. I walked in the front door, his hosts left their house to drive somewhere, and we immediately fell to the couch in each other's arms. I heard them driving away, then the very next second (from my perspective), I heard their car driving back to the house. No time had passed for me, no sleep that I recognized, nothing. One moment to the next in simple contentment, just like the later Star Trek scene. It was like that for me, anyway. John, however, once referred negatively to the "Vulcan" (telepathic) talent I had. He professed emotions to match mine, but he simply walked away, so clearly he didn't feel the same. That wasn't the only time that I scared someone off by my weirdness, though.

ANIJ: You stop reviewing what happened yesterday, ...stop planning for tomorrow. ...Let me ask you a question. ...Have you ever experienced a perfect moment in time?
PICARD: A perfect moment?
ANIJ: When time seemed to stop ...and you could almost live in that moment.
PICARD: Seeing my home planet from space for the first time.
ANIJ: Exactly. Nothing more complicated than perception. ...You explore the universe. We have discovered that a single moment in time can be a universe in itself, ...full of powerful forces. ...Most people aren't aware enough of the now to even notice.
PICARD: I wish I could spare a few centuries to learn.
ANIJ: It took us centuries to learn that it doesn't have to take centuries to learn it.
- Star Trek: Insurrection

Later, there was Carl (my longest relationship, at only 1.5 years). We were living together at that point, in his first townhouse near Pease Park near downtown Austin, Texas. We were putting on our running shoes in the garage, in preparation for one of his runs where I just tried to keep up with him. I told him about my dream from the prior night. I included the details about where each of us sat and vaguely what he was doing there. He never commented on my story. He looked up at me from tying his shoes, then he told me with a stern tone of voice, "Stay out of my dreams." We never spoke of it again, and I never dreamed with him again. I had a hard(er) time opening up with him after that, since it's not easy to get over rejection by your partner.

Finally, there was Fred (my last relationship, 20 years ago). While I didn't share space with him in quite the same way, he did start having dreams that affected him. He had one dream in particular that motivated him to leave town suddenly one day. He thought his sister was in trouble. We attended her wedding together, and I didn't begrudge the family emergency. I know that dreams can be strong motivators.

Things always get weird with the sleeping and dreaming. Readers here know that I don't typically remember my dreams, hence my dream journal entries in this blog. I figured I should record them so someday I could review them for frequency or commonality. And those normal dreams are always in black and white. I do have other dreams, rare dreams, that are in vivid living color, but those are even more private than the things I've mentioned above.

I write frequently about technological telepathy. I'm convinced that science and engineering will give us what nature did not, the capacity to share (even steal) thoughts directly from other minds. If biological telepathy were real, then it would have a profound effect on all of evolution. That's a good argument against it, really. What happens to ecosystems when predator and prey know each other's thoughts?

But take a quick look at search results for "autism telepathy", and you'll see lots of anecdotal stories about something weird going on. At this moment, the top link is a CNN iReport about the weirdness of the frequency of these examples.  I still prefer to live in a world without humans, but maybe it would also be interesting to find romance with someone who didn't freak when their dreamworld tilted.  If there's something more happening than mere coincidence, then I would like to learn.

So... good movie. Autistic woman, shared dreams. I approve.

P.S. 2018 March 4 Sunday: I saw the recent news that brain waves synchronize when one partner empathizes with another partner in pain.  Moreover, a pain relief effect increases with the greater empathy from the non-pained partner.  Very interesting. - https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/hes-not-just-saying-he-feels-her-pain-he-really-is/