What is it we think we are ‘waking up’ from precisely? A dream? A construct? An orchestrated lie? Or what is it exactly we think we could find ‘A Way Out‘ of?

Dark City – waking up during a procedure, to replace your memories, thoughts and personality. Funnily enough, by way of an injection. But it is the procedure itself that ‘wakes’ the characters up. Seems fitting for where many may find themselves these days.

Alice in Wonderland – waking up from a dream, but the whole time not knowing it was. Thinking the topsy turvy world was now her reality until she woke up.

The Matrix – waking up from your conditioning, and then your physical realm. But how did the first one become aware, and then ‘unplug’ themselves to eek out that strained and exhausting existence thereafter? Did they wake up, or were they awoken?

Wizard of Oz – another where she wakes up in a new world, but as with the others, the lines are blurred. And much is put down as dreams or nightmares for such things, but as with that story, it wasn’t meant to be. It was a ‘real experience’ in the stories. And the sequel goes back to that idea, not delusion, but real.

Logans Run – waking up to the illusion while you are trying to stop others who have. Being exposed to what turned others in the first place, slowly dawning on the main character as it all unravels.

And I wonder if that’s how it works? For the ones who never noticed something was rather off, and have now been pulled into the exposure, it’s only then they actually ‘see’ it. Because being told isn’t enough for them to comprehend or fully assimilate what it actually means. Like in Soylent Green when he looks to have gone mad, shouting that they are eating people, yet no-one really cares by that point, or sees it. Can’t see the wood for the trees as they might say. And maybe some people are cursed, as Snow White was, to sleep for an age and wait for such a time as your fate comes to wake you, whether that be the good or the bad. But whichever one does come to find you, you won’t want to be sleeping when it does…

(c) K Wicks