How Does David Lynch Film a Dream?

David Lynch, an enigmatic filmmaker, died on January 15, 2025. David Lynch’s passing was not only a huge loss for his many fans, but also for actors and film industry people who worked with him. Numerous well-known actors have expressed their grief over this loss on social media, sharing how David Lynch impacted their lives personally and talking about his unique character. Kyle MacLachlan wrote in an Instagram post: “I will miss my dear friend. He has made my world – all of our worlds – both wonderful and strange.” Kyle MacLachlan starred in a number of David Lynch roles, including that of Agent Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks (1990-1991) and Paul Atreides in Dune (1984), to name a couple. Strangeness and ambiguity aren’t the only constants within Lynch’s work. There is also a strong sense of loyalty between the director, cast, and crew. Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Jack Nance, Naomi Watts are just a few of the actors who consistently appear in his films. The lovely messages online from actors and collaborators are very telling of Lynch’s character, as is their apparent eagerness to work with him in multiple projects. He was special to fans and to those within the industry.

In my interview with Chris Alexander, a fellow filmmaker and artist, he had much to say about David Lynch: who he was as a person, as well as the unique artistry of his work. We covered several of Lynch’s films – those that seemed to have the biggest impact on Alexander – including The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Eraserhead (1977), as well as his hit TV series, Twin Peaks. Alexander pointed out that Lynch often incorporated aspects of reality into his work while depicting them in strange and ambiguous ways (referring to Eraserhead): “Here we have this insane movie … at its core about fatherhood and the anxieties surrounding fatherhood presented in such a fucking insane way.” When asked about how Lynch left his mark on the industry itself, Alexander stated, “I think he has managed to affect the film industry, change the way so many people watch movies, receive movies. He is an artist to his heart. When he was not making movies, he was making furniture, or painting pictures, or releasing records. He had to create. But everything he did was incredibly singular. He never sold out. He always made stipulations to sugar-coat his weirdness for the mainstream, but he never bent.” Like many gifted artists, Lynch had a compulsion to create and never worried about catering to anyone if it meant changing his style and not remaining true to himself. This was a huge part of his appeal. “He was always true to himself. He never wavered from who he was as an artist. And yet he managed again to change the system from within, to affect the mainstream, and never, ever sold out to the suits.”

Alexander further talked about the intricacies that set Lynch aside from other experimental directors: “To watch Lynch’s movies, sometimes it bypasses the intellect and goes right to the guts. You feel it. You viscerally respond to it. And a lot of it has to do with elemental imagery.” Lynch was known for his over-the-top creative choices that oftentimes were grotesque with seemingly no rhyme or reason. His use of music was fascinating. It could seem contradictory even; for instance, the girl with the ethereal voice juxtaposed by the gritty Twin Peaks biker bar. And yet, it worked. Alexander further discussed how Lynch’s death personally impacted him as an artist: “It ’s almost like an eraser of your past because everything you grew up with, the magic in your life, starts to deplete, and you have to really train yourself to look elsewhere for the magic. But with Lynch’s passing, it really felt different than many of the great artists and thinkers we know.” Lynch’s unique style and artistry genuinely reflected his character. He didn’t just love to create – he absolutely had to, and he did it in a true, real way. In a world where we are taught to fear – where our instincts are to avoid things that are different, foreign, and weird – Lynch strived to embrace it. He was a man with an open mind and heart who was not afraid to show it. David Lynch was a true artist who left a lasting mark on the film industry and on many individuals. He was weird, and we love him for it.

My first experience with a David Lynch film was the nightmarish Eraserhead, his 1977 feature-length debut. Attempts at explaining this film’s plot are famously futile – more important is the feeling it evokes. For me, it was pure disorientation. I was lost; I didn’t know what was happening, what to think, or how to feel. I felt like I had unmarked paths, each leading to an indescribable somewhere.

Lynch’s films are all like that. They bring you into the dark; they try to show you what you can’t see. Inevitably, they lose you. And yet, once the credits roll, you feel a shift towards clarity. Through a descent into the unknown, you become immersed in your unique sense of being. That is the essence of a dream. Wading in the muddled corners of consciousness, those other places our waking selves don’t get to see. When you wake from a dream, you simultaneously experience the return to one self and the loss of another. That is, we trade one self for another every time we wake up. Lynch embraced that fear: he wanted to show us the other place. He wanted us to dream.

When I think of dreams put to screen, I think of Mulholland Drive (2001). It follows aspiring actress Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) and mysterious amnesiac Rita (Laura Harring) as they try to find their
way in an unfamiliar Los Angeles. Numerous disjointed vignettes point to some hidden truth that is never entirely revealed, ultimately prodding at the insidious underbelly of America’s entertainment industry. Betty gets off the plane alongside a friendly elderly couple who welcome her to Los Angeles and assure her of imminent success in her acting pursuits. After she leaves them, the film jumps to a scene of them in a limousine… smiling. Not casually smiling as you’d imagine, but intently, silently grinning as they stare into the distance. This is one of many scenes that warp a familiar situation just enough for deep unrest to permeate. Something is slightly awry, like in a dream. The whole film feels fuzzy, like how your eyes are out of focus moments after waking up.

This quality envelopes Mulholland Drive. It lends it an unreality that serves both absurd humour and cosmic horror. Like any dream, Mulholland Drive is fluent in both of these languages. It oscillates between them, containing some of the funniest and most terrifying moments I’ve seen in a film. The dichotomy of absurdism and horror is a common theme in Lynch’s works, and he often uses it to make us question reality.

The 1990s murder mystery show Twin Peaks is perhaps David Lynch’s most famous work. Like Mulholland Drive, it uses a harsh juxtaposition of humour and horror to expose the terrifying realities we live with but do not acknowledge. The show begins after after the isolated mountain town of Twin Peaks is shaken by the death of homecoming queen and local sweetheart Laura Palmer. Idiosyncratic FBI agent Dale Cooper is assigned to the case, and his investigation uncovers supernatural mixed truths. Both tonally and stylistically scattered, Twin Peaks contains extreme moments of psychological horror and violence in with a (by-design) cheesy teen soap opera. The use of horror to punctuate the moments of whimsy provides a glimpse into the show’s ultimate goal: to expose the lie of the American dream. On the surface, Twin Peaks is an idyllic mountain paradise straight from a postcard. However, once the layers are peeled back, the disgusting undergrowth of American life reveals itself. This is accentuated by Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), a prequel film that depicts the tragic events that led to Laura’s death. It is an unabashedly scathing critique of idealistic America; the once-picturesque town of Twin Peaks is reduced to a desolate wasteland of parking lots, trailer parks, and suburban sprawl. This reflects the experience of Laura, who was ultimately failed by the cookie-cutter American experience. These themes are explored throughout Lynch’s work, including films like Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, which examine the horror beneath mundanity.

Beyond surreal horror, David Lynch was also capable of realistic an highly compassionate films.
The Elephant Man captures this side of him better than any other work. The film is a biopic of Joseph “John” Merrick, a man who lived in 19th- century London and suffered from severe physical deformities due to an unknown medical condition. Merrick was exhibited in a freak show as “The Elephant Man” until he met an esteemed doctor and was housed permanently at the London Hospital. The Elephant Man forgoes Lynch’s signature surrealism, instead opting to tell a humanistic story of a gentle soul who endured immense mistreatment and pain. It captures both extremes of human suffering and compassion as John Merrick learns what it means to be known, to be loved, and to have your heart be full. The Elephant Man is a testament to Lynch’s versatility as a filmmaker. He knew brutality and compassion, imminent realities, and indescribable dreams. He understood every extreme and portrayed them with respect for the inevitable humanity at the core. He had a way of realizing distilled ideas on the screen like no one else.

In his book Catching the Big Fish (2006), he wrote: “I believe that if you sit quietly, like you’re fishing, you will catch ideas. The real, you know, beautiful, big ones swim kinda deep down there so you have to be very quiet, and you know, wait for them to come along… So, you get an idea and it is like a seed. And in your mind the idea is seen and felt and it explodes like it ’s got electricity and light connected to it. And it has all the images and the feeling. And it ’s like in an instant you know the idea, in an instant…”

David Lynch passed away on January 15, 2025. He was 78 years old.

His age, debilitating emphysema, and relative inactivity over the past seven years had marked an evident slowdown in his career, but his death shook me nonetheless. To me and many other fans, David Lynch was a myth – a cloudy form like smoke. But the haze eventually drifts away, and we inevitably wake from our dreams. That ’s how I process David Lynch’s death. His being has dissipated into the atmosphere and gone somewhere we can’t know. As his Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost said, “The man from another place has gone home.”