Tag: dream

“We could change things back. If we believed. If we dreamed.”

From: The Sandman, specifically from A Dream of a Thousand Cats

Genre: Comics

Who said it?: A Siamese Cat

The story behind the quote: The quote comes from the highly acclaimed graphic novel series, The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. The Sandman is a non-conventional “comic book” series and focuses on Morpheus, the personification of dreams and stories. He is also not really a hero and he is sometimes not even the main character in his own series. However, most of the stories do have him interact with the story in some way.

The quote comes from one of the series’ short stories, A Dream of a Thousand Cats. In the tale, a cat is listening to a Siamese cat with a rather radical belief that cats used to rule the world and humans were the pets instead of the other way around. The Siamese cat came to this realization because Morpheus (looking like a black cat) came to her in a dream and showed the cat this reality. This reality was destroyed because enough humans believed in a vision where humans ruled. Enough humans eventually believed it and that dream became a reality. The Siamese cat then tells the other cat the quote, stating that things can be changed.

 

Geek wisdom: We sometimes feel helpless with the way the world currently is but we refuse to believe that anything we do will change anything. This isn’t true and the only thing that’s stopping us from changing the world for the better is the thought that anything we do won’t matter. But, if enough people actually get together and believe and dream for a better future, then the world will have not choice but to change.

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“I’m an old man… filled with regret.”

From: Inception

Genre: Movies

Who said it?: Dom Cobb and Mr. Saito

The story behind the quote: This is the second quote that I’m pulling from Christopher Nolan’s brainy movie, Inception. We’ve already delved into the premise of the film before when we discussed the “A single idea from the human mind can build cities” quote last year, so I won’t be discussing that. I will, however, be discussing how deep a movie it is.

It turns out that, in the dream world, time lasts much longer than in the real world. So, a single minute of real time may feel like a couple of hours in the dream world (which is pretty true since you can experience an entire day’s worth of events in a real dream). Now, if you dream while in a dream, time will seem even longer, making it possible to experience an entire lifetime… which is what essentially happens with Mr. Saito and Dom Cobb (played by Ken Watanabe and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively).

In this dream within a dream (within a dream apparently), Saito’s dream self has grown extremely old because of the length of time he’s been there. Dom, because of the trauma of “dying” in another dream (long story), has forgotten that he was supposed to save Saito from being trapped. However, when Saito delivers the quote, Cobb immediately remembers that what his purpose of him being there.

Geek wisdom: It can be easy to believe that we have all the time in the world. However, this is just an illusion. Time is very fleeting and can catch up with your almost instantly. And, before you know it, you’re, well, an old man filled with regret.

We only have a short time in this world; let’s try to make the most of it. Take some risks and enjoy life to its fullest.