What if dreams came true? And you can be who you wanted to be, and you could do what you wanted to do, and you could help who you wanted to help? What if dreams came true, and the world opened up, and you were never, ever afraid? What if dreams came true? But dreams do come true, don't they?
~ Anakin Skywalker
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung describes dreams as “the personalized myth, myth the personalized dream.”1 In George Lucas’ saga, the archetypal tragic hero, Anakin Skywalker, suffers from premonitions at an early age, causing him to make many important decisions that will affect not only him but the entire galaxy. In The Phantom Menace we learn that Anakin has had a dream that he grew up to become a Jedi and came back to free the slaves. We haven’t seen this culminate to fruition yet in the prequels, but it’s evident that the dream had significance to Anakin’s place in the universe in the galaxy far, far away. Many fans of the saga hypothesize that this comes when he frees the galaxy from the rule of Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. In the Episode I novelization by Terry Brooks, Anakin also speaks of a dream in which Padmé will lead troops into battle. This is later brought about by her re-taking of the capital of Theed with the Jedi’s help and by the destruction of the Trade Federation ship by Anakin.
Later, in Attack of the Clones, a more mature Anakin has a dream that his mother is in pain. We see this vague portent come true as Anakin is lured back to his home planet of Tatooine by the incessant nightmares of his mother, Shmi Skywalker, being in danger and suffering. From what we’ve seen of the new movie from official sources and spoilers, in Revenge of the Sith another dream plays a major part in Anakin’s destiny, that of the death of his beloved wife Padmé in the birth of their child. After the events on Tatooine that led to his mother’s fate, Anakin feels he must do something to change Padmé’s destiny and sets about trying to find a way to save her. This causes him to make a decision that will cause the very thing he is trying most to deter. In a Faustian like move, Anakin makes a deal with “the devil,” in this case with a Sith Lord, to stop the events of his dream from happening. This brings about with dire consequences for not only himself, but for the Jedi and the galaxy as a whole.
Mythology has always used the concept of dreams and premonitions as something attributed to those with special powers. In the Star Wars universe Jedi Knights draw their power from the Force. The Force can lend extrasensory powers and give insight into the future, the past, or the thoughts of others. It is these glimpses into the future that cause the most confusion, heartache, and pain. Yoda tells Luke that the future is always in motion, but, like his father, Luke finds it hard to give his destiny or the destiny of those that he loves over to fate. In Anakin’s case, due to his past experiences, he views his nightmares as literal premonitions instead of the metaphoric dreams that Yoda speaks of, and therefore fails on a much larger scale than his son.
In our universe, dreams are our way of seeing our life from the outside looking in. One could say everything we plan or do comes from a dream or vision of some kind, maybe not the psychic, ethereal kind, but most certainly the ability to see something before we make it tangible or real. Our dreams, vision, and imagination make up part of who we are. The imagination is a wonderful thing, but in the instance of nightmares or unsettling visions, it can make our vision into what feels like a terrible reality. This is the case with the tragic hero and central character of the saga, Anakin Skywalker. In certain instances, he dreams of those he loves being in peril, and can’t give control of the situation over to the Force.
Anakin has trouble separating his prophetic dreams from reality throughout his life. He leans on them as guide, when perhaps he should take more of Yoda’s advice and wait and see what will happen. Anakin Skywalker has never been someone to wait and see, and therein lies the heart of the problem: Anakin is a doer. Even in his later years as Darth Vader, Anakin cannot sit and wait for the answer to come to him; he must go out and find it. He cannot trust someone else to take care of his needs, as it is his nature to do for his own self, to always find a way. His early formative years as a slave instill a survival instinct in him that forms him into what he is later in life.
Anakin’s mistake is that in trying to interpret his dreams, he is taking each detail as literal and not listening to the will of the Force. Even in our own universe, Freud states that we should not expect an interpretation of our dreams to fall like manna from the sky.2 The interpretation of dreams is not always accomplished at a single sitting. When a chain of associations have been followed with no clear picture, it is inevitable that nothing more can be learned from the dream at that point. Based on one previous experience, Anakin decides to take Padmé’s fate into his own hands and try to stop the dream from happening. Knowing what we know, we in the audience can safely say it might be the Force’s way of warning Anakin of what his future actions will be if he chooses the dark side, but in context of the story Anakin sees it as the Force once again warning him of something that will happen if he doesn’t stop it himself.
Anakin has been told or is lead to believe in some way that the Jedi don’t have nightmares. Everything is a view into the events of the past, present or future, when it’s possible that they are, in fact, just dreams. Part of the problem with the Jedi’s handling of Anakin is that they can’t understand the experiences he has had as a normal sentient being in the galaxy. He has had dreams before, but they were never made out to be anything other than dreams, with perhaps some special insight. Shmi Skywalker seemed to realize that Anakin had the power to see certain things, but never dwelled on this fact with Anakin. Little Annie seemed to be able to take his dreams in stride as a child and not lend so much credit to them as a guide for any certain path. He told Qui-Gon of his dream, but seemed to view it as something no bigger than it actually was.
One could argue that in the scheme of things in the galaxy far, far away, maybe Anakin was destined to live out his life on Tatooine listening to the Force via his dreams and interpreting them as the Force saw fit. Perhaps it has always spoken to him through dreams for a reason, and like Yoda, he is supposed to divine his purpose through these. According to Jung, even in our own reality, we can think all of our lives that we are following our own purpose, and may never discover that we are, for the most part, “supernumeraries on the stage of the world theater.”3 There are factors which, although we do not know of them, nevertheless influence our lives, the more so if they are unconscious.
Campbell writes, “The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors, and deluding messages up into the mind --whether in dream, broad daylight, or insanity…”4 Dreams show how things are quirked by the troubles of the dreamer, whereas myths show the problems and solutions are directly valid for all mankind. In mythology, how a dream is interpreted is the part of the journey a hero must make. Anakin must cross the rivers of hell to his own purgatory caused by his dreams in Revenge of the Sith. His life from there seems to be one long purgatory until his redemption in Return of the Jedi.
Even into his life as Darth Vader, Anakin seems to rely heavily on his feelings and intuition, something he attributes to his gifts in the Force. Luckily for his son and the galaxy at the end, it is what the Force is telling him through his own conscious that brings about his decision to end the horror and subjugation and do away with Palpatine. At the end, he finally realized it is what he does with this information that counts, and this is the lesson on choices that George Lucas has been trying to teach each of us with his story.
Works Cited
1. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. (Bollingen Foundation Inc., New York, NY, USA.) Second Edition, 1949. pg.19
2. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. (Basic Books, Inc. New York, NY, USA) pg.561
3. Jung, Carl. Myths, Dreams, Reflections. (Vintage Books, Inc. New York, NY, USA) Fourth Edition, 1961
4. Campbell, pg.5
