I love it in movies and TV shows when something happens in a character’s dream, and then afterward shows up in the character’s real life. In fact, that happened in the most recent episode of Only Murders in the Building.
In a rational sense, of course this is impossible. Yet when we see it on the screen it seems to make perfect sense. Technically, such a moment is transforming what we had thought was a true-to-life fictional world into a fantasy fictional world.
But isn’t that the point? When we watch something on the screen, we are indeed receiving it the way we receive a dream. On a sensory level, the end result of the techniques of camerawork and editing is not like real life. It is like our dreams.
So when we see something impossible happen, such as a dream foreshadowing reality, we accept it, and we even celebrate this momentary escape from the strictures of real life.
Because after all, isn’t that why we go to the movies?