Total Recall

In the events of this film, as in Vanilla Sky, neither the lead character nor the viewer knows reality from illusion. Douglas Quaid is—in the life we presume to be his real one—a builder whose biggest dream is to go to Mars.

The film portrays a future era where life on Mars is not only possible, but where terrorist attacks take place. Velos Cohageen, governor of the planet, states that he is open to any offers of cooperation in order to end the rebellion. Douglas daydreams about going to Mars and resolving the conflict, but his wife is against this idea. Finally he applies to a company named Recall, which markets realistic virtual holidays. The company offers tailor-made holidays, where—like a real holiday—the customer can specify every detail of his trip, supposedly no different from the real experience, but significantly cheaper. Customers even have the option of "traveling" as a different person.

In return for a fee, Douglas agrees to have 15 days' worth of memories as a secret service agent on Mars transferred to his mind, while his body rests on a chair. During transfer, a problem occurs and it is discovered that the data downloaded into his mind was tampered with beforehand. Our hero begins to consider himself a secret agent, on duty on Mars—in the life we presume to be his real one.

Throughout the film, never does it become exactly clear which of Douglas Quaid's memories are real and which are artificially created. In many sequences of the film, the inseparability of illusion and reality is frequently brought to our attention.

Someone Traveling in Reality, Actually Covers the Miles in His Mind

Throughout this book, we have pointed out various examples of how in our minds we only have direct experience of copies of matter—our bodies, objects around us, the ground we stand on, the Sun, stars, and planets. If you look into the sky, you see the Sun far away. In reality, the Sun is merely a vision formed within the darkness of your skull. Likewise the planets we think to be millions of miles away are actually perceptions in our the brain's visual center— in other words, they are not far away, but inside us.

In Total Recall, a travel agency supplies customers with artificially created experiences, indistinguishable from real ones. People can experience distant places as if they were really there, believing they're on holiday by means of data transferred to their minds.

The TV ad for the Recall travel agency is recaptured below:

After seeing the TV ad, Douglas Quaid calls up Recall to find out if he can realize his dream of going to Mars and speaks to a company representative named Bob McClane. In the following dialogue, they agree on the details of his virtual holiday:

Along with the features of the environment, Douglas can also choose the details of his virtual personality. Learning this, he chooses to be a secret agent during his stay on Mars.

As these examples show, there is technically no difference between one's real-life experiences and those in a dream or artificially created environment. We see them all in our brains. Planets we believe to be far away, the world we consider to be huge are in reality the sum total of our perceptions. Some examples from our books on the subject:

Virtual Worlds in our Brains

In technologically advanced countries, computer software simulating virtual environments is being used in education and entertainment.

It is no longer anything special for people to experience non-existent environments with the aid of computers and simulators that can create realistic 3-D images. High-tech industries are manufacturing a number of devices for entertainment and education. Many use special software, capable of creating 3-D images in their users' brains, which give a real-life feel to the virtual environment by stimulating some, or all of the user's five senses.

Everyone from astronauts in NASA to architects, pilots to engineers, are all using simulators in a 3-D environment. For instance, a pilot cannot distinguish climatic conditions created in a flight-training simulator from the same real-life conditions. Many science-fiction movies deal with the human perception of life and its similarity to virtual reality worlds. In this film, a highly developed application of this technology is used for entertainment. Those on a virtual holiday can go anywhere they like, spending as much time as they like with whomever they want.

In Total Recall, during the data transfer process of a 15-day Martian holiday and the loading of the personality details, the unexpected occurs. Douglas Quaid begins talking about Mars before the data has been transferred successfully. Now he considers himself to be someone else, even in real life. In this part of the film, Douglas is on the travel agent's premises, but believes himself to be an agent on the run.

In the flight simulator, a pilot cannot distinguish the virtual climatic conditions created by the computer from the real thing. The person in the simulator can feel himself taking off and flying the "aircraft," even though he knows that he is in a virtual environment.

Douglas believes that the data transferred to him is real. His believing a virtual world to be real is comparable to those who believe that they are interacting with matter itself and therefore crave material worldly things. In reality, no one setting out from the copies of images and perceptions in his mind can prove that his experiences are real, or that he experiences the original of the material world. The following are quotations from our books:

The Data in Our Memory are Memories of Our Illusions

You could say that a person's past consists of information stored in his memory. If it were erased, there would be nothing left of his past. The future, on the other hand, is made up of people's speculations. People think about the future and make plans for it. But were you to take away their thoughts, there would be no future either. Take away someone's past and future thoughts, and he has only the present moment.

In Total Recall, it becomes evident that the hero's memory has been tampered with. As a consequence, he perceives time and his environment in a different way. After some of Douglas's previously erased memories return to him, his life changes. He is followed by his enemies, who even make attempts on his life, but it isn't clear if their attacks are real or whether they belong to the imaginary world implanted into his mind.

In some of the film's later scenes, Douglas escapes his pursuers and comes home. After he relates his experiences to his wife, she tries to persuade him that they weren't real.

Douglas suspects his wife is part of some sort of conspiracy and pressurizes her to tell the truth. As the following scenes reveal, we understand that Douglas had been living out an imaginary identity in the life that we, the audience, presumed to be his real one. In reality, Douglas is someone else. But thanks to the data transferred to his mind, he thinks that he is a builder married for eight years. His wife, his friend—in short, his life—all is artificial information put in his memory, and until now, Douglas has lived believing it's all true.

This forces us to wonder: Do we act on the presumption that the information in our memories reflects the truth? Without the information in our memories, on the other hand, we cannot know anything. Some quotes on the subject from our books:

• The past is composed of information given to a person's memory. If a memory is erased, her past is also. The future is composed of ideas. Without them, only the present moment of experience remains.
(Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.132)

• In brief, time comes about as a result of comparing a number of illusions stored in the brain. If man had no memory, his brain would not have made such interpretations; therefore, he would never have formed any perception of time. One determines himself to be thirty years old only because he has accumulated in his mind information pertaining to those thirty years. If his memory did not exist, he could not think of any preceding time, and would only experience the single "moment" he was living in.
(Timelessness and the Reality of Fate, p.61)

A person's past is the sum total of the information stored in his memory. If his memory were erased, he'd have no past left. The future is created by people's thoughts. For someone whose memory and thoughts are taken away, only the present moment or "this" moment could exist.

You Can't Take Your Sense of Touch as Evidence that You've Reached Matter Itself

From both a scientific and logical point of view, there's no difference between images in your dreams at night and those you see on awakening. While you are dreaming, if someone came into your dream to say, "Don't worry, you're dreaming. None of this is real. Right now, you are in your bed, watching images forming in your brain", you would not want to believe him, because the feelings you have are so realistic.

There is a similar situation in the film. Someone claiming to be a consultant in the virtual holiday company Recall, visits Douglas in his hotel room on Mars to tell him nothing he is experiencing is real. Also, he says, in reality Quaid is still on the Recall's premises, not here. But Douglas is convinced that his experiences are real and cannot accept that it can all be an illusion:

As we have seen, Douglas tries to prove the reality of what he sees by touching the company representative on the shoulder. But like all our other senses, touch is part of what we experience in our brain. When Douglas sees himself reaching out to the person in front of him and feels the firmness of his shoulder, all these are interpretations taking place in his mind. Just as when someone touches a person's shoulder in a dream, touching is no proof of dealing with matter itself. Anyone seeking such evidence can have no proof other than his own illusions. Below are some of our explanations for this:

• Someone who dreams he is dealing with the material world can be very sure of himself. If a friend tells him, "Matter is an image. It isn't possible to deal with the original of the world," he can then ask, "Am I an image now? Don't you feel my hand on your shoulder? If so, how can you be an image? What makes you think in this way? Explain to me why you believe this." In his deep sleep, the dream he sees is so clear. But suppose his ringing alarm clock wakes him just when he's getting ready to tell his friend that what he's living at that moment can't be a dream. Wouldn't he object in the same manner regardless of whether he was asleep or awake? (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.63)

• Some accept that images occur in the brain, yet they claim that they can experience the originals of what they see. But they can never prove this, because nobody can move out of the perceptions that exist in the brain. Everybody lives in the chamber that is in the brain, and no one can experience anything except what his perceptions show. Consequently, one can never know what happens outside of his perceptions. ... An observer will always deal with the images formed in his brain. Consequently, people can never reach the original of matter. ... Scientific or technological developments cannot change anything, because every such invention occurs in people's minds and consequently, is of no help to them in reaching the original of the outside world. (Matter: The Other Name for Illusion, p.48)

Hologram Images Identical to the Originals

More than once, scientists have proven a virtual world can be created in the brain without any need for an external world. With every passing day, it becomes easier to encode the world into electrical signals that people can experience as realistic effects. For example, computer simulations can create 3-D images identical to their originals. Encountering these images, people react in the same way as they do to their originals.

In one scene of the film, hologram technology points out the similarities between the original and the copied images. The wristwatch-like device that Douglas puts on creates holographic images of his body. His enemies, who are constantly trying to capture him, never succeed because they are pursuing copied images.

Have You Ever Thought that One Day, You Could Wake Up from This Life as You Do from Dreams?

Dreaming is a product of the brain and its activity, like all other mental processes. Whether asleep or awake, the brain is always active, always giving off electrical waves. During REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep when most dreams occur, the pathways that carry nerve impulses from the brain to the muscles are blocked. During dreams, therefore, the body cannot move. Essentially, though, asleep or awake, it is all the same. For instance, when you look at yourself in a dream as you would now, you see a body, complete with arms and legs, that walks and breathes. You can be led to believe that you are living a real life.

In reality, the virtual body in dreams is composed of perceptions in your mind, even though they feel "outside" of your mind. In other words, dreams are the sum total of the interpretation of stimuli reaching the relevant areas of the brain, just as when we are awake.

As examples throughout this book show, events in a dream can be so realistic that on waking, you need have to ask yourself whether it was a dream or reality. Technically, there is no difference between the two. Dreaming, you can do anything you could when awake—talk, eat, breathe, run, laugh, cry, get injured, or drive. Dreams often copy our everyday lives, making everything in the dream seem familiar. This is why we react to dream encounters as if they were real. Sometimes we awaken with a scream; other times, we wish we could never wake up.

In the following dialogue, Douglas reflects on the possibility that everything he experienced might have been a dream.

The Similarity of Our Dreams and Real Lives in the World of Music

For her show accompanying her 2001 gig in Las Vegas, pop star Britney Spears chose a really thought-provoking theme. Throughout the show, but especially in the opening, scenes suggested that everything, even the concert her fans were watching, happens only in the mind.

The theme of her show was the provocative thought that what we deem to be reality could very well be only an illusion. As an example from one scene, she dreamed of giving a concert in front of a huge crowd—but then, this also could have been a dream within a dream.

It was all in your mind...
Is all I see or seeing but a dream within a dream?
Have you ever had a dream that felt so real?
You could barely tell the difference between the real world and the dream world?
Which world are you in now?
Last night I dreamt of this very moment.
And I was here with all of you.
Now my dreams come true
It was all in your mind.

These expressions remind us to question the reality of the world we live in. We don't suppose that places and events in our dreams exist somewhere as material counterparts in another dimension, because we know that when we experienced these realistic events, we were fast asleep in our beds. Likewise, we can't claim that we are experiencing and interacting with what we call real life. Just as with our dreams, we don't require objects in the external world—and the body that perceives them—to be the source for our experiences. Because there were a material world out there, still we are regarding an illusionary world of replica images.