Week Eleven: Cyberpunk and Steampunk

The sub-genres we are reading this week deal in augmented, altered or alternative realities. Discuss the types of reality rendered in the works you read and watched for this week's assignment. Describe the effects of these reality on the narrative and the implications for the presumed reader.

For this week I read Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson what felt like 3 times over and still could not follow what was going on. It honestly confused the heck out of me because there was so much slang that did not resonate with me at all. So I chose to write about the required movie, Paprika, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The story revolves around a time where a new psychotherapy treatment is released in which a person goes through therapy through a dream with a device called a “DC mini” that allowed the user to view other peoples dreams and witness their unconscious or subconscious minds. The story revolves around a girl with a dream alter ego named “paprika” as she uses the device illegally to help people outside of the system with their issues.

            The film juggles the concept of dreams and their projections of the real world in ways that sometimes our conscious minds cannot even remember. When I was younger I had experiences that at the time were traumatic enough for my mind to repress until 10 years afterwards when I randomly remembered one day. When I watched this movie I felt a lot of connection to the character’s alter egos and the idea that an empty body can be inhabited by those created in the dream world. The way I remembered my memories was during a nap. When I awoke I questioned my mom and found out that my dreams where in fact the reality of my past resurfacing. My alter ego created by my lack of memories was awoken by my dream state to make me realize realities of myself. I feel like this is a direct representation of the analogy of the power of dreams and our ability to unite our conscious and subconscious represented by the DC mini and its abilities. There are many trends that revolve around your dreams acting as lessons for individuals that occur in our world as well as in Paprika’s.