Inland Empire, Mind Control, Consciousness

I watched David Lynch´s movie "Inland Empire" for the second time yesterday and noticed some content that relates to ATS-topics. Whats interesting is that I seem to have missed some of this on the first viewing.

Mind-Control: It is quite possible that this is a movie about what ATS-members call "mind control". In one scene a prostitute is sitting in front of her "handler" saying "I have been hypnotized". You see her trying to remember, trying to break through her programming while not realizing that the person sitting in front of her is one of the guys who hypnotized her. "What happens if you remember?" he asks. She responds: "Then I am going to kill someone with a screwdriver". While her hypnosis-programming is breaking she notices how she rammed a screwdriver into her own stomach.

Throughout the rest of the movie, several prostitues are shown not being able to discern between reality and fiction, between false memory implants and real memories. The prostitute in question then goes on to fullfill her mission as an assasin. it is clearly shown how she does not want to assasinate a certain character but is driven to do so by her hypnotic programming.

While plenty of statements are made on the nature of Consciousness, Reality, parallel realities, dreams and the subconscious, I think that the mind-control aspect of the movie seems to have been overlooked by most viewers.

Id love to discuss what you have noticed about the movie as it relates to ATS-topics.

One reason for posing this question is that everyone is walking around saying "we dont know what the movie is about". Even the director himself acts all innocent and says "I really dont know what its about. Its about a woman in trouble, I guess". Journalists and film critics say its a "movie about the subconsciousness" or "a movie about gypsy fairy tales" or "a movie about making a movie". Even the actors themselves say they didnt know what the movie was about while filming it. I havent seen any references to the movie being about hypno-mind-control. This thread would be the first to show up on google for someone looking for that piece of info.

So, in summary either the director "knows" something and subtly shows the workings of mind-control in his movie, or he is simply a conspiracy-geek like us, or both.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Woa, I can't believe I'm the first person to respond to this after all these years.

I'm totally with you on the mind control thing. At the beginning of the film when that old lady ("new neighbor") visits Nicki (Laura Dern) she tells "an old tale"...

"A little boy went out to play..."

Then she does the variation.

"A little girl went out to play..."

I think she was hypnotizing Nicki (Dern).

"For instance, if today were tomorrow, you wouldn't even remember that you owed on an unpaid bill..."

That movie is amazing.

The end of the movie (the credits scene with Nina Simone's "Sinner Man") is a celebration of being free from the mind control.

David Lynch filmed a bunch of cool stuff, stuck to some common themes, spliced it together as one film, and there does seem to be a story in there.

I hope I'm wrong, but having watched the works of David Lynch for a long time, I have to wonder if maybe he is intimately familiar with mind control, ie is sort of a bad guy. The man makes amazing films, and it wouldn't do anyone in power a whole lot of good to parade this stuff in front of the public, but when you see public perception of his work, most people who see it don't get it and even more will never see it. I think power is the major theme of ALL his films, but that Inland Empire and Mullholland Drive (and probably Twin Peaks) are absolutely about trauma based mind control.