Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life” is bound to mess up your mind, question life and one’s

own existence. It is a perfect example of a mind blowing film, philosophical in every way. This
masterpiece is an animated story, about a young man who’s not named in the movie but is played
by Wiley Wiggins who finds himself stuck through a series of dream-like realities, he cannot
decide if he’s awake or asleep eventually leading to an existential crisis.
The story plot begins when Wiggins was dropped off somewhere in town and was hit by a
car. Subsequently, he began to spend his time in a dream-state wherein he encounters various type
of characters discussing the nature of existence and reality. The characters, ranging from real-life
philosophers, professors, writers, and artists discussing diverse topics in philosophy. It features
issues such as existentialism, free will, predeterminism etc. Consequently, he realized that he’s
stuck in a series of lucid dreams broken up only by false awakenings. In one of the scenes, a woman
suddenly approached him and shared her creative ideas with him, but he reminds himself that she’s
just an illusion of his own dreaming imagination. After that, he starts to exchange thoughts more
openly with the other characters, but he also began to lose hope about being trapped in a dream.
Some of the talks that really caught my attention were the following: First, when the man
in the boat/car states that his vehicle is a window to the world, in which every moment is a show.
He glides along, remaining in a state of constant departure, while always arriving. The ride, he
states, does not require an explanation, only occupants. This scenario parallels Hume’s problem of
personal identity: our identities seem to consist of fleeting perceptions. Hume was troubled by this
problem and felt that our minds in fact construct a more lasting notion of the self. The boat/car
man, though, seems to live out Hume’s worst fears. What’s so bad about how the boat/car man
approaches life?