Mar 25
Coolidge Corner Theatre Brookline, MA
TicketsDr. Robert Stickgold
Professor of Psychiatry and founder of the Center for Sleep and Cognition, Harvard Medical School
Mulholland Drive— The mystery of dreams
Program Description
Dr. Robert Stickgold, Professor of Psychiatry and founder of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Harvard Medical School, discusses his groundbreaking research on the mystery of dreams and the science of sleep.
This event is part of our 2025 National Evening of Science on Screen.
Film Synopsis
After a car wreck on Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.
Beware what you dream for… the late, great David Lynch’s woozy, diabolical and exhilaratingly strange thriller is a nightmarish film noir that lays bare the twisted heart of the Hollywood dream machine.
Amnesia-suffering Rita (Laura Harring), who barely escapes murder in a suspicious car crash on winding, hilly Mulholland Drive, makes her way down to Hollywood, where she sneaks into the apartment of aspiring actress Betty (Naomi Watts), a wholesome Midwestern blonde who has come to the City of Angels seeking fame and fortune. When the two women encounter each other and join forces to try and piece together the elusive story of what really happened to Rita up there on Mulholland Drive, their delirious descent down the Lynchian rabbit hole ensues.
Puzzling and elusive, Mulholland Drive refuses easy interpretation and some have conjectured that the film takes place in a dream. In typical Lynch fashion, the director declined to offer any explanation of his narrative intentions in Mulholland Drive, instead simply referring to the film as “A love story in the city of dreams.”
Photo credit: Universal Focus
About the Speaker
Dr. Robert Stickgold is a Full Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and was the founder and served as the Director of Harvard's Center for Sleep and Cognition for 20 years. He is the author of numerous scientific articles, as well as two science fiction novels, and his work is frequently cited in both leading scientific journals and the popular press. With over 300 papers and 20,000 citations, Dr Stickgold has led groundbreaking research on the connections between sleep, learning and memory consolidation, as well as the dangers of sleep deprivation. He is an international keynote speaker at symposiums, universities and museums, and the co-author of When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep.