Voices in your head

I was watching the commentary on the DVD of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and one conversation between Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry caught my interest. Kaufman was saying that, as he was writing, he was conscious that even though most of the appearances of the Clementine character were inside Joel's head, and therefore were an extension of Joel, they expressed a more adventurous side of him. For instance, although it's clearly his own idea to hide from the Lacuna people inside his childhood memories, it is his inner Clementine who expresses it.

Gondry objected that he thought people were actually quite good at reproducing other people in their heads - at capturing some essence of the other person, even though they are in your dream or your subconscious. He said that when his father was near death, and had lost the power of speech, he would dream of conversations with his father that seemed very real. As if he had internalized his father's speech and thought patterns and could have a lifelike sensation of talking to him again.

That reminded me of a dream I had shortly after my father died, in which I had a similar experience to Gondry - my father was attempting to reassure me that I would be ok, and it felt like him saying this, not me. I retained a strong sense of his character and disposition, separate from my own.