I was introduced to film maker Rodney Ascher several years ago, with Room 237, a study of the conspiracies that have grown up around interpretations of Kubrick’s The Shinning. Since then, he has made two more documentaries, The Nightmare (2015) and Glitch in the Matrix (2021).
The Nightmare chronicles people’s experiences of sleep paralysis. The waking from sleep in a state of paralysed, and the sense or even witnessing of dark entities stalking you. The documentary discusses whether these are internal events perceived as a reality, or if actual beings are causing these events as they invade people’s homes and minds. This is told through the experiences of several people, each with their own stories and experiences. The stories share some stark similarities but also some glaring differences. Listening to the stories is fascinating and gives a glimpse into terrifying emotional experiences but leaves the ending open. The film is not designed to be a definitive examination of this phenomena but will make you ask some interesting questions.
Glitch in the Matrix takes a similar approach to Simulation theory. This is an idea that has been floating round for several decades but has become more pointed as digital worlds are becoming more prominent in all our lives. In a nutshell it posits that we, and our world, are in fact a digital reality created by another intelligence. The question is what exists outside of this. The documentary, once again, is not intending to answer the question but present a group of people’s experiences that have led them to believe that this reality is a simulation.
These experiences range from an epiphany in church, a meditative mind-expanding moment to an obsession with the film The Matrix. It also splices this in sections of the lecture Philip K Dick gave in 1977 about his experiences, which led him to believe a version of simulation theory and write the Exegesis in an attempt to put his ideas on paper.
As with The Nightmare, Glitch in the Matrix is not going to give you any clear answers. However, it will make you ask questions and maybe even take another look at the world around us.
Both scratch the surface of idea and raise awareness of theories questioning our reality. If you are happy believing that sleep paralysis is a physiological phenomenon caused by brain chemistry, you may be right, but if you are worried that it may also be entities from a dimension parallel to ours that some with malicious intent, you may be just as right. Glitch does the same. The experiences explained are not taken as some kind of truth only as a starting point to ask questions.
One of the scariest questions asked is, if we are not real what is the point of morality? One subject in the film states that if we are just digital representations what does it matter if I just start shooting ‘people’, we’re not real. Firstly, I question this persons moral standing if that is their go to, but it also raises the question of what is real. Even if we are a digital, we still feel and exist, or does us being a flesh and bone physical subject make us more ‘real’?
These films do not judge or take a side in these matters. They present these ideas and stories and then leave it with the viewer to take from it what they will. I watched them almost two weeks ago now and I am still digesting the films. My thoughts and feelings on the subjects are still not clear but I have some great new questions to consider. Also, following this I am going to write about my sleep paralysis experiences when I was younger, it feels like something I need to do now.
That aside, I recommend both these documentaries (as well as Room 237). They can be enjoyed as straight forward horror and science fiction overviews of existing theories, or you can look closer and take a journey down the rabbit hole and see what you find, it may be different to what I find but whose to say which truth is real?
After watching the films, I reached out to Rodney Ascher with some questions, and he was kind enough to respond:
What led you to the topics for The Nightmare and Glitch in the Matrix?
The nightmare was inspired by my own sleep paralysis experience (which felt like a harrowing supernatural visitation at the time) and the nightmare directlyled to Glitch. Someone I spoke to about sleep paralysis told me that he thought the phantoms he saw during SP were people outside of the simulation and once I heard that I never stopped thinking about simulation theory.
The two documentaries cover subjects about the potential of another world adjacent to ours, do you see them as a duology?
Well sure, especially considering the above. In fact, I consider them and Room 237 a trilogy, all the films are about people struggling to understand mysteries.
Have you ever had any experiences like those described in The Nightmare and Glitch in the Matrix?
I’ve had sleep paralysis, but I’ve never experienced a really intense glitch. Some people see synchronicities or living through bizarre moments in history as clues that we’re in a simulation and I’ve had my share of those, some pretty intense but I suspect there are other explanations for them.
There is a noticeable lack of ‘experts’ in the documentaries, taking up what would usually be considered the informed position. Was this an intentional move? If so, why?
I broke that pattern a little with Glitch, including a few people who could be considered experts to put some of the ideas we cover in context and to do a little colour commentary, but yeah the part of these subjects I’m always most interested in are the first person experiences, the ‘case studies.’
I don’t see the model for what I’m doing science-journalism so much as storytelling, and the works of collage artist Bruce Connor is much more influential on me than episodes of 60 Minutes or Nova. One way I like to put it is my mission is to put the audience into the heads of people who see the world differently than others do. In the case of the Nightmare for example, I wasn’t trying to explain the science of the phenomenon so much as paint a picture of what it’s like to experience. i wanted to hear from people who’ve gone through it follow wherever their search for answers took them.
The danger of experts (to overstate it) is that they’re sometimes presented as infallible authorities and film’s that lean too heavily on them sink or swim depending on whether or not they’re right. I prefer regular people letting us into their subjective experience.
The Nightmare is described as a Horror documentary, while it is conveying these people’s experiences as fact, do you also see it as a horror experience, designed to entertain in the same way?
Yes.
The experiences described in the Nightmare share some themes but also differ greatly in the details. Do you believe that there is a single objective truth to them, such as actual beings entering the homes, but being perceived as subjective experiences filtered through the individual’s life references? Can they be taken as a collective to be studied?
That’s the question I hope the audience asks after they watch it. My answer isn’t any more or less relevant than yours.
The use of Avatar images for the people in Glitch – what made you choose this approach? The use of these was more impactful in 2021, especially for me, having worked from home for over a year and having only worked with my colleagues over video calls and messages.
Thanks! We started down that path in 2019 as a way of talking about the strange new worlds digital communications are bringing us too but oddly enough we all found ourselves trapped in those worlds more and more as time went on.
Simulation theory posits that we are coding in a larger machine, created by a vastly different or more advanced civilisation than ours. While this taps into modern ideas of the layering of reality it can be argued that this is still within the confines of a creationist myth, just nihilistic and without a moral structure. Do you think that this theory is fueled by modern conceptions and perceptions of reality, or just a retreading of an old idea with a new CGI coat of paint?
I don’t think those are mutually exclusive, especially since different people arrive at the idea via different paths.
Are we destined to keep coming back to creationist ideals, having an entity or entities that are greater than us?
Probably. Based on my layman’s understanding of history, philosophy, and religion (and maybe politics) I don’t see humankind on settling on a unanimous consensus about the nature of reality anytime soon.
Both documentaries can now be bought and rented on most streaming services. I watched them on Amazon Prime (UK).