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Cacophonaut
If he did die that day in Vietnam, he could not possibly have known about "the ladder", so it makes sense that he invented it as a part of his "dream", and therefore probably as a function of his whole coming-to-terms process that the dream represents. However, as I said, there clearly was a drug, because the soldiers obviously aren't behaving normally and his dream is not exactly realistic, but logically speaking it cannot have been the "ladder" that Michael describes.
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Cacophonaut
Actually, that is the only complication to that interpretation. It implies he had some knowledge of the test, which he clearly didn't, so perhaps that particular hallucination was his own subconscious rationalisation of the events. Logically speaking, it seems obvious anyway that a lot of the events in the film are brought about by an altered state of consciousness. Demons? Nightmarish surgeries where the doctors insist he is dead? Corridors strewn with dismembered limbs? These things clearly aren't real, and therefore his mind is clearly not functioning correctly. It naturally follows that there must have been some reason for this, and the "ladder" neatly explains this. The only explanation, however, for is appearance in his pre-mortem sort of purgatory nightmare is that "the ladder" is his own fiction.
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Cacophonaut
That at least was my interpretation, and I think it was the intended one. I hope it sheds some light on your experience of the film.
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Cacophonaut
Oh man, I experienced it the exact opposite way, I was baffled for the whole movie, and then that final scene made everything click into place. Okay, basically, the life we see of the modern Jacob Singer is not real, and never happened. Everything after Vietnam is basically a dream, a sort of metaphor for what Louis the chiropractor talks about, making peace with your demons. The whole thing is an extended allegory for Jacob's coming to terms with his own mortality and the death of his son. "Jacob's Ladder" is from Genesis, and is literally the path to heaven envisaged by the Biblical patriarch Jacob, notice at the end he ascends a stairway into light with his son, Gabriel? I'm sure you recognise the significance of the name. Indeed a lot of the names are taken from Judeo-Christian mythology for symbolic purposes. What we cant be sure of is whether Jacob actually experiences all this, or if it is a poetic metaphor for his struggle, but this is left intentionally ambiguous.
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Modular_Midular
He daar! Jij hebt goede smaak zeg! Moet je een keer ook naar de band van mijn vriendje luisteren - Modest Midget. Kijk maar!
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Julian-Thome
No just a few times, but I think I know nearly every tour date he has this year. Do you live near Amster...??
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Julian-Thome
Hey, Eric Burdon comes to Amsterdam [track artist=Eric Burdon]devil run[/track]
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bcwilliamson
hey, i noticed you were listening to b.c. williamson. he's actually a blues musician i made up with a friend, but now we're recording his 'music', making up his backstory, and so on. [url]www.bcwilliamson.com[/url] tell your friends if you enjoyed the music, we're trying to make bc as big a hit as possible!
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