I was delighted to stumble across one of my very favorite topics in “Hypnagogia” -- the unconscious mind. Good old Sigmund Freud. What would readers and writers have done without him? Certainly we wouldn’t be having as much fun with cigars, dark caves, or trains rocketing into tunnels a la Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. With this said, the concept of our unconscious desires coming alive -- unconsciously -- is a fascinating one, and perhaps one I would have preferred to see even more developed in this episode. Though with relationship issues, schizophrenia, and an elusive murderer, the writer certainly had a full plate. What is here I enjoyed -- but I would have liked seconds.
One of the very large topics that “Hypnagogia” explores is the Mulder/Scully dynamic, an issue that continually confounds viewers and readers. Here, it is not the focus, and appropriately so. 2SHY very clearly realizes that the characters become the surface on which events and thoughts are reflected rather than being the genesis of those thoughts and events. Nonetheless, I had a little trouble buying into Scully’s impending desertion. To be fair, however, 2SHY’s treatment resonates quite nicely with the TV show and I never bought into Scully’s threats to leave there, either. As far as their emotional issues, I sense a can of worms (large, mountain range sized worms) that I will leave alone here.
The focus of this episode is the unconscious, that great impetus (according to Freud and his theoretical descendants) of art and behavior. Because it is highlighted so prominently in the crimes committed, we are encouraged to look for its influences elsewhere. This is big, meaty stuff, and I longed to dig my fingers further into it and see what I might scrounge up. As it is, I am left with some questions. For instance, I wonder about the targets of violence and what unconscious well-springs fed them? This is not necessarily answered in “Hypnagogia” and I would be the last to suggest that they should be addressed explicitly. Nonetheless, I wanted to see this issue played with or teased out a bit.
What is played with is quite fun. Dreams, unresolved desires, mental illness -- all great stuff. And though the investigation centers around the mentally ill, a great literary finger is leveled at our heroes who struggle with their own unconscious demons. In a non-pathologically ill individual, the unconscious is nonetheless a demanding taskmaster, and our heroes are masters of repression. Scully, in particular, has it down to an art, continually relegating the undesirable, the forbidden, the tragic to the deep recesses of the mind. In psychoanalytic theory, the unconscious is the cesspool where the repressed urges and thoughts mutate and live. Eventually, they must have release, and often this release is unpredictable and violent as illustrated in the crimes of “Hypnagogia.” The interplay of our heroes’ own psychic dilemma with murder and violence is a warning that they too, must eventually deal with the accumulated weight of the unconscious mind.
In short, I think “Hypnagogia” touched on a very real truth of the X-Files world -- the psychic burden so many of the series’ inhabitants carry. Mulder and Scully mold surprisingly well to the tenets of psychoanalytic theory (trauma, mourning, repression) and it’s an avenue that deserves attention. It receives that attention here, but at times too quickly and too abruptly, rushing toward a resolution that ultimately feels unresolved. Regardless, it’s a interesting episode that is rich with engaging material. Enjoy.