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What Dreams May Come

FILM · 1998 · NEW ZEALAND

What Dreams May Come

24 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026

  • What Dreams May Come — production image

24 Interesting Facts About What Dreams May Come

Interesting Facts (18)

  1. #001

    Annabella Sciorra initially had no desire to appear in the film, believing it would be too intense and sad. A read-through with Robin Williams convinced her otherwise.

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  2. #002

    The title is taken from William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (Act 3, Scene 1): "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause…".

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  3. #003

    The film's original prints, stored in a video vault on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot, were lost in the backlot fire of June 1, 2008.

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  4. #004

    It is one of the few films shot on Fuji Velvia (RVM) film stock. Velvia is the film type most commonly used in still photography of landscapes and other subjects because of its very high color saturation; it is rarely used for cinematography, generally only when special effects are required.

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  5. #005

    In the sea of faces that Chris Nielsen crosses to find Annie, the bespectacled old face that speaks to Chris (whom Chris mistakenly takes for his father) is that of filmmaker Werner Herzog.

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  6. #006

    The different locations of the afterlife in the film are created by the main characters' thoughts: Chris Nielsen imagines his house and its surroundings from Annie's paintings; the great staircase and the golden city are taken from the toys in Marie's room; at the entrance to Hell appear sunken aircraft carriers taken from Ian's memories of building model planes; Annie's hell is shown as a gray ground full of faces, taken from a conversation between her and Chris; and finally Annie's house in hell is a copy of her house from when they were all alive.

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  7. #007

    Chris Nielsen's fictional grave is located in Mount View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Near the scene's filming location there is a real cemetery for Anna Nielsen and her husband.

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  8. #008

    In Richard Matheson's book, Chris Nielsen has four children. In the film there are two, who died four years before him. In the book, Albert Lewis is his cousin, who was ill in his youth and died young. In the film, Albert Lewis was the mentor of Chris Nielsen, the doctor who died before him.

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  9. #009

    The director's mother is also among the people flying in the great library.

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  10. #010

    The film's music supervisor, Dawn Solér, said in an interview that Axl Rose planned to use the unreleased Guns N' Roses song "This I Love" in the film, but that for some reason the director did not use the song.

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  11. #011

    The primary colors appear at different times and dominate certain scenes: -Red: the entrance to Hell, filled with flames. -Blue: Chris watches a large tree shed its leaves, reflecting his grief (Annie ruins the painting with acid). -Green: when Chris visits Annie in the psychiatric clinic. -Yellow: the great staircase full of people and the city among the mountains, lit by an endless sunset in which people fly. -Black: Chris crosses a stormy sea on a raft with Albert Lewis and The Tracker. -White: Chris finally passes through a tunnel at the end of which there is a white light.

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  12. #012

    Each time Chris is about to lose himself while searching for Annie, he falls into water and is completely submerged.

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  13. #013

    Michelle Pfeiffer and Meryl Streep turned down the role of Annie Collins-Nielsen.

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  14. #014

    Searching for Annie's soul, Chris confronts the four elements to find her: -Water: Chris leaves the afterlife with Albert and The Tracker, crossing a stormy sea on a raft to approach Hell. -Earth: Chris arrives in Hell on foot among the sinking aircraft carriers. -Fire: Albert tries to enter a place full of ghost soldiers, stopped at the last moment by Chris. The whole place appeared to be surrounded by flames. -Air: after walking on a ground full of faces, Chris missteps and falls into a great chasm, finally finding Annie's location.

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  15. #015

    At one point in the film, the deceased Chris forces the living Annie to write his name as she writes in her diary. According to paranormal researchers this is called Automatic Writing, a technique in which living people empty and clear their minds of thoughts, allowing a ghost or spirit to write messages from the other world using the hand of the living. It was shown in The Changeling (1980).

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  16. #016

    The film was first announced in 1984 by 20th Century Fox, with Wolfgang Petersen set to direct.

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  17. #017

    Robin Williams appeared in Hamlet (1996), an adaptation of the Shakespeare play from which this film takes its name. He plays Osric, a courtier used mainly for comic relief, but in the filmed version he dies when Fortinbras attacks Elsinore. It is one of several films in which Robin Williams's character dies before the end (this one included).

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  18. #018

    There is nothing new under the sun. "Orpheus" is a Greek myth about a musician who descends into the underworld to retrieve his dead wife and charms the gods with the music of his lyre, who allow him to return to the land of the living on the condition that he never look at her.

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Behind the Scenes (1)

  1. #019

    The "Hell" scenes were shot on the worn, rusted hull of the Essex-class aircraft carrier U.S.S. Oriskany (CV-34). The ship was later sunk on May 17, 2006 to make way for an artificial reef. The "Hell" scenes were filmed at Naval Air Station Alameda in an indoor swimming pool surrounded by blue screens so that visual effects could be added later. Extras spent twelve-hour days in the water as ghouls.

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Characters & Cast (2)

  1. #020

    When Chris travels to the heavenly city where people fly around, look among the flying people for the characters from "Peter Pan" (Wendy, Michael, John) and "Mary Poppins" (Mary Poppins). Robin Williams starred in Hook, in which he played Peter Pan.

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  2. #021

    Annette Bening auditioned for the role of Annie Nielsen.

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Deeper Meaning (3)

  1. #022

    When Chris, Albert and The Tracker arrive in Hell, they see an aircraft carrier named Cerberus. In Greek mythology, Cerberus was the three-headed savage dog that guarded Hades (the land of the dead), whose task was to prevent living people from entering Hades and the souls of the dead from escaping it.

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  2. #023

    Although the film does not explicitly reveal how Annie commits suicide, it suggests that she poisons herself. Annie is shown in front of the mirror 'talking' about killing herself while eating an unknown substance from a bowl with her finger, and the bowl is again shown beside her on the bed as she writes about suicide in her diary.

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  3. #024

    When Annie destroys the painting of the tree, she is seen wearing a white dress with black trim. She is in fact wearing Chris's robe, and we see in a flashback scene in which Chris talks with her about their son Ian that she wore it then.

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Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

  • IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

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