Brandell, Jerrold R. "Eighty Years of Dream Sequences: A Cinematic Journey Down Freud's "Royal Road." American Imago 61.1 (2004): 59-76.

Brandell’s article looks at Secrets of the Soul, Spellbound, David and Lisa, and 12 Monkeys and analyzes each film’s treatment of psychoanalysis specifically relating to the interpretation of dream sequences as an extension of the different times’ approaches and attitudes towards psychoanalysis. Brandell is specifically interested in looking at the possibility that specific cultural events or attitudes could have shaped the depiction of psychoanalytic treatment in film. In addition to attitudes, Brandell also explores whether advances in technology changed the way that filmmakers approached the representation of the psychoanalysis of dreams. After investigating the depictions of psychoanalysis in each film, Brandell comes to the conclusion that the representations of dream sequences have little to do with the technological capacity of the time in which each film was created. Instead, he argues that the each film was more influenced by historical events and that social attitudes, not technological innovations, dictated the depictions of dream sequences and psychoanalysis.

Ultimately, Brandell concludes that the portrayal of “Dr. Edwardes’ ” dream sequence is based less on the technological resources of Salvador Dali, and instead is shaped by what people’s position on psychiatry and psychoanalysis was at the time. Brandell argues that this position had been greatly affected by the influx of veterans with various forms of posttraumatic stress disorder returning home from World War II. Like John Ballantine, who witnessed the traumatic death of the real Dr. Edwardes, the depiction of his treatment argues that through psychoanalysis patients can work through their trauma and ultimately “open the doors” to their memories and the subconscious, allowing them to be cured. At the end of the film, John Ballantine escapes the memories that haunt him by successfully completing psychoanalysis with the help of Dr. Peterson. Perhaps the film intends to argue that like Ballantine, the generation of soldiers traumatized after a difficult war could also be “cured.” Spellbound’s representation of psychoanalysis is in many respects inaccurate, but is consistently hopeful.