Award-winning independent filmmaker Antonio Arecibo recently announced he was deep into the production of a horror feature anthology entitled “Somnambular Tremors.” An exploration of the profoundly frightening phenomenon known as false-awakenings, “Somnambular Tremors” will explore multiple characters in an interwoven narrative style similar to the “Creepshow” and “Tales From the Crypt” anthologies. While thus far financing the project out-of-pocket, Antonio brings his signature one-man-production style to a genuine indie-film experience that has already generated early critical buzz.
False Awakenings: An Eternal Nightmare
False awakenings happen when someone believes they have woken up from sleep, only to realize at some later point that they are still dreaming. Often a part of a larger, over-arching lucid-dreaming phenomenon, false awakenings are categorized as hybrid states and can represent a significant psychological strain on an individual, who must often struggle through the delusions of wakefulness to reach conscious awareness. These struggles are all the more profound when sleepers are fighting to wake up not from a normal dream but a nightmare. False awakenings are usually part of a composite experience that can include lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, and despair or foreboding feelings.
“Dreams have fascinated mankind for thousands of years,” said Antonio Arecibo. “They are normally a source of magic, joy, mystery, and can be a welcome escape from a life that is dull or painful. We’re taught as children to follow our dreams as a source of inspiration because the dream state comes with an inherent sense of positivity. And we also know that dreams aren’t real – they eventually end and are always escapable, even when they turn bad. But what happens when that’s no longer true? What happens when the dreamer and the dream merge as one? What happens if we can’t wake up, and our nightmares follow us out into the real world? That’s what I wanted to explore.”
