In movies, dreams often hold a deeper meaning. This is especially true in the children's movie The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Thus, we can use psychoanalytic concepts from the readings to analyze Max the Daydreamer's dreams in the movie.
The protagonist of the movie, Max, is an imaginative kid whose dreams -- and nightmares -- come to life. His two greatest dreams are Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Because they are his greatest creations, they also reveal the most about Max himself.
Psychoanalysts like Freud and Carl Jung would say that dreams reveal a person's desires and fears. The existence of Sharkboy and Lavagirl reveal Max's desire to have friends, as well as his fear of being rejected by his classmates, which occurs at the beginning.
Furthermore, one thing that Sharkboy, Lavagirl, and Max all have in common is parental issues. Sharkboy was abandoned as a baby and raised by sharks. Lavagirl does not know her origins. In real life, Max's parents are constantly fighting and on the verge of a divorce. Max's dreams reflect the problems of his reality. As LeMaster put it in his article about Charlie Chaplin, the dream universe "becomes an extension of reality and demonstrates... inner conflict."
An important dream scene in the movie is when Sharkboy and Lavagirl coax Max to sleep so that he can dream up a solution to save them from Mr. Electric. Although the dream starts out well, it soon turns into a nightmare.
The key to understanding how this dream turned into a nightmare lies in the article Freud's Dream Theory. While asleep, Max's subconscious is triggered by words that Sharkboy and Lavagirl say around him. Sharkboy's violent lullaby includes phrases such as "My first will put you out" and "There is darkness in the air" and Lavagirl mentions "destuction." These dark words, coupled with Max's anxiety about escaping Mr. Electric, are responsible for his nightmare.
Max's dream is also a "predictive" dream. According to Psychoanalysis of Dreams, dream scholars believe that dreams, especially ones that repeat themselves, are predictors of the future. In this case, the futuristic scenes Max foresees are Sharkboy's close scrape with death and the Ice Princess's crystal necklace, which holds the key to saving his dreamworld.
Ultimately, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl is a movie about how Max grows up. He starts out as "Max the Daydreamer." Based on the Charlie Chaplin article, daydreaming is about "overcoming immediate obstacles instead of long-range ones." Throughout the movie, Max learns to face his nightmares instead of running away. The turning point is when Max realizes that he should not dream just for himself; instead, he dreams an unselfish dream and ends up saving Sharkboy.
In the end, Max's reality also improves. His parents are once again on good terms. His classmates stop making fun of him. Max, having realized the power of dreams, advises his peers to "dream a better dream and work to make it real."
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