DO THE WHISTLES CONTROL THE DREAMS? | NCT 2021 YearDream : Stage 3 - Synchronization of Dreams [THEORY]

READING TIME: 7min 20sec

 

Here I am reviewing the second YearDream video for you all! Let's get into it!

⫻⫽---------⫎⩎⫍---------⫻⫽

First of all, I have to mention how beautiful Jaemin and Hendery's opening scene was like... it deserves a few HQ GIFs right now.

Now, more members have whistles and it looks like when Hendery blows his whistle first, Jaemin appears. This is making me think that the whistles cause them to enter and leave different dreams. I'm not sure why, but when Jaemin whistled last, the pitch was different and it just poofed him away???

Then he wakes up on his bed wondering why the whistle isn't around his neck. Hendery knocks at the door and returns it to him. Why Hendery had to make his expressions like that? It gave me anxiety! 🤣😳

Anyways, right after Jaemin gets his whistle back, suddenly you hear another whistle and I bet it's Hendery. When Jaemin opens the door to see where it's coming from, he's suddenly on a train. I really think my theory about the whistles is true because of this scene.

When it transitions to Johnny, you can see Jaemin's dream swirl in his eyes. Then, you get a full view of where he is and he's on a train. To me, it looks like the train is in a similar setting to the one Jaemin was on. Hendery, Jaemin, and Johnny's dreams are synchronized at this moment.

(Gotta drop some GIFs for Johhny too cuz, 😙🤏. Beautiful.)

He's texting someone but we don't get a clear view of who. He's typed, "Is everything alright?" which makes me think that something might be going wrong, or at least Johnny gets that feeling. Then he picks up a book. "A Dream within A Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe. We already know that's a recurring element to NCT's lore.

💡Quick point about "A Dream Within A Dream" 💡

I'm not gonna paste the whole poem but you can read it ➡here⬅ if you haven't already. But the speaker views this inability to tell dreams from reality as distressing which kinda matches the energy of all the scenes. All of the members were on edge when they transition between the stages of dreams. Also, it makes sense in the fact that their dreams look like reality at first then they start to get more animated. In the poem, there is "reality", dream, then a dream within a dream which is mistakenly perceived as reality. All of these are part of the dream states we know in NCT's lore.

While he's looking at the book, Johnny hears that whistle sound. This scene confused me about who's whistling but either way, it's still sending the Neos into different parts of their dreams. After, looking out the window to see what's going on, he sees that it's storming outside so he puts on his headphones and listens to the Past to Present: Interlude. 

That song choice really is great because Johnny's setting is more retro and Shotaro's is more modern.

After that, you see him swirling into the dream, and then it transitions to Shotaro. He's dancing to that same song. He sees that same dream swirl in the mirror after dancing. Then it transitions straight to Sungchan looking in a mirror. I don't know about y'all, but that's weird to me. All the previous members transitioned after the whistle sound. This is the only transition where you don't hear it at all from Shotaro to Sungchan... except in the end. A little off don't you think?

MY THEORY

The dreams of all the members in this YearDream are synchronized. Blowing the whistle or hearing the whistle transports them to different dreams within their synchronized dreams. 

Something is going wrong in these dreams because Johnny texted one of them asking if they were alright. The question is, what exactly went wrong?

Now, to read and talk about a couple of theories...

OTHER NCTZEN THEORIES

 Trisy003 

"stage 1 : reality

stage 2 : dream

stage 3 : synchronization of dreams

stage 4 : dream in a dream

stage 5 : back to the reality

this is what I got from NCTmentary. All of it connect to each other."

(see original comment)

I agree that each YearDream episode is corresponding to stages of dreams which were described in NCTmentary. Makes perfect sense. Especially since each episode has the members experiencing the stage that is in the title. This also makes me think that if we rewatch all the YearDream episodes in the order of the stages, we'll get a new perspective.

 Nyla Imam 

"Okay so dialing back to nctmentary era, I think ten starts off the resonating trend where their dreams start synchronising and they have to regain self-awareness to break from it. Johnny's an experimenter (already introduced in nctmentary) and this in an imp detail to remember for today's vid. The kid that started (or the first subject for the dream experiments, the origin you could say) is Taeyong. Note about Taeyong: he doesn't use the whistle compared to the others. There's ppl on twt who explain but as the origin or just in general, Taeyong is forever stuck, or is stuck here since he was a child."

"Ten began gaining self awareness, owning to his station dream in a dream too, and the fact in both take off and TBT he's the odd one out (named stranger in take off, only one out/not locked in a cell WITH THE PASS CARD in TBT) so he first starts with breaking out wayv. Wayv then start gaining self awareness too, and start to attempt helping other members. The whistle is the first symbol/sign, the music RESONATES with the person, and they can communicate with others hence synchronising their dreams together. The fact that Jaemin met hendery who later came to give him the whistle when he woke up adds to it. How? First hendery synchronises their dreams with the help of the music, now gaining contact with jaemin. Then Jaemin thinks it's a normal dream after waking up, but after receiving the whistle when he opens the door he finds himself in a train, which just doesn't make sense (realising that he's in a dream/not reality)." 

"We move on to Sungchan who stares out strangely after finding the whistle, having already blown it back in the first vid. Again, he's started gaining self awareness too. Shoraro is slightly confusing, since it takes us to MAW era (the whole vid screams dreamlike trippyness) . But we can assume that since he was dancing to music, and with the way he stares at the glitch in the mirror, he's started to realise too."

"The dream experiment is breaking now, since the members are one by one becoming self aware. Which is why we find Johnny texting a "Is everything alright?" supposedly to the other experimenters, as he's travelling through, what we can ASSUME, is either the dreamworld to figure out their dreams, or somewhere relating to the SMCU that's affected by ncts experiment."

(see original comment)

I do think we have to pay attention to Ten more because it looks like he is more aware than some of the other Neos. Nyla also makes a great point about how the whistles help them resonate with each other which synchronizes their dreams. I agree that they are gaining more awareness. They might even end up getting back to reality when the final YearDream episode releases. 

⫻⫽---------⫎⩎⫍---------⫻⫽

Anyways, what are your thought on this YearDream video? Do you agree with the theories?

Let me know in the comments!

Follow my SNS accounts to interact with me and stay up to date with my blog posts! 

Check my schedule to see when future blog posts are published and

support me on Ko-fi as well! I truly appreciate it!