Lucid review: tumbling through an old lady’s imagination

In the 16 minute narrative-driven experience Lucid, we journey through the deep recesses of an old lady’s subconscious as her daughter pursues an Inception-like mission—but in reverse. Rather than wishing the subject to stay asleep, as the secret-pilfering espionage agents did in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, here the trek through the far outreaches of a person’s mind is an attempt to rouse them from a coma. Not to steal something but to save something: the woman’s life. Director Pete Short renders areas of the mother’s psyche as vividly surreal spaces to move through: a kind of theme park of the mind, presented in glossy animated aesthetic.

Lucid begins underwater, in a pretty aqua environment, before moving to a hospital room where an elderly woman lies listlessly on an operating table. This is Eleanor (voice of Nicky Goldie), a children’s book author on death’s door. Her daughter Astra (Jaleh Alp) uses presumably cutting edge technology (the story is based in an unspecified future) to shoot herself into the realms of her mum’s mind, pursuing the aforementioned mission. 

Each world she visits—including an ice-covered planet and a giant tree house—belong to Eleanor’s literary creations, Eleanor herself appearing in the form of one of her mother’s characters. It’s a sweet way to merge personal imaginative creations with familial connection, in environments that feel like fantastical reconceptualisations of memory palaces. 

Lucid is a 6DoF experience, allowing a limited ability to physically move through virtual space. In the aforementioned hospital scene, we can get closer to Eleanor’s body or keep our distance. There’s a reward for doing the former: if we poke our head through Eleanor’s—as in, physically move it through the exterior of her skull—we discover a lovely tiny scene rendered inside her brain, depicting a lighthouse on top of a grassy hill. The lighthouse becomes a lovely visual motif, appealing in subsequent sequences including a pivotal recreation of the car crash that comatosed Eleanor.

This crash feels sort of real and sort of not, as if conjured in the shadowlands between wakefulness and sleep. We’re situated in the back of the vehicle. Like in the wonderful Oscar-nominated VR short Pearl, which is based entirely inside a car—using the space to reflect on the passing of time and the relationship between a father and daughter—this vehicle becomes both stage and auditorium, providing a clear vantage point to observe the drama. 

In early sequences in Lucid we’re positioned in a small spaceship with no rear window, creating, in effect, empty space—communicating that there’s no point in turning our head to observe that portion of the tableau. Short wisely arranges environmental space in ways that reduce the likelihood of key information being lost or not absorbed. These environments are also strikingly surreal; we leave the experience feeling like we’ve tumbled through the detritus of an old lady’s imagination.