I’ve watched twin peaks twice and I am starting to develop a few theories on what is happening.
But they are very vague ideas that I don’t know how to put into words. That is the writing exercise.
If you took the time there are many things you think you understand until you have to explain those things to another person.
Even your own feelings on a subject matter you might think you know until someone gives you their genuine and focused attention and you are meant to get specific.
This is what writing is meant for. To entangle the globs of vague overall understanding and find the very specific details to such a degree that something can be explained in depth to another human being.
Writing will find the holes in our own understanding of our own understanding.
We may think a matter has been understood and it is closed and we need learn nothing more until we try to write about it and realize how much was assumed by our ego and is entirely imaginary and how little we know about what is really going on.
Writing investigates knowledge and finds all our bullshit.
I left off on episode four. The problem is I can’t find the notebook that contains all the notes from rewatching this episode.
So I’m instead going to take a little pause from the play by play and give a general overview of my twin peak theories so far.
To explain my theories I first must state the questions I had about twin peaks that were left unanswered.
There are several hundred of them half of which I won’t be able to remember without my notes.
But the big main questions are of course what is twin peaks really about? Is it a science fiction? Or is it simply a fiction about a fractured mind? Are all the characters in twin peaks real? Or are a lot of them simply tulpas of each other?
And what happened at the end of twin peaks? What was the conclusion?
More than that even, what was the conclusion even concluding?
Then there are the more specific questions. What are those little ugly slimy creatures that crawl into people’s mouths?
What was up with the dirty gas station bearded men that go around asking people to light their cigarettes before they crush their skulls in?
What was that creature that shredded those people that were just trying to have sex?
Who and what the fuck is Judy?
And what the hell happened to Audrey?
Before I get into this I will state that twin peaks is the first David Lynch work I’ve seen so I don’t know much about him or how he works.
I have a few guesses though.
And I would guess that David Lynch doesn’t have one answer to all questions but there are correct answers and incorrect answers.
Without my notes I’m doing this on random thoughts and memories. So I might jump around a bit
As far as I could see, Lynch and Frost use three different ways to communicate.
The number one way is through Tibetan Buddhism symbolism.
The owls being ‘not what they seem’ is a consistent sentence spoken throughout the entire first series and in Tibetan Buddhism they represent a coming misfortune.
In the later series when the good Cooper is falling through space (right before he becomes Dougie) there is a scene of Laura’s mom watching lions kill and eat a water buffalo on the television.
The water buffalo symbolizes wisdom. Or more specifically wisdom concurring the ego and negative emotions being transformed into enlightenment. And yet in the scene Laura’s mom is watching them being killed and eating and this is happening as we watch good Cooper falling through space.
Then there is Bob. Extremely evil, vile and creepy Bob that’s always floating around in people making them evil. towards the end of the series he’s in a little black floating ball that zooms around when it’s not lodged inside someone.
Why? I had no idea.
But after seeing the many, many references to comets I decided Bob is a comet.
And what do comets symbolism in Tibetan Buddhism? The coming of a terrible, world altering upheaval. Something so horrible happening that it changes the landscape.
The tulpas are also of Tibetan Buddhism.
They are a sort of imagery friend in your mind that develops its own independent thoughts.
The Tibetan version of multiple personalities I suppose. They are constructed in meditation and used for meditation purposes.
The second way Lynch and Frost communicate are with basic human intuition.
What originally seems just quirky or silly in the characters eventually turns out to be what is wrong with them.
Their quirks are not random or purely for entertainment.
Many things are very obvious simply by noticing the characters feelings.
Leland is the prime example. He seems off instantly, his grief seems exaggerated and just not quite normal but it is explained by the campiness of show. But really it is obvious from day one that Leland killed his daughter.
At one point one armed Mike tells Cooper not to listen with his head but to feel.
A lot of the scenes in the series use emotion to explain rather than logic.
And the last way I can see communication is through the rewatching of the series.
It was designed to be watched more than once for sure. Which I deeply appreciate.
Now to my basic formed theories that are not yet complete.
I think all the characters tell one story of something tragic happening. And that tragedy creating a terrible upheaval that creates an evil in a person. The worst version of a person and through Cooper we’re watching them find enlightenment.
I think that is one layer of the story.
I think it has multiple layers and is still a science fiction.
And there are answers to all those specific questions.
I do plan to figure out or at least write down a theory on who the hell Judy is.
But on Audrey I have an answer to what the hell happened to her.
It seems obvious to me now that Audrey was a tulpa. Or is the real version locked up in a tulpa. But the question is who’s tulpa?
There are multiple occasions where we seem women getting really drugged up and being terrible mothers to young boys.
Audrey has a young and very troubled son named Richard.
So unfortunately I don’t think Audrey’s real fate was a good one. And it goes something like becoming an abusive and neglectful drug addict.
That is just one of my theories though in these early stages.
I have to end this here because I’m out of time for the day.
