Thread by @gisaeris

nct theory: the dreams are breaking, a thread 🏃🏼

in this theory I’ll break down #NCTDREAM Boom MV, explaining what the symbolism seems to mean to me and how it fits within NCT’s Universe.

the basic concept of this theory is: the Dream Lab was created to stimulate NCT to grow greedy for power, testing the limits of how much they can control their dreams and then ultimately find out how to modify reality however they want through the dream in a dream state.

we find out in this MV that everything comes at a price, and abusing the power of dream-controlling can have consequences. The dream will start to get glitchy until it finally breaks. They must escape before this happens or they might get stuck in there forever.

we’ve been seeing signals of glitches and the dreams breaking ever since the end of Empathy era with Wakey-Wakey. They were continuously present in nearly every release after that. Objects flying around, flashes, errors, broken things. What is happening? Boom MV explains it to us

It starts out with Jaemin outside looking up at the sky as a storm approaches fast. He is very worried. They know their time is almost up, they have to wake up fast or they will be hit by the storm and will witness the dream breaking.

They need to leave it behind, but at the same time as they are attached to it and to each other, they want to soar higher.

The MV and lyrics and whole concept are full of references to becoming stronger than ever, being limitless, rising as gods.

the painting behind Jaemin is called The Apotheosis of Hercules and shows him ascending as a god after death, the statue is Perseus with Medusa’s head, which represents facing your fears and slaying your demons, overcoming obstacles and successfully completing impossible tasks

why do they feel so powerful? because they realized they can control the setting of their dream however they want, and they’ve been abusing this power.

now, I think the whole point of the Dream Lab was to induce them to be greedy and end up wanting to dive deeper and deeper into the dream, ultimately figuring out how to change it in the state of Dream In A Dream, where it can affect reality.

If you can control the dream, and the dream can modify reality, then you can modify reality to your heart’s content. The greediness is showed to us symbolically as the recurring image of the red car especially, and luxuries in general. But, obviously, it’s not as easy as it seems

there’s a limit to what and how much they can control in the dream, at least as far as they know for now. They can’t control natural phenomena, for example. Which is why the storm is a threat, and why they use the House (yes, capital H, I’ll explain later) as a refuge.

we see many different box sets: the completely black boxes where Jeno is boxing and Jisung is fencing, as well as Jaemin walking down the runway. Later on, we see them all together at an artificial garden, laughing and being happy in a white box that simulated a garden.

now, why didn’t they go play in the actual garden instead? why are they not outside? because all of this is happening inside the house, they’re just projecting it to look like they want to because it’s too dangerous outside.

at one point you can even see the black box cut to just Jisung fencing inside the house, showing us that the black box is nothing but a modification of that room by his imagination, he’s actually inside.

the artificial garden scene is VERY important, as it shows us that they’re in an illusion. They are truly happy together, yes, but for how long can they hide from the outside world in this illusion of safety they created for themselves?

they know the storm will catch up to them sometime. This happiness is not permanent and they must wake up. They must run.

near the end of the MV, they are outside again, not short after the previous scene outside happened, but the storm is completely gone, the sky is clear. They seem very confused by how it could change completely that fast

to add to it the rose is also not burning anymore, this shows us how the dream is unstable, oscillating between normal and calm/glitchy and dangerous. These moments where it seems like the dream is fixed give them hope, make them forget the danger that might come back any time.

now, to explain what exactly I think this storm represents, I’ll have to talk a little about my theory about the NCT Universe as a whole. First off, the House is the same through all Dream MVs and the NCTmentaries.

It’s a House that can only be accessed through dreams and it’s a portal to different layers of reality. It’s also the same house from WayV’s Dream Launch. Dream are the first to arrive at the House and they stay there for a long time.

the House doesn’t look the same in every instance it appears, but it looks similar enough up until Boom. Then, it becomes a full-on luxury mansion. Why? Because the Dreamies controlled it to look like that.

through the whole MV they are dressed in fancy suits, and we can once more see the red car. They are greedy now, they want to dive deeper and find out how to make the dream become reality.

second part of the theory: internal conflict

this one is pretty clear in general, symbolized by the multiple versions of the members. Now, each of them is a different case and I’ll try to explain the ones that seemed clearer to me.

first, the very special case: Haechan. Haechan has exactly two versions of himself showing up through the MV, and they’re mostly always together, mirroring each other. They’re also seen playing chess against each other.

If you look closely at the shot where you can see them sitting face to face, when they turn to the camera, through the lighting, the different expressions and the color of the chess pieces you will notice something: there’s an evil Haechan and a good Haechan.

evil Haechan represents his greediness, and good Haechan represents his sense of self-preservation and his friendship with the members, the things holding him back from going further into the dream, risking everything.

Near the end, there’s a shot where Haechan falls asleep, and then when he wakes up, he has a perverse expression on his face. This shows us that evil Haechan won.

Next, there’s Jeno. He has six versions of himself, while one is asleep. Each of them represents one era of NCT DREAM, each a different dream of Jeno, and also one to represent his friendship with each member other than himself.

The version that is asleep is Boom era Jeno, as the dream still goes on. Jeno is shown seeing the puppy, which is representative of his protectiveness over the members. You can see he’s about to leave the puppy behind but ends up going back and crouching down next to it.

He, much like Haechan, is torn. He knows he needs to leave, but he doesn’t want to leave anyone behind. He wants to stay in the dream and be happy with the members, but he also wants to go.

Before talking about Jisung, I’ll talk about Chenle. He doesn’t have multiple versions of himself. That’s because he has made up his mind. How do we know that? The flaming rose he holds.

It represents both eternal youth, as the rose does not wither as it burns, and his anger and frustration towards the members that are leaving them.

He has no doubt that he wants to stay with them in the dream, even if they have to face the storm, they will face it together. He doesn’t want to wake up. He doesn’t understand why the other members don’t think the same way.

I think he ultimately understands them and makes terms with it, as we see them all together towards the end and the rose is not aflame anymore.

Jisung. He is fencing, as seems very surprised when he realizes he’s been fencing against himself this whole time. Why? He didn’t realize he was worrying about it.

He made his mind to stay with Chenle, but he worries that maybe they can’t do it alone, and maybe they should just go with the others. Jisung is scared, he’s fighting against own his fear, for himself and the fate the other members will face.

Jaemin and Renjun. Neither of them has multiple versions of themselves. My theory? I think Jaemin has also made up his mind from the beginning, except it’s to leave.

He’s clearly the most sensitive to the changes in the dream, as we can always see objects flying around him out of his control. He knows he can’t stay, he can feel the danger the most, and he wants out.

Renjun was the most difficult to understand. He just seems… not aware. Or indifferent.

You can clearly see the difference between two particularly similar scenes between him and Jeno. A scene with mirrors.

Jeno is looking through a mirror, and we can see him look through the mirror through a different mirror (inception). But, as we see him, he looks directly at the mirror we (the camera) are looking at. He’s aware of it.

During Renjun’s similar scene, he’s painting and we see him through a mirror as well, but he doesn’t notice the mirror or that he’s being observed, he just keeps on painting. Another instance where he doesn’t seem aware is when he’s shown throwing confetti with Jisung.

So, Boom shows us all their individual stances and how they leave or stay in the dream (paralleling the members that are graduating Dream). Now, backtracking to the NCTmentaries so I can tell you how I think the story goes.

We know that the house they’re staying at will eventually catch on fire, as shown in the NCTmentaries. Now, maybe the fire started by a thunderstorm. The storm that is approaching.

Will Jisung and Chenle escape in time? In my theory, NCT 127’s timeline happens after Dream’s stay in the house is already over, as they debut by putting off the fire and restoring and protecting the house with Firetruck.

WayV’s timeline should come after 127’s, but I'm not too sure on that. The scene that's ambiguous to me is during Dream Launch when the candy falls from the wardrobe. Was it actually inside the wardrobe indicating Dream's presence there in the past?

or was it showing us that Dream and WayV actually are in the same house at the same time, except in different dimensions and the wardrobe is a portal through them?

t this point, I could say all three of them are standing at similar points, as we see that Boom, Superhuman and Take Off are all about breaking limits and the greediness of always becoming more powerful. The only thing that bugs me is the lack of glitches in Take Off MV.

Is WayV still not at the point that their dream is close to breaking? Did they find a solution to avoid the glitches? I’m not sure yet, we’ll have to wait and see.

One thing is certain, WayV seems to live in a way more techy-heavy timeframe, maybe they have better conditions of succeeding in modifying reality through dreams since they seem pretty aware and planning things ahead through studying science and using technology.

Other interesting things to note:

Wakey-Wakey MV: the first occurrence of flying objects, coupled with a lot of obvious dream-controlling.

You can see in the very first scenes through the individually personalized rooms for each member, and then Jungwoo transitioning as he changes the setting of the dream as he wishes.

The cars are also present, representing the greediness, and Haechan is asleep while everyone else is awake. They go over to wake him up, and then it ends.

Regular-Irregular MV: crazy luxury, the tiger, the cars again, the black box with Taeyong and Mark. Very representative of dream-controlling.

Simon Says MV: this is a really interesting one. They know they’re being controlled to do certain things. They are induced to be greedy and try to modify reality no matter the risks. But they’re breaking the rules and doing it their own way.

The red car is present again, together in a very representative room with all the things that they are supposed to strive for. The huge painting of the car is a symbol for that. You can also see a room with broken TVs.

We Go Up MV: flying objects near Jaemin, first signs of Dream’s dream glitching.

Superhuman MV: just madness. Lots of glitches, and yet they want to become even more powerful, control the dream even more.

Members are seen floating, motorbikes are floating through a portal. It seems like they’ve broken the barriers between different layers of reality, and they’re opening a portal to different ones. The motorbikes seem to come from WayV’s dream.

I’m not sure if the fact that they got together for Empathy set a trigger for anything, but things started breaking right after that. It is possible that meeting with different versions of themselves and the different timelines aligning was the cause of the trouble.

that's it! I'll list some theories that I used as base for some of this theory!

https://twitter.com/nct_ask/status/969508719984721920

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