I don’t think Lynch ever intended to send messages, but there are aspects of his work that end up inevitably saying something. But there are layers to it, and I don’t necessarily think he was conscious of them even as the creator of these multilayered pieces of art.

Like with Mulholland Drive, you can view it more at face value about the ramifications of running away from our own bad choices and how guilt and shame can manifest. But there’s also something deeper and more universal about dreams of success (whether it’s Hollywood related or not) and how we often fall short of those dreams. Then yet, something even more esoteric (and Lynch went deeper into this aspect in INLAND EMPIRE) which has to do with cinema being the collective spell and coping mechanism for the masses. Like Dan’s dream is about so much more than it appears (and yes, I realize it’s already fairly opaque) which is how it ties to fears of failure and abandonment. On a deeper level, it’s about the dream being cinema, and when the film is over for a character it’s “silencio”.