What effect does dream sequence have on a traditional plot structure?

How to Create the Perfect Dream Sequence, According to a Hollywood Film Editor

By Adam Bulger • April 21, 2016 at 2:08pm

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At first, it seems normal. A man sits in his car, stuck in traffic. The faces of people stuck in cars around freeze, but it only lasts a blink — not long enough to make us think something is different. Slowly, however the man’s car fills with smoke. Fellow motorists watch passively. The sounds he makes struggling for breath breaks what has been up till now an impossible silence. He climbs up, out of the car’s sunroof, then climbs higher and higher until he’s flying. He soars far from the cars and stony faces until elderly officials on horseback tug a rope tied to his leg, pulling him back down to earth.

The gorgeous dream sequence that opens “8 ½” reveals its unreality in gradual drips, through careful editing. The scene from the 1963 Federico Fellini film fuses sound sparingly over a series of shots where the camera moves horizontally. It’s easy to miss the signs that what we’re watching isn’t real, like the