A passage from Bram Stoker’s Dracula where John Seward, a psychiatrist, describes a fit of omnipotence by one of his patients, Renfield:
I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destiny, subjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth, he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals.
In John Thorne’s understanding of Twin Peaks, some parts of the show’s final season depict the wish-fulfilment fantasies of FBI agent Dale Cooper. His near-omnipotence and extravaganza are a mirage—they are part of a dream concocted by his mind to ease the pain of his failures. A beautiful bit from Ominous Whoosh:
Throughout the Return, we see Dale Cooper struggling with the past, attempting to make peace with memory. Late in the story Cooper confidently states, "The past dictates the future," and then sets forth to change history. Cooper wishes life had gone differently, that he could have prevented the suffering of others, and so he convinces himself he can go back in time and change things. This hubris is Cooper's biggest failing—he refuses to accept that the past cannot be changed, that it is fixed and unalterable.
What Cooper doesn't understand is that while we can't change the past, we have a choice in how we interpret it. We decide how we let the past inform our present, that, in turn, gives us power over our future. If we are lost in the past—pining for it, regretting it—then we become stagnant, incapable of fully embracing our lives as they are now. Our memories become traps holding us back from true joy. Only when we deny the past its hold upon us, when we liberate ourselves from nostalgia and regret and become fully engaged with the present, can we see the world for what it is—and is not.
And:
He’s a fraught soul, living in the past, wishing he could repair some long-ago damage. But he’s on a fool’s errand, and the chirruping sounds remind him of his folly.