3 Women (1977)

leading from

 Dreams That Become Films

Shelley Duvall, Cissy Spacek and Robert Altman

a) Problem solving with the subconsious
When Robert Altman made the 1970 movie M*A*S*H, he got to a stage where he would consciously go to sleep with a problem and say "OK, the answer is somewhere in the information that is in my head; it's just a matter of getting it out - and it will occur to me"" Rarely did he had a specific dream that would answer a question, but sometimes in the next day or week, the answer would disclose itself, because as he understood, that it was there trapped in his head

b) A State of desperation
At the time, Robert had lost a project, a broad comedy that he was working on called Easy And Hard Ways Out, with Peter Falk and Sterling Hayden, and he wanted to set it at the time of Six Day War, but the Geffen Company told him that he couldn't so he passed on it

He took his wife to the emergency hospital at four in the morning and it seemed very serious at the time and then it turned out to be fine in the end. But he came home from seeing his wife while she was there during the first or second day she was in and he was very anxious and knew that he had to get a film

He returned to his house along the Malibu beach at the time and went to bed feeling quite desperate
His son Matthew was sleeping in the bed with him, and so there was sand coming out of his ears into the bed

c) The Dream
Robert had a dream, and in the dream, he experienced the title of 3 Women, he knew that  the two actresses Shelly Duval and Sissy Spacek were in the film, both people that he knew, that it was about personality theft. He would say to himself "This is really great" and he would wake up, get up and take the yellow pad from the side of his bed to make notes and he would write down all of the details.

He would call his two production people Bob Eggenweiler and Tommy Thompson into his bedroom and they would come and he would say to them "We want to shoot this thing in the desert, so why don't you guys go down and look for a location like this?" He would describe the set to them, with the sand and the desert heat, and send them off the check out Palm Springs.

And then he would go back to sleep and into the dream work and then come out of that state and write down notes, and finally when morning come, he would realise that all the notes he took and the visits from Bob Eggenweiler and Tommy Thompson were all part of the dream. And so he took no notes at all and there was no note pad at the side of the bed

d) Return to the waking world

He realised that he was having dreams within dreams and so was terribly depressed because he thought "Oh God, that would be such a good movie and I don't know what it's about. "

His son Matthew would already be up and out of bed, and in the ocean where he spent all of his time, and the bed would be full of sand and perhaps this sand led to the idea of the desert.

He called Scotty Bushnell who worked with him and said "Listen, I read this short story last night, and I thought it was pretty good. It's called 3 Women, and it's about this woman, living in Palm Springs or someplace like that, who advertises for a roommate, and a girl moves in. It's all about personality theft. These are perfect parts for Sissey Spacek and Shelley Duvall.  How does this sound to you? "

And he told the story in a vamped up fashion and then she asked "Can you get the rights to it?"

He replied, "You bet."

e) Making the deal and the film

He only dreamt the exterior of the story but not its content, So he had no story at that point, but just an ambiance , an atmosphere and knew there would be identity theft or personality theft. And then he just sat down and wrote it as a thirty page outline, Patricia Resnick did a treatment, but he was essentially the author. Then he went out to Fox with it, told Alan Ladd Jr about it , walked out with a deal within nine days of the dream and was on his way to Palm Springs. He knew every scene that was going to take place, but those scenes weren't written until the day he shot them.

f) The painting that was the genesis
That's how 3 Women was born, although years before, around 1959, when he was painting a lot, he painted a picture called three women, it just showed their faces. Each one was skinny necked and ethnically each one was different. However he lost the painting because he gave it to a friend, and when the friend died, his estate said it was listed as being worth $600 and they were willing to sell it to him for that, but his response was 'It isn't work $600, I can tell you that.'  But that painting was probably the genesis of 3 Women and it seemed that it led to all of this stuff that spewed itself out had been in his head all this time.

Source quotes

1. Robert Altman: I dreamed it. I dreamed of the desert, and these three women, and I remember every once in a while I'd dream that I was waking up and sending out people to scout locations and cast the thing. And when I woke up in the morning, it was like I'd done the picture. What's more, I liked it. So, what the hell, I decided to do it. (http://www.rogerebert.com)
2. Rober Altman: Well, 3 Women was a dream, literally. I didn't dream the movie, but I dreamed  was making it. It was during the time I was going to make Easy and Hard Ways out, with Peter Falk. (Robert Altman: Interviews)
3. Robert Altman: I went to bed. My wife was in hospital - an emergency operation. My son, Matthew, came and got into bed with me, and I had this dream. I dreamed the title for 3 Women. I dreamed all the people: Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. I dreamed that it was a film about personality theft, and I would wake up in the middle of the night, and I'd take a pad from the side of my bed and I'd write down this thing. Then Bob Eggenweiler and Tommy Thompson would come into my bedroom, and I'd say, " We want to shoot this thing in the desert, so why don't you guys go down and look for a location like this?" Then I would got back to sleep, and I would come back up and write down the notes, and then finally in the morning I woke up. Of course, i didn't write anything in the middle of the night. There's no note pad at my bed. But my bed was full of sand from Matthew sleeping in the bed because it came out of his ears. And I dreamed that I was just making this film, and I got up and I became very depressed. So I called Scotty Bushnell, who worked with me, still. I said, "Listen, I read this short story last night, and I thought it was pretty good. How does this sound to you? " And I kind of vamped this thing. They said, "Can you get the rights to it?" And I said, "You bet." And I really developed it. Nine days later we had a deal, and we were on our way to Palm Springs. That's how 3 Women was born. (Robert Altman: Interviews)  
4. Robert Altman: About the time I was making MASH, I got to a stage where I would consciously go to sleep with a problem and say, "OK, the answer is somewhere in the information that is in my head; it's just a matter of getting it out - and it will occur to me" Rarely dd I have a specific dream that would answer a question, but sometimes in  the next day or week, that answer would disclose itself, because it was there, - trapped in my head
5. Robert Altman: I did dream the exterior of 3 Women, though not its content. I was living in another house down the beach in those days, and my wife got very sick - I was worried she would not survive. Also, I was not in desperate financial shape at that time, as I find I usually am. I'd just lot project, a broad comedy I was working on called Easy And Hard Ways Out, with Peter Falk and Sterling Hayden - I wanted to set it at the time of the Six Day War, but Geffen Company told me I couldn't do it, so I passed on it.  I came home from seeing my wife in hospital the first or second day she was in, and I was really anxious. I knew I had to get a film. I went to bed and my youngest son, Matthew, came and slept there. I had this dream that I was making a film called 3 Women. I said to myself, "This is really great." I'd get up and take the yellow bad next to my bed and I'd write down something, then go back to sleep.  Then I dream the 3 Women cast  Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall, though Janice Rule wasn't in that dream — and would wake up again and make some more notes, and go back to sleep. At one point I called Tommy Thompson and Bob Eggenweiler, who was my location guy, into the bedroom, and said " Now, we go look for locations for this film in the desert," and I described the set - sand and desert heat. Of course, I woke up in the morning, and Matthew was already up and out of bed and in the ocean, where he spent all of his time, - and the bed was full of sand. There was no yellow pad next to my bed. So I was having dreams within dreams. I got terribly depressed because I thought, "Oh God, that would be such a good movie and I don't know what it's about." But I went down and fixed some breakfast, and called Scottie Bushnell, who has worked very closely with me for years. I said to her, "Listen, I read a short story last night that's pretty interesting, " and I vamped on the telephone. I said "I't called 3 Women, and it's about this woman, living in Palm Springs or someplace like that, who advertises for a roommate, and a girl moves in. It's all about personality theft. These are perfect parts for Sissey Spacek and Shelley Duvall." Scottie said, "Gee, can you get the rights to this story?" And I said, "Oh, yeah." That's how 3 women started, thought years before, around 1959, when i was painting a lot, I had painted a picture called 3 Women. All this stuff that spewed itself out had been inside my head, of couse, all this time. So I didn't dream the story or the plot. I dreamed the results of it  (Robert Altman: Interviews)
6. Interviewer: You've always said 3 Women was a film you dreamed before you made it.
   Altman: It's true I dreamed it up, but it was not the content of the film of the film or any emotion in it, just that it was about personality theft. I had a film cancelled on my at Warner Brothers. I needed to make a film badly, and then my wife Kathryn got very sick. We took her to the emergency hospital at four in the morning, and it seemed very serious at the time, though it turned out to be fine in the end. But I returned to my house on the beach in Malibu and went to bed feeling kind of desperate, and I dreamed I was making this film. I dreamed the title, the location, and that there were three women, and I knew two of the cast, Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek. Part of the dream was that I kept waking up and writing these things down on a notepad. And then i told two of my production people, Tommy Thompson and Bob Eggenweiler, to check out Palm Springs. When i really woke up, there was sand in the bed, because of my son Michael, who was eleven then, had joined me, and he was spending all his time on the beach. So that's probably where the desert location came from.
   
   I had done a painting in the late 1950s or early 1960s and it showed three woman, just their faces. Each one was skinny necked and ethnically each one was different. I lost that painting because I gave it to a friend, and when he died his estate said it was listed as being worth $600. They were willing to sell it to me for that, but I said, 'It isn't work $600, I can tell you that.' But that painting was probably the genesis of 3 Women.
   The next morning I called my associate Scott Bushnell and I said I had a terrific idea for a film: I'd read this short story - which was a lie- and briefly outlined what it was. She thought it would be great for Fox. So I went out to Fox, told Alan Ladd Jr about it and walked out with a deal. I had no story at that point, just an ambiance and an atmosphere. I knew it would be about identity theft, or personality theft, so I just sat down and wrote it. Patricia Resnick did a treatment, but I was essentially the author. I started with a thirty-page outline. I knew every scene that was going to take place, but those scenes weren't written until the day we shot them (Altman on Altman. p104)

Tram crash reveals clues to an inner world

leading from

Dream Like Confusion Wmm

http://www.nydailynews.com/

Another photo identifying the inner geography of Wmmvrrvrrmm's mind. They really needed to have tram rail that went through the corner shop and so this would be a normal sight as the thing emerged from and disappeared into the shop and running through the building itself. Perhaps the shop front with window opens up as a door and closes behind it as the train disappears inside Brief thoughts of perhaps the windows of this tram being filled with the shop's display items but not for long. There are many possibilities being identified at this moment in time. All connecting with such things as the train through narrow Vietnam streets and market in Bangkok.

See also One of the most important events in the world. Humanity can learn from it  
and Hanoi city street railway lines in city streets 

Hanoi city street railway lines in Vietnam.

leading from

Dream Like Confusion Wmm

1. See Daily Mail article: Now that's what you call door-to-door service: Railway line runs through streets so narrow the train squeezes past shop fronts and traders
2. See Telegraph article: Train travels through narrow gap between houses in Vietnam

 

It Follows: part 1: The initial dream

leading from

Dreams That Become Films
and
It Follows: Part 2: The film as a dream
 

 

a) The main nightmare

The seed of the story for It Follows came from a reoccurring nightmare when he was nine or ten years old, David Robert Mitchel was at recess, sitting or playing with his friends outside school, and he looked across a parking lot and saw another child walking towards him from far away and knew that there was something wrong. In a way he knew it was some sort of a monster coming to kill him but it looked like different people, such as loved ones. He pointed it out to the other children he was with but no one knew what he was talking about and basically wouldn't react, it was as if he was the only one who could see it. 

Although it was very slow and he could always get away from it, he had a terrible feeling of dread and anxiety knowing that there was this thing coming towards him. It got closer and closer and eventually he ran away, running about a block from the school and then stood and waited, but then he looked down the block and saw that the child was turning around the corner, still walking walking towards him slowly, coming for him. 

In another instance, it would follow him into the house, he could be sitting with his family at dinner and it would through the front door and just walk into the room coming towards him, it would look like someone else, in one instance a man and he immediately know it was this thing coming for him, no one else in the room would react as if they saw it and so he had to run. Perhaps he would climb out of the window and it would do the same. And off he would go down the alleyway. He would only have a short time to rest before it always would come and kick him. If he was on the street and it was walking up to him, he could keep stepping backwards and keep his distance from it.  He could get away as long as he was aware in the dream

b) Talking to others

He talked with other people who've had similar nightmare and apparently it's an anxiety dream. He stopped having them when he was a child but he always remembered it. And he followed the idea of making a horror movie based on that with all those thoughts and feelings. At the time the nightmare would scare the hell out of him but the positive thing is that at that time, he was already aware of the potential of that dream in terms of storytelling, and so it eventually went away as he grew up. One possible contributing factor to it was the fact that his parents were going through a divorce at the time time.

c) Giving up dreams

However David Robert Mitchel left the experience of having dreams and nightmares behind a long time ago. He used to have a lot of these experiences as a child and he remembered hating it and was willing them away from his memory. That was not to say he didn't have good dreams, but he hated the bad ones so much. He would go to bed telling himself over and over again to nor remember them then he could forget them. And as an adult he can go to sleep and wake up the next day not remembering a single thing.

Dream-like (perhaps Tarkovskyesque) shot from It Follows (stitched together on Photoshop)

d) Why these dreams ?

He remembered feeling that the monster was like a zombie or a vampire but was actually something else. He always loved horror movies and he was definitely watching them when he was really young with his father who was an avid horror movie fan. He grew up watching a lot of Universal monster movies, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (which he had definitely seen by the time of the nightmares) and Dawn of the Dead so the zombie like nature of the thing might well have had a cause. There was Halloween, Carpenter's The Thing, and Howard Hawkes' Thing, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers along with the 1970 Philip Kaufman remake. Poltergeist scared the hell out of him when he was very young even to the extent that because he had his bed by the window, there was a tree and the branches would scrape against the glass. He was convinced the tree was going to come in and eat him. He definitely haunted by a lot of movies when he was very young but he loved them.

e) See also: It Follows: Part 2: The film as a dream

Source quotes

1. Sarah Meikle: Where did the idea for It Follows come from? Was it connected in any way to your previous feature, The Myth of the American Sleepover?
   David Robert Mitchel: The initial idea is not connected to Myth - it was from a nightmare I had when I was a kid. It was probably an anxiety dream where I was followed by this monster that would always look like different people. It was always very slow, walking towards me, and it could always find me. I could always get away from it but it was a very very disturbing dream and I had it probably up until I was ten or so. I remember images from it to this day, so I've always thought about it. If we were in that nightmare, we'd be sitting here and someone would walk in and start coming towards me and you wouldn't react. So that was the starting point for it; obviously, I added a lot to it later.  With regard to my first film, when I was sitting down to write It Follows, I imagined the calmness and sweetness of the characters in that American Sleepover world of teenage dreams and endless summers, and I imagined characters like them a few years older and if they were thrown into a nightmare. So it is a little influenced by American Sleepover but the initial idea came from my reoccuring nightmare. (The Dark Side, #166, p42)
2. David Robert Mitchel: We wanted to create a balance between a very beautiful and haunting, melodic piece of music, and then at times it’s like a controlled noise – it’s assaulting the audience.When I was writing It Follows I kept thinking about the idea of taking characters similar to the characters that I had written in Myth, and then imagining if they were placed in a nightmare and how they might react. In the dream I sort of knew it was a monster coming to kill me but it looked like different people. In the nightmare I could get away from it very easily but that wasn’t comforting because of the fact it was always coming towards me. I wanted to turn it into a horror film, and I thought it would be really cool if this thing that was following could be something that could be passed between people. (http://www.theskinny.co.uk, 17th February 2015)
3. David Robert Mitchel: I was at recess, sitting with my friends, I looked across the parking lot and I saw this other kid walking towards me from far away. I could see him and I just knew there was something wrong. I remember pointing him out to the kids I was with but nobody knew what I was talking about.”(http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/11/) 
4. Mitchell tried to run away. (http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/11/)
5. David Robert Mitchel: Then I looked down the block and saw that the kid was turning around the corner, still walking toward me slowly.  (http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/11/)
6. This glacial chase continued until Mitchell woke up. (http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/11/)
7. David Robert Mitchel:The basic idea came from a recurring nightmare that I had when I was a kid, where I was followed by a monster that would look like different people. In the dream, I felt like I was the only one seeing it, I would point it out to people and they wouldn’t react. And it was very slow and I could always get away from it. But it was this terrible feeling of dread and anxiety knowing that there was this thing. You know, I could be sitting with my family at dinner and it would just walk into the room coming towards me. This was when I was 10 years old, but some of the images and the feeling have sort of stayed with me, and as an adult I kept thinking about it. So then I added the sexual element sort of connecting people physically and emotionally, and it all just kind of came together.(http://www.anothermag.com, February 27, 2015 
8. David Robert Mitchel: The basic idea came from a recurring nightmare I had when I was a kid, I remember being at recess, my friends and I are playing somewhere, and I look across the parking lot, and I saw this other kid like walking really slow straight towards me and in the dream I immediately knew that this kid was not a kid, that he was something else, some kind of monster and that he was going to hurt me.(http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
9. David Robert Mitchel: In the film, this terror is directly translated on screen. Once Jay goes back to her life, she catches the sight of ‘it’ again and again, sometimes very far away. No one can see this curse, and because she can so easily escape it initially, it is easy to convince herself that maybe it isn’t happening. (http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
10. David Robert Mitchel: I ran away from school, and I got a block away and I just waited and eventually, he turned the corner, and I could see that he was still coming after me. (http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
11. Mitchell and I talked extensively about dream logic, how the dreamer often knows things they shouldn’t or couldn’t or how scenes and people can shift, but the plight remain the same. (http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
12. David Robert Mitchel: I would be other places like with my family, and it will look like someone else, and I immediately knew it was this thing coming for me and I had to run.(http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
13. In the film, Jay’s follower takes many forms, including those of her closest friends, sometimes making it difficult to tell who she can trust. Mitchell let every element of the dream inform his writing, even the less ‘frightening’ aspects of it. (http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
14. David Robert Mitchel:Yeah. Honestly, the basic idea, the main point of it, came from a recurring nightmare I had when I was a kid. In the nightmare, I was followed by a monster, and I instinctively knew it was bad. It looked like different people, and it seemed like I was the only person who could see or was reacting to it. It was very slow, and it was always coming towards me. It would walk towards me when I was with friends or family, at all different times. I'd have to run away, or climb out of a window, or run down the street. It was just this constant feeling of dread and anxiety. That's where that part of it came from. I started adding to it later, as an adult, when I started thinking about taking that feeling and turning it into a movie.
    I'm a huge horror fan, and I'd been watching horror movies since I was young. I think all that stuff has definitely burned into my brain, and I think that comes out, for sure. ( http://www.denofgeek.com/ 24 Feb 2015)
    
15. David Robert Mitchel: It was the basic idea of being followed by something that looks like different people that is always slowly walking towards you was a recurring nightmare I had as a kid. I was maybe nine or ten and I just always remembered that feeling, that anxiety, that dread from within that dream, and some of the images from the dream. I’ve always remembered it and when I sat down and started writing a horror film I thought of that, and then I added the sexual aspect and other elements to it. (http://www.thehollywoodnews.com, 26th February 2015))
16. David Robert Mitchel: In the dream it was very easy to get away from it, but knowing that it was always walking towards me was very disturbing.(http://www.amfm-magazine.com/October 3, 2014)
17.  David Robert Mitchell: It stemmed from a nightmare I had when I was a kid. I would see someone coming towards me – actually, it looked like different people. I knew instinctively that it was coming for me. I would run away from it, down the block, and it would turn around the corner. I would come into a house and it would follow me into that house. I would climb out of the window and it would do the same. I would always get away from it, but it was terrifying to know that I could never really escape. I would only have a short time to rest for a while because it would always come and kick me. I know now that a lot of people have this dream too, but at that time, that nightmare scared the hell out of me. The positive thing is that at that time, I was already aware of the potential of that dream in terms of storytelling. Eventually it went away as I grew up.(http://www.dazeddigital.com/ May 2014?)
18. ComicBook: In the Q&A last night, you said that that the film was inspired by a nightmare that you used to have.

    David Robert Mitchell: Yeah, when I was a kid.
    ComicBook: So, do you have anxiety nightmares now?
    David Robert Mitchell: I don’t really remember my dreams. The truth is that at a certain age, I just stopped remembering them. I used to have a lot of nightmares, and I think I kind of willed them away. I go to sleep, and I wake up and I don’t remember anything. I think some of that stuff comes out probably in my writing, I guess. But I may [have nightmares], it’s very possible that I do but I’m not aware of it.

    ComicBook: So no more plans for nightmare-inspired scripts?

    David Robert Mitchell:  Who knows? I mean I definitely had a lot when I was younger, and they sit with you. Ya know? I don’t know if you had them a lot as a child?
    
ComicBook: Yeah, and I think they provide pretty unique ideas.
    
David Robert Mitchell:  Yeah, and a lot of people that I’ve talked to have had that same nightmare, or similar types of anxiety dreams. So I think it maybe touches on something people understand.(http://comicbook.com/ February 2nd 2015)
19. 
David Robert Mitchell:The basic idea came from a nightmare I had when I was a kid. I was probably about nine or ten years old and I remember in one of the nightmares I was playing with friends outside school and across the far side of the parking lot I saw this kid walking toward me. He was really far away and just walking really slowly toward me. I remember seeing them and just the way you instinctively do in a dream, knowing something was wrong and that kid was a monster. I remember pointing it out to the people I was playing with and nobody knew what I was talking about. It was getting closer and closer and eventually I ran away. I ran about a block from school and then stood and waited and eventually it turned the corner and kept coming for me. In the nightmares it could look like different people and I might be hanging out with my family and nobody else would react. So it was that idea of being followed by something that you can get away from if you’re aware but the horrible feeling is of constantly being followed. I’ve talked to many people who’ve had similar nightmares and apparently it’s an anxiety dream. I stopped having it when I was a kid but I’ve always remembered it. I thought it would be cool to make a horror film of that and all those thoughts and feelings. Then as an adult I added all the other elements. But that’s where it started. (http://vulturehound.co.uk/2015/02/david-robert-mitchell-interview/)
20. David Robert Mitchel: Honestly, I stopped remembering my dreams and nightmares a long time ago. I used to have a lot of them when I was a kid, and I remember hating it and also willing them away from my memory. That’s not to say I didn’t have good dreams, but I just hated the bad ones so much. I’d go to sleep telling myself over and over again to not remember whatever I dreamt. I remember hearing someone say that if you told yourself not to remember them then you could forget them. As an adult I literally now go to sleep and wake up the next day not remembering a single thing. (www.film3sixtymagazine.com/ February 25th 2015, &  maika-monroe.us/ Feb 26, 2015)
21. Hunger TV:Where did the idea come from? How did you pitch it to people?

    David Robert Mitchel:The basic idea came from a recurring nightmare I had as a kid where I was followed by a monster that would look like different people. No one else could see it. It was always coming towards me, I could get away very easily if I wanted but it was a terrible feeling that it was always coming for me. I had that when I was about ten.
    Hunger TV:How long did that last?
    David Robert Mitchel: I don’t know, maybe for a year every once in a while… I still remember images and parts of those dreams. I’ve talked to people and I believe it’s an anxiety dream – a pretty common one. So I always remembered that and then later as an adult kept thinking it would be fun to try to make a horror film with that idea. (http://www.hungertv.com, February 27th 2015)
22. Mitchell: Well, it’s not just about tormenting teenagers, but the form we gave the ‘monster,’ for lack of a better word.  Just came from what I found to be interesting and disturbing to me at that moment. But, the overall premise for the film came from a recurring nightmare I had as a child growing up. I was being chased by my loved ones in the creepiest way imaginable. I tried to run-away, but it was like I was running in quicksand. Later, when I decided to take those feelings and build it into a film I added all the other stuff with connecting people through sex emotionally, which links people to the past. I don’t want to spoil it for anybody, so I will just leave it at that for now. (http://freshfiction.tv/ September 23rd 2014)
23. David Robert Mitchell: I’ve always loved horror movies and I was definitely watching them when I was really young. That’s probably why I had so many nightmares, I guess? [Laughs] I really don’t know what the first stuff was. I grew up watching a lot of the Universal monster movies, [George] Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. Poltergeist scared the hell out of me when I was really young. I had my bed by the window and there was this tree and the branches would scrape against the glass. I was convinced the tree was going to come in and eat me. (http://anthemmagazine.com/ 28 February, 2015
24. David Robert Mitchell: The following idea stemmed from nightmares I had when I was young (I’ve heard a lot of people have this dream). Basically you see someone and they come towards you slowly. It’s a real person but they often look like different people. You could run into a house, crawl out the window and run down an alley - I could always get away from it but they never entirely went away. But getting away wasn’t the point - knowing something is coming for you is more terrifying than the confrontation itself. These dreams stopped when I was a teenager, and it was then I knew I wanted to make the dreams into something. (http://www.screendaily.com/ 21st May 2014)
25. David Robert Mitchell: The idea for the film came from a nightmare I had when I was a kid. The idea of being followed by something very slow, that looks like different people that other people can’t see. It was a recurring nightmare. I could always get away. I would be sitting down to dinner with my family and someone would just walk in through the front door and no one else would be reacting, but I knew it was this monster coming to hurt me. It was dream logic, where you understand what’s going on. I could run, or climb down a window; I could always get away, but its waiting and eventually would come. It was easy to keep distance from it, but what’s disturbing is that no matter what it is still coming closer. You could go really far away, but you are going to want to sleep or relax. The idea is that you don’t know at what moment it is actually going to get there. This always sat with me. It’s basically an anxiety dream. I stopped having it when I was young, but I always remembered it. Later I thought I’d love to take some of these ideas and build them into a film. All of the sexual elements came later. (http://www.allthingshorror.com/ 25th September , 2014)
26. David Robert Mitchell: The dream was from when I was a kid. It was so long ago. I only remember certain pieces and moments from it. And the feeling it gave me. Even the sequences I remember aren't in the film. It's more just the way it made me feel.(http://screenjabber.com,  25th February 2015)

27. David Robert Mitchell: Well the basic idea came from a reoccurring nightmare I had as a kid. Except it was like an anxiety dream, sort of where I was being followed by something that looks like different people and it was always walking very slow. In it I could get away from it very easily, like it could come into a room and I would have time to climb out a window, or if I was on the street and it was walking up to me I could keep stepping backwards and keep my distance from it. You might not think that it would be scary because you can get away, but it was the fact that I knew it was always coming for me that was really unnerving. So I always remembered some of the images from those nightmares. I stopped having those dreams as a kid, but it sort of just stuck with me. I always wanted to make a horror film, so as an adult I always thought about that. I sort of built on it. I added the idea of connecting people emotionally through sex and it seemed to fit the idea of being followed, being linked to people. ( http://www.gotchamovies.com 27th September 2014)
28. David Robert Mitchell: : Oh I’m sure, tons. I grew up watching horror films. When I was very young I watched all kinds of stuff with my dad and my uncle. Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are favorites of course. There’s Halloween, Carpenter’s The Thing, the original Thing, the original Body Snatchers, and the Philip Kaufman Body Snatchers. Gosh a ton of stuff. I remember Poltergeist scared the hell out of me when I was really young. I had a tree by my window and the branch would scrape on the glass and I was waiting for it to eat me. I definitely was haunted by a lot of horror movies when I was very young, but I loved them.
    ( http://www.gotchamovies.com 27th September 2014)
29. I've read that the idea behind It Follows stems from an old recurring nightmare of yours. What happened in those nightmares exactly?
    David Robert Mitchell: I kept having this same recurring nightmare that really scared the hell out of me. In those nightmares, I was being followed by something that would look like different people at different times, and the scariest thing about it was that nobody else could see it. When I was a kid, I just knew that it was a monster, and that I could try to run away but it would keep coming towards me, no matter what I did. But it would always walk very slowly towards me, even if I started running away. In the dreams I could always get away from it, but it was this feeling that this thing was constantly watching me and constantly following me, even when I couldn't see it.
    When did you take nightmare concept and turn it into what's now It Follows? Has this been a movie idea you've developed in your mind since you were a kid?
    David Robert Mitchell: It took a really long time. I had those nightmares as a kid, when I was, maybe, 10 or 11 years old or so. As I got older, I would always remember it, and in my late-teens, I thought, "It might be interesting to take that idea and try to use it to make some kind of a horror film." I've always wanted to make movies since I was young. But I didn't have it all figure it out—I just knew I wanted to turn it into a movie at some point.  (http://uk.complex.com/September 9th 2014)
30.  David Robert Mitchell: The basic idea came from a nightmare I had when I was a kid. I was probably about nine or ten years old and I remember in one of the nightmares I was playing with friends outside school and across the far side of the parking lot I saw this kid walking toward me. He was really far away and just walking really slowly toward me. I remember seeing them and just the way you instinctively do in a dream, knowing something was wrong and that kid was a monster. I remember pointing it out to the people I was playing with and nobody knew what I was talking about. It was getting closer and closer and eventually I ran away. I ran about a block from school and then stood and waited and eventually it turned the corner and kept coming for me. In the nightmares it could look like different people and I might be hanging out with my family and nobody else would react. So it was that idea of being followed by something that you can get away from if you’re aware but the horrible feeling is of constantly being followed. I’ve talked to many people who’ve had similar nightmares and apparently it’s an anxiety dream. I stopped having it when I was a kid but I’ve always remembered it. I thought it would be cool to make a horror film of that and all those thoughts and feelings. Then as an adult I added all the other elements. But that’s where it started. (http://lovehorror.co.uk/ February 26th 2015)
31. David Robert Mitchell: The basic idea came from a recurring nightmare that I had when I was a kid, where I was followed by a monster that looked like different people, and nobody was able to see it but me. It was very slow and was always walking towards me. I was like nine or ten, and I spoke to others about it and it’s a fairly common anxiety dream, but I always remembered the feeling from it, the feeling of dread and the images from it, so when I got older I thought it would be fun to turn that into a horror film. (http://www.heyuguys.com/February 26th 2015)
32. David Robert Mitchel: The basic idea came from a nightmare I had when I was a kid. I was probably about nine or ten years old and I remember in one of the nightmares I was playing with friends outside school and across the far side of the parking lot I saw this kid walking toward me. He was really far away and just walking really slowly toward me. I remember seeing them and just the way you instinctively do in a dream, knowing something was wrong and that kid was a monster. I remember pointing it out to the people I was playing with and nobody knew what I was talking about. It was getting closer and closer and eventually I ran away. I ran about a block from school and then stood and waited and eventually it turned the corner and kept coming for me. In the nightmares it could look like different people and I might be hanging out with my family and nobody else would react. So it was that idea of being followed by something that you can get away from if you’re aware but the horrible feeling is of constantly being followed. I’ve talked to many people who’ve had similar nightmares and apparently it’s an anxiety dream. I stopped having it when I was a kid but I’ve always remembered it. I thought it would be cool to make a horror film of that and all those thoughts and feelings. Then as an adult I added all the other elements. But that’s where it started.  (http://battleroyalewithcheese.com/ 27th February 2015)
33. The conceit that a haunting can be its own type of sexually transmitted disease is really innovative. Where did that come from?
    David Robert Mitchell: I don’t know. No, I’m kidding. It came in pieces, and it wasn’t formed in that way. It started with the idea of a monster that follows you, that is slow and always waking towards you. That idea came from a recurring nightmare I had when I was very young. It really freaked me out and I always remembered it. In the dream it looked like different people and was always coming closer. I could always get away from it, but it was just about this feeling of anxiety knowing that something’s always following me.(http://filmschoolrejects.com March 30th 2015)
34. Interviewer: I've heard you say that the genesis for It Follows was a specific nightmare you had as a kid. We all have recurring nightmares, but what was it about this particular nightmare that stuck with you? Was it the frequency of it, or the--
    David Robert Mitchell: No, it was just about the level of anxiety I had about it. Just enough that I'd remember it. That's just one that stuck with me. The idea of being able to get away from something, but the idea that it's always there.
    Interviewer: The inevitability of it.
    David Robert Mitchell: Yeah. That was the most disturbing thing to me.
    Interviewer: When you had the nightmare, was it an entity you could identify, or something more like the movie, where--
    David Robert Mitchell: It was just like it is in the film. More often it was people I didn't know, but sometimes it was people that I recognized.
    Interviewer: Is there a significance in the film as to what form the entity takes when it appears to people?
    David Robert Mitchell: Well, it depends on the scene. I'm sort of hesitant to explain it too much. It's more about hurting or shocking the person it's (coming for), and taking the form of a person (they know) or a stranger. It genuinely depends on the moment, but...in my opinion, it can change. But I tend not to want to overexplain it. They were all very specific, written to be what they were. We spent a lot of time selecting specific people for those moments. I'm sorry I'm not-- (http://badassdigest.com/13th April 2015/)
    
35. Question: I read that you got this idea from a dream you had as a kid. Can you tell me about going from that to turning it into a STD?
    DAVID ROBERT MITCHELL: Yeah, well that came later. I had the nightmare when I was like nine or ten or something, I always remembered pieces of that nightmare, the feeling from it. I’ve always wanted to make a horror film and so I always kept thinking about that nightmare. So, over the years, I’d just kind of add things to it. In the nightmare it’s about being followed by something that looked like different people, all the things that are in the film, it was very slow, it’s not that hard to get away from it if you’re paying attention, but it’s the fact that it’s always coming for you. I just tried to kind of build on that feeling of dread and then at some point I started thinking, ‘Oh, it’d be fun if it’s something that can move between different people,’ almost like a game of tag to some degree. And then it sort of became clear to me like, ‘Oh, it should be through sex because it would sort of connect the characters physically and emotionally.’ It just felt like the right thing. But that happened over a lot of years just sort of in the back of my brain. (http://collider.com/david-robert-mitchell-it-follows-interview/)
36. And you have the curse, itself, the entity. Did one idea spark before the other, or did you develop these ideas together while writing the screenplay?
    David: The idea of being followed by something that is always walking towards you, looks like different people, basically came from a recurring nightmare I had when I was a kid. I've never been able to forget some of the feeling from that nightmare, and that was what I built the initial idea upon. Then, in terms of how it's transferred, I thought about that for a lot of years and, at some point, I thought it would be interesting to have it be passed between people. Then I added the idea that it could be something passed through sex. That was an element that came much later. (http://www.firstshowing.net/3rd April 2015)
37. Interviewer: Nightmares tend to be shaped by our subconscious and the imagery and experiences we're subjected to. Have you tried to figure out where that came from?
    DAVID ROBERT MITCHELL: I had it when I was very young, the nightmare. I had it several times and I still remember images from it. I didn't use those images for the film, but the basic idea and the feeling I used. From what I understand, it's an anxiety dream. Whatever I was going through at that time, my parents divorced when I was around that age, so I imagine it was something to do with that.
    I've watched horror films since I was a kid so there's a ton of them that could have influenced it. In the dream, I remember feeling the monster is like a zombie, like a vampire, but it's something else. At that age, I definitely would have seen Night of the Living Dead at that point. (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ March 8th 2015)
38. David Robert Mitchel: I’d had this idea for a long time. It came from a nightmare that I had as a kid—this basic idea of being followed by something that can look like different people and only I could see it. (www.avclub.com/ March 12th 2015)
39. Interviewer: When did you first come up with the idea for It Follows?
    DAVID ROBERT MITCHELL: The idea came from a nightmare I had when I was kid, about being followed by something that is always walking toward me. That was the starting point, just remembering that nightmare. As an adult, I've wanted to make a horror film and I thought back to that nightmare and started piecing it together and coming up with the story, and obviously adding the sexual element to. ( http://www.joblo.com/March 13th 2015)
40. Interviewer: At the Sundance premiere, you mentioned that the premise for It Follows actually started out as a nightmare. Was this recurring, or was this a one-off that you just happened to write down?
    David Robert Mitchel: No, it was recurring, but when I was a kid. I had it several times when I was really young. I haven’t had it when I was an adult, or anytime recently, but I always remembered it.
    Interviewer: Not even while you were filming?
    David Robert Mitchel: Well, I don’t know if it did, because I don’t really remember my dreams or my nightmares. I haven’t remembered them for many years.
    Interviewer: So, you don’t have any current crop of nightmares right now?
    David Robert Mitchel: No, I don’t. I’m sure I do, but I’m not aware of them. I literally go to sleep, and I wake up. I remember nothing. (http://consequenceofsound.net/ March 12th 2015)
41. With It Follows, you were inspired by childhood nightmares?
    It was a recurring nightmare I had as a kid. I remember only pieces of it. In one part of the dream, I was with my friends during lunchtime at school, at the playground, and I looked across the parking lot and I saw this other kid very slowly walking toward me, way in the distance, like straight toward me. I remember pointing him out to somebody and they didn't know what I was talking about, and the kid just kept coming closer and closer until I knew, in the way you know in a dream, this kid was like a monster, he was going to hurt me, and in it, I felt like he was a vampire or zombie or some kind of thing I didn't know. It was very strange, the way he just flowed, though he looked normal. So I would run away from school, like a block away, and I stood there and waited. And then after a while, way down the block, I turned a corner and just kept walking. In the nightmare, I could get away from it all the time, as long as I was aware. It was the feeling of that anxiety and dread of knowing that something was always coming closer and coming toward you that inspired me. And I remember, in another nightmare, sitting with my family, having dinner, and then a man just walks into the front door and starts coming toward me, no one else reacts, and I run and climb out a window. It was just a constant feeling of dread. That's where the basic idea came from. (http://www.slantmagazine.com/ March 9, 2015)