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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Soulmate, Myself:
The Perfect Mate

Rebecca and Dylan

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Wikipedia:  In Your Eyes is a 2014 American paranormal romance film directed by Brin Hill and written by Joss Whedon, starring Zoe Kazan, Michael Stahl-David, Nikki Reed, Steve Harris and Mark Feuerstein. It is the second feature by Bellwether Pictures. In Your Eyes, set in New Mexico and New Hampshire, follows Dylan and Rebecca. They live on opposite sides of the country, but are able to sense what the other is feeling – despite being strangers.

Plot: A young Rebecca Porter is about to go sledding in New Hampshire, while across the country in New Mexico, a young Dylan Kershaw is at school with a group of his friends. Suddenly, without even knowing what is happening or why, Dylan is able to experience everything that Rebecca experiences, and at the exact moment that Rebecca crashes her sled, rendering her unconscious, Dylan is thrown from his desk and is knocked out.

Twenty years later, Rebecca (Zoe Kazan) is married to a successful doctor, Phillip Porter (Mark Feuerstein), while Dylan (Michael Stahl-David) has just recently gotten out of prison. One night, Rebecca attends a dinner party with her husband, and Dylan is at a local bar trying to stay out of trouble. However, a man whom he had been playing pool with earlier hits him on the back with a pool stick. The impact flings Rebecca to the floor, which she cannot explain to the host of the dinner party and her husband chastises her for her behaviour afterwards.

The next day, Dylan and Becky connect once more and they learn that if they speak aloud they can hear one another, they can see what the other is looking at, and feel what the other is feeling. They establish that they are not just figments of their respective imaginations, and the presence at the other end is a real person. They talk later that night and they begin to get to know each other while they talk, show each other their surroundings, share their dreams and shared experiences, finally stepping in front of mirrors for a visual introduction.

Throughout their respective experiences of Rebecca at Philip's fundraiser and Dylan dating a woman, they grow closer. Becky realizes that Dylan is in love with her and she herself is also falling in love with him, so she tries to break off their communication. Becky's husband notices she has grown distant from him and he is puzzled and disturbed by her odd behavior he has seen when while she has been in mental contact with Dylan. One of her friends, thinking that Becky is either having an affair or is cracking up, brings her suspicions to him, and he and a medical colleague have her forcibly institutionalized. Dylan, on the other hand, loses his post-prison job at a car wash when customers are concerned with his mental state observing him seemingly talking to himself while he was in contact with Becky. While he is trying to make a clean break from his criminal past, he is menaced by two long-time criminal acquaintances trying to pressure him into using his skills as a burglar to help them do a heist.

Later, Dylan feels that Becky is in trouble so he violates his parole by stealing a truck to get to the airport and subsequently leaves the state without permission by taking a plane to New Hampshire to rescue Becky from the mental institution. Unable to rent a car at the airport, Dylan steals one. While she telepathically guides him on the roads between the airport and the institution, he uses his criminal smarts to guide Becky through her escape from the facility, including picking a lock on a door. Becky avoids detection until reaching the front door, where she runs into her husband and subsequently punches him in the face before fleeing the facility, while Dylan is being chased by several police cars. They both manage to elude their respective pursuers and end up on foot running through the woods towards a train. They manage to climb into an empty box car, where they finally unite in person and share a kiss.

Kairissi. Do Twin Souls communicate telepathically? -  be careful what you say because you and I do not.

Elenchus. Yes, but it’s coming in the new “2.0 software update."

K. Is it?

E. Well, you know there’re many aspects to this subject. For one thing, in Summerland, speaking through one's mouth is considered to be too tortoise-like, and so most people just send their thoughts directly, mind-to-mind, in “real time.”

K. This would mean that the ability to sense or read the thoughts of another is the norm, and even here on Earth might not be so out of the question.

E. Another thing. Rebecca and Dylan can see each other from a distance. But this is just an example of "remote viewing," which is known to exist and not so uncommon.

K. But, if somewhat common, this would also mean that the communication between Rebecca and Dylan does not necessarily indicate that they're Twin Souls.

E. There’s a lot to sort out here. While the love story of Rebecca and Dylan is a fictional account, it’s not a fantasy; “fictional” means “it didn’t happen” but “fantasy” means “it couldn’t happen.”

K. Some of the critics said that this movie was a “sentimental teenage fantasy.”

E. Well, we’d expect this of materialistic critics. Naysayers are either unknowledgeable or willfully ignorant of both the latest research concerning post-mortem survival of consciousness and the scientific evidence for the afterlife.

K. We learn that some people, and animals, too, do have telepathic abilities. Rupert Sheldrake has collected thousands of accounts on this subject. I understand that the author wanted us to comment on the case of Rebecca and Dylan but, if telepathy, not just in the next world but here, as well, is not so hard to find once we go looking for it, why discuss this in the context of true love?

E. The issue is muddied. In Summerland, because the mind is no longer restrained, so to speak, by the burdens and heaviness of gross matter, it expresses itself much more easily. Over there, the principle of “thoughts are things” becomes more of a reality.

K. In our world, though, telepathy is seen as a “gift,” as paranormal, not normal - but this is probably a mischaracterization. We all have the latent ability to communicate telepathically, but right now we’re “running with weights on our legs.”

E. I think it is like that.

K. So why are some able to do this but most cannot?

E. Sheldrake’s research suggests that the closer the bond between individuals – animals, too – the easier, the more likely the two will be able to sense each other’s mental output. He said that identical biological twins are a prime example. And we would hasten to add that Twin Souls should be put at the top of that list.

K. But not all Twins communicate telepathically - or do they?

E. They just need to polish and clean-up their “radar” and they’ll be right.

K. I suppose it’s the same reason why Twins don’t find each other in this world, though there’re probably millions of “offline” couples all around us.

E. Their radar is offline, so they’re flying blind. They can't see. And as we’ve discussed many times, the reason for being offline is the “false self.”

K. Ok, but – are there any couples like Rebecca and Dylan on planet Earth?

E. I suspect they’re rare, but maybe more prevalent than we know. The author, even with minimal searching, discovered a notable example. Do you remember Norma?

K. She was one of the most competent psychic-mediums the author ever met.

E. Her messages from the author’s loved ones on the other side are so revealing at times, of incidents 50 and 60 years ago, that he cannot put into print what he was told. Upon receipt of this information, Norma smiled and teased him, “You’re turning red.”

K. This is the most convincing evidence of the afterlife; things that only you and a very few others have ever known.

E. And so, when Norma began to speak of her own situation, anomalous as it might seem to some, he had to take it seriously. Norma’s husband had passed on some years earlier. She said that they were Twin Souls, and that while he was still in this world, they would communicate telepathically. They sometimes made a joke of it; they’d be lying in bed, and he’d mentally say something funny, and then she’d poke him and finish the joke. Norma said that she and he are never out of contact, and hear each other’s thoughts, even though he’s now in Summerland.

K. This is getting very close to Rebecca and Dylan.

E. All this is remarkable enough, but the author said that the most moving point of evidence that they, in fact, shared a true love relationship had to do with Norma’s emotional state. In ordinary conversation with the author, Norma would speak in a businesslike manner; but, he recalls, one time when she was accessing the thoughts of her husband, suddenly the demeanor of the aged lady changed almost to that of a breathless starry-eyed teen girl. Norma began to softly gasp, as a young girl might, caught in visions of infatuation. Though he’s spoken to many widowed mates over the years, never, he said, had he encountered one in a spirit of hot-chemistry disposition at the mention of the departed’s name.

K. But… it was more than a mention… she was actually with him during those moments. Elenchus… what does this mean for us?

E. I think it means that… as we set aside the old egoic states of mind… the old anger, fear, and guilt that suppresses the abilities of the mind… we will enter into what will amount to a new love relationship, one that we’ve never been able to reach.

K. What Norma has with her departed is available to all of us… if we remove the clouds blocking the sun.

E. I’d like to add a postscript. Rebecca became so preoccupied with hearing Dylan’s voice in her head that she finally had to agree with herself to leave her manipulative husband. And, for me, there was a time in the past, while I did not hear your audible voice, you became so real in my thoughts, so burdened was my spirit with your “presence,” that I could no longer sustain, nor justify, my “well-ordered life.”

K. (softly) There comes a time when continuing to “play house” and “play church” will destroy one.

K. Let me also add that I like how Rebecca and Dylan communicated. I like how they were very playful at times, felt very comfortable with each other, as they used mildly jabbing phrases to tease; like, “I made you, and I can break you.”

E. That’s funny.

K. We should also mention that sarcastic humor, if that’s all you have, if there’s no context of loving relationship, will quickly turn poisonous and feel like a real attack.

E. And yet, in the true relationship, lovers do highly value authentic interchange, which at times will include a teasing barb or a playful name-calling.

K. There’s a real balance to be achieved in this; to restate, you can get away with, and even delight in, the occasional sarcastic comment if the overall tenor of verbal interplay is loving, warm, and accepting.

E. I also like how they would make themselves vulnerable to each other and really said how they felt. At one point Dylan told her, “The best thing, the only thing, I like about me – is you.”

K. The "inner granite," as we've used the phrase, was cracking for him. But before a lover can be open like that, you have to feel very safe and know that the other is totally for you.

E. Perceptions of love can come in a hot minute - and it can even be real - but a sense of mutual trust is built over time.

K. We recognize this too well, don't we. It's said that you can destroy, in a moment, the kind of trust that takes 20 years to build. No wonder it took us so long to recover from our youthful indiscretions concerning each other.