Before I Wake also tells us about an important antidote to grief: at the end of the movie, Jessie and Cody both overcome the negative effects of their grief through love. Up until now, the filmвЂ™s message has been pretty depressing, but itвЂ™s not all doom and gloom. If we let it fester inside of us, it will eventually find its way out in other, much more destructive ways, and much like the Canker Man, it can become a savage beast that destroys everything in its path. In this way, Before I Wake tells us that we need to acknowledge our pain and bring it out into the open, and only then can we find healthy ways to heal from it. Also See: The Siren is an Arthouse Exploration of Grief CodyвЂ™s memories of his mother were buried so deep inside him that he didnвЂ™t even realize what it was doing to him, but it had deadly consequences for almost everybody around him.

His part of the story tells us that we canвЂ™t bury our grief and ignore it.

After that final battle, Jessie brings Cody home with her, and the next day she tells him the truth about his past.Д¬odyвЂ™s experience with the Canker Man reinforces the filmвЂ™s message about the dangers of grief, but they also add a new dimension to it. She eventually runs into the Canker Man one last time, and she defeats him by giving Cody a reminder of his mother and of her love for him. She sees monstrous creatures everywhere she turns, and all the workers there have been trapped and incapacitated. Instead, she actually died from cancer, and young Cody misunderstood it as вЂњcanker.вЂќ He eventually forgot what really happened, and his mind combined his mispronunciation of the word вЂњcancerвЂќ with his vague memories of his motherвЂ™s withered condition before her death to create the monster that haunted his dreams.ДЄfter discovering all this, Jessie goes to the orphanage where Cody is being kept, and she finds that his nightmares have completely run amok. She wasnвЂ™t killed by the Canker Man like he said. After social services take Cody away from Jessie, she looks into his past and discovers what really happened to his mother. However, the truth is much more complicated than that. He says that the Canker Man ate his mother. Since heвЂ™s an orphan, we know that he lost his parents at a very young age, but he doesnвЂ™t seem terribly affected by it. JessieвЂ™s grief is front and center throughout almost the entirety of Before I Wake, but CodyвЂ™s pain is only revealed to us towards the end.

Just like Jessie lost her entire family, we too might lose the people closest to us if we get lost in our own pain and let it negatively affect the way we treat them. Otherwise, we may end up causing real, potentially irreparable harm to the people we love and to our relationships with them. When weвЂ™re hurting, we need to cope with our pain in a healthy way rather than take it out on those closest to us. It tells us to watch out for this insidious effect triggered by grief and to make sure that when we experience loss, we donвЂ™t let our pain blind us to the people around us. In this way, the film is clearly a cautionary tale. Also See: Hereditary is a Strikingly Accurate Comment on the Destructive Power of Grief Jessie was so caught up in her own pain that she treated Cody like a tool for her own emotional comfort when she should have been loving him unconditionally, just like every child deserves. With this part of the story, Before I Wake captures an important truth about grief: it can seriously mess with our heads and cause us to mistreat the people around us. After that, social services takes the child away, and Jessie is left without her husband, her son, or her foster-son. This backfires, as Cody dreams about a deadly monster called the Canker Man, and the creature kills her husband after they unsuccessfully try to wake Cody up. Some time later, Jessie gets her doctor to prescribe sleeping pills, and she secretly gives them to Cody so she can have even more time with her son. This causes a small rift between her and Mark, as Mark recognizes that sheвЂ™s using the child for her own emotional comfort, but Jessie insists that sheвЂ™s simply allowing Cody to help her heal. She shows him a home video of their son opening presents on Christmas morning, and then she hangs up a bunch of pictures of Sean to subtly push Cody in to dreaming about him as often as possible. Once the Hobsons discover CodyвЂ™s secret, Jessie begins to take advantage of him to help ease her pain. At first, that seems like a nice reprieve for a grieving couple, but it soon takes a dark turn.

Before i wake