Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Dreams have been identified as “an important narrative element of Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (Wilcox 165), both in the frequency of their occurrences–about thirty dreams in the first four seasons of the show (ibid)–and in terms of their significance, as they provide viewers the opportunity to penetrate the exteriority of each character and explore the realms of their unconscious. The episode which best illustrates the importance of dreams within the Buffy universe is “Restless”; each of the four dreams in this episode can be seen as an explication and dramatization of the irreconcilable tension between who one is and who one should be. The pages that follow, will explore this tension with reference to psychoanalytic theory, including the Lacanian understanding of the self, namely the division between the self and its ego-ideal or “ideal-I”, and Judith Butler’s gender theory that speaks to the external pressures on the self to conform to societal gender norms. Ultimately, the narrative decision to allow viewers entry to the interior dream lives of characters allows these tensions visibility, resulting in a deeper understanding of the characters as conflicted subjects becoming available to viewers.

Before beginning an analysis of “Restless,” it is useful to briefly explore the relevant aspects of both psychoanalytic and gender theory that will inform our interpretation. Psychoanalytic theory, originally developed by Sigmund Freud, seeks to understand the nature of persons by exploring the unconscious mind, because human consciousness is riddled with gaps (Freud, The Unconscious 50). Thus, the unconscious is the key to understanding fully the subject–to repair the gaps in consciousness. The primary way of uncovering the unconscious in psychoanalytic practice is through the interpretation of dreams, because they allow a privileged glimpse of the unconscious at work (Eagleton 157). Dreams can be seen as “picture-puzzles” (Freud, Interpretation of Dreams 924) or “symbolic texts” (Eagleton 157) because the divide between latent meanings and manifest details is so drastic in dream-form. Dreams, then, must be translated or deciphered in order to be understood. This process of probing allows for the discovery of the dream’s latent meanings–the unconscious fears and desires of the subject. Since the psychoanalytic approach to literary criticism is also concerned with discovering the latent meanings hidden in manifest details, applying psychoanalytic dream interpretation techniques to “Restless” is an ideal approach, for it will enable a more complete explication of the episode’s underlying meanings.

In addition to the writings of Freud on the unconscious and the interpretation of dreams, we shall make reference to the theory of the mirror stage posited by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose primary concern is the constitution of the human subject as a being or an ‘I’. Lacan conceives of the mirror stage as a process occurring during infancy that leaves lifelong tension within the subject. Sean Homer notes that “the sense of a unified self is acquired at the price of this self being an other.” (Homer 25). It is important to make explicit that the duality of self that develops in the mirror stage does not simply disappear as the infant ages; the sense of Otherness within the infant’s ego remains, and the tension inherent in the duality only increases with greater awareness on the part of the subject as he or she ages. Lacan notes that the ego is unable to live up to the expectations imposed on it by the ideal-I, as evidenced by the dreams of Willow, Xander, Giles, and Buffy in “Restless.”

It is not merely internal tensions related to the self that are illuminated in dreams but also tensions related to social norms, including traditional notions of gender. Prominent queer theorist Judith Butler suggests that gender is a result of social conditions, not an innate identity. As such, Butler asks that we consider gender as an act that is both “intentional” and “performative” (Subversive Bodily Acts 380): an invention with no origin, a circumstance and not a state. We are assigned a gender on the basis of sex, and it is our duty to “perform” that gender with an audience in mind, real or imagined. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is celebrated for “subverting…conventional gender dynamics,” (Felder 225) but even though the characters defy confining configurations of ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness,’ it is a struggle. “Restless” brings that struggle into the light, subtly showing the way that each character grapples with notions of gender and their own perceived failings in the performance of their assigned gender roles.

Willow’s Dream

The first dream of the episode is Willow’s, and though it explores both the tension between the self and its ideal-I and the impositions on the self by societal expectations of gender, the dream’s focus is the performative aspects of selfhood in relation to preconceived notions of who one should be. Willow’s narrative arc across the first four seasons ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer is a dramatic one; she transitions from an introverted, bookish loner in the first season to a more socially integrated teenager in Seasons Two and Three, and truly blossoms in the fourth season, discovering at college adult romantic love. Willow believes that with Tara, she has become into the woman she was meant to be. Broadly speaking, then, Willow’s dream is a nightmare, for she devolves from what she considers her ideal self back to the stunted outsider she was in high school.

The first moments of Willow’s dream echo Peter Greenaway’s film The Pillow Book as well as Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body quite explicitly. In the latter work, the unnamed, ungendered narrator finds in her lover Louise one who is able to translate and understand a bodily “secret code” (Winterson 89); in other words, Louise is able to understand her lover on the deepest levels. In the opening moments of her dream, Willow is painting poetry–literally writing–on the back of her lover Tara, which suggests a similarly deep connection between the characters. Emphasizing this, Willow tells Tara, “I never worry here. I’m safe here.” Though this feeling of safety is not to last, this initial scene is essential, for it positions Willow as comfortable in her own skin, in her most whole form, and thus representative of having achieved her ideal-I. Tara breaks the idyllic spell of the dream’s opening moments when she tells Willow, “They will find out, you know. About you.” It is important to note that although her sexual identification as a lesbian is central to Willow’s sense of self, social opinion surrounding her sexual orientation is not something that plays a role in the anxiety she feels in the dream; rather, as was intimated above, Tara (as a corporeal representation of sexuality) represents Willow’s safe place where she is free from the anxiety of identity performance.

Willow’s dream begins its transition to nightmare when she finds herself enrolled in a drama class. Though she has a history of academic excellence, drama class represents an uncomfortable situation for her. When Willow arrives at what is meant to be the initial class and finds that not only is she late, but that she is to take part in a performance being given expressly for everyone whom she has ever known, her anxiety is dramatically increased. In this way, her repressed anxiety about “performance of identity on a day-to-day basis” (Pateman 132) is transfigured into a floundering and lack of preparedness for the performance being given in class. Giles appears as the director, but does nothing to calm the anxieties Willow is feeling by telling the assembled cast that the audience longs to “strip you and eat you alive,” suggesting that those with whom Willow has surrounded herself are constantly trying to destroy her fragile, newly-developed sense of self. Giles further notes that “acting isn’t about behaving, it’s about hiding,” emphasizing that the masks one wears in life do not accurately define who we are, but rather conceal our real identities from prying eyes.

As Willow arrives to class, Buffy approaches her and expresses jealousy over the fact that Willow is already in costume and character. This points directly to the performative nature of self as well as the inferiority that Willow has begun to feel. Everyone around her is dressed in what could never be mistaken for anything but costumes: Harmony is a milkmaid, Buffy a 1920s flapper, and Riley a cowboy. Buffy’s suggestion that Willow, in her everyday clothes, is somehow costumed highlights the fact that she knows Willow to be playing a role in everyday life. Though she tries to comfort Willow by telling her, “No one’s going to know the truth…you know, about you,” Willow has begun to understand that her newly developed sense of self is merely a mask, and one that others can see as such.

Attempting to find respite from her anxiety, Willow escapes into the velvety folds of the proscenium’s red curtains, which, series creator Joss Whedon notes in his DVD commentary, evoke images of female genitalia. As this is an effort to return to safety and comfort, it is unsurprising that it is at this point that Tara resurfaces in the dream, offering Willow a momentary sense of stability, as well as a deeper understanding of that which her dream is seeking to communicate. Tara tells Willow that she is being followed, and within the narrative of the dream, what seems to be hunting Willow is the shadow of her former self. Tara retreats deeper into the safety of the cerulean curtains, exiting Willow’s dream for good, but not before issuing the warning that “everyone’s starting to wonder about…the real you. If they find out, they’ll punish you,” suggesting once again that if Willow’s true self is revealed, she will be alone, having lost all that she has spent her adolescence fighting to gain: self-confidence, friendship, and love. Immediately following Tara’s disappearance, the curtains transform into a site of violence, with Willow being attacked from all sides by a faceless, menacing entity.

The transition into the final act of Willow’s dream marks the true descent into nightmare territory, for it is here that Willow fully devolves into her high school self. Pulled from the no-longer-safe space of her sexuality by Buffy, who wonders aloud what Willow has done to prompt a demon to hunt her, Willow is returned to a classroom at Sunnydale high school. After being told that “everyone already knows,” Willow’s “costume”–which she finally acknowledges as being representative of a security blanket when she insists that she “needs” it–is violently removed so that she stands before the class looking exactly as she did in the years before her transition out of geekdom. It is in this, the final scene of Willow’s dream, that the Lacanian notion of “organic insufficiency” (Lacan 6) is clearest–Willow’s repressed knowledge that she is still the awkward, insular, immature being she always was rather than the personification of her ideal-I comes to the surface. Revisiting her teenage years and the self-doubt and insecurity that came with them suggests to Willow that she is still somehow ‘less-than’ both her friends and her internalized image of herself. The dream ends with Willow being directly attacked by the demon who has been haunting her; a demon that, as has been previously noted, represents her former self. Ultimately then, Willow is attacking herself for being foolish enough to believe that she could overcome her true self in order to become her ideal-I. Xander’s Dream

Moving chronologically through “Restless,” the next dream belongs to Xander. His dream, like Willow’s before him, is concerned with tensions between self and ideal-I, but unlike Willow’s, it also addresses the tensions between self and societally-imposed notions of gender. Xander’s lack of physical strength, intelligence, and supernatural gifts creates within the character a feeling of inferiority to those around him. Additionally, the fact that “‘real men’ in Buffy…are often monsters” (Jowett 95) nearly guarantees Xander’s inability to become an ideal of masculinity. The focal point of his dream is his struggle against repressed feelings of inferiority as both a man and, more broadly, a human being.

In a way that is again similar to Willow’s dream, Xander’s begins in an idyllic fashion and transitions into a nightmare. Those readers familiar with the early seasons ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer will recall Xander’s unrequited love for the title character. Though references to this love have all but disappeared by Season Four, Xander’s dream shows that these feelings have not vanished, but have merely been repressed and displaced onto Buffy’s mother, Joyce, who attempts to seduce Xander in the early part of his dream. Calling himself both a “conquistador” and a “comfortador,” this opening scene firmly positions Xander as the man he longs to be, or what Lacan would call his ideal-I. Accepting Joyce’s proposal for a “rest,” Xander excuses himself for a moment to freshen up, marking the beginning of his dream’s shift into nightmare territory.

We have noted above that Xander’s dream concerns itself with the ways in which he perceives himself as inadequate, and immediately upon leaving Joyce’s bedroom, the sexual element of this inadequacy becomes clear. Alone in the bathroom, Xander begins to urinate only to discover that he has been transported to a laboratory, with white coat-clad doctors and members of the Initiative watching his member intently. His discomfort clearly stems from the pressures of having an audience, suggesting that he has concerns regarding the size and functioning of his manhood, the phallus being representative of masculinity in a broader sense.

Fleeing the bathroom/laboratory, Xander searches for another place in which to relieve himself, and finds himself in the basement apartment within his parent’s home, a place which is a site of great internal conflict for him as it is a physical reminder of all the ways he is not living up to the expectations placed on him. Dark, dank, and depressing, Xander inadvertently returns to his home multiple times throughout his dream, stressing how he sees his post-high school life as stunted. Just how strongly he feels his inferiority becomes clear later in the dream, when he answers “the basement, mostly,” when asked where he is from. Applying Xander’s basement dwelling to Freud’s notion of the tri-partite soul, which is commonly represented as a house, we can suggest that he is mired in the “cauldron full of seething excitations” (Freud, Dissection 91) that comprises his id. In psychoanalysis, the id is the site of all human desires, desires that are in constant conflict, negating any possibility for action. As such, Xander’s basement apartment can be seen to represent not only his stunted life but also his inability to escape this stasis. Though he is unable to escape the basement, an unknown entity is constantly trying to enter into his home, and although we never see this entity, it is reasonable to posit that he is being stalked by some reminder of his ideal-I.

Much of what follows in Xander’s dream are attempts to escape his prison-like dwelling and that which is coming after him, only to inadvertently return. The changing environments he escapes into are, however, worth a brief discussion, for they serve to illuminate the areas in which he sees himself as inferior. His initial escape brings him into contact with Buffy, Giles, and Spike, all three of whom represent elements of his feelings of inferiority. This scene is important in the larger narrative of Xander’s dream, for it is here that he begins to feel alienated from those who have traditionally accepted him, failings and all. Buffy asserts the impossibility of a sexual relationship, calling Xander “big brother”; Giles insults his intelligence by rejecting him in favor of the vampire Spike, who Giles is training as a Watcher. Feeling excluded and replaced, Xander tells himself he has “other stuff going on,” and that it is important to “be moving forward,” even though his life consists of manning a usually stationary ice cream truck. As a means of denying his stasis, Xander leaves his friends and takes off in the ice cream truck, stressing the idea that although careers are meant to move us forward in life, Xander’s job is not moving him forward, but ultimately keeping him in place.

The sexual inferiority felt by Xander is highlighted again when Willow and Tara appear in his dream, inviting him to join them in a ménage-a-trois. Throughout the series narrative, as has been noted, the character of Xander has been constructed as other to the heteronormative male, and so his dream-state agreement to join the girls represents the re-surfacing of his repressed desire to be “normal.” Though Willow once pined for Xander, she has moved on, and to a place where Xander cannot follow; this is emphasized in that Xander is unable to reach the couple, though they are only feet away from him. Instead, he crawls back into his basement cell, where he finds that he is still haunted by his ideal-I.

Like Willow’s dream before him, Xander’s truly enters nightmare territory in its third act. While Willow’s nightmare took place in high school, for Xander, the ultimate symbol of his inferiority is the university which he has failed to move on to. Here, he finds himself unable to understand what even his lover Anya says to him; in the dream, she and Giles have been dubbed in French, pointing to Xander’s lack of intellectualism and sophistication. For Xander, the disconnect that has been developing throughout the dream between himself and those closest to him reaches its climax in this moment, and marks his ultimate failure. This failure results in his capture by the Initiative, and he is literally torn away from those he strives to emulate.

The fourth act of Xander’s dream finds us again in his basement abode, which has now been breached by the unknown entity that has been stalking him. We find that, far from being a physical manifestation of his ideal-I, the intruder is Xander’s father, who is instead the antithesis of what Xander considers to be his ideal. Thus, we can see that rather than being driven by the desire to become something more, Xander is running from that which he desires to be more than. As he is caught in stasis, he is caught between opposite ends of a spectrum, with the purpose, acceptance, and love of the Scooby Gang on one end, and the arguments, disappointment, and perceived failure of his parents on another. The final moments of his dream feature his father literally ripping Xander’s heart out. Given that Xander is often cited as the heart of the Scooby Gang (Wilcox 142) this is a violent physical representation of Xander’s repressed fear of being torn away from Anya, Willow, Buffy, and Giles by his inability to live up to what he perceives as their expectations for him. Giles’s Dream

If Xander is the heart of the Scooby Gang, then Rupert Giles is the brain. As Buffy’s Watcher, he is the primary adult influence upon the young characters inBuffy the Vampire Slayer. Generally speaking, Giles’s dream is a meditation on his inability to live up to any facet of his ideal self. Struggling to be both Watcher and father figure to Buffy, he can succeed at neither, and in the same way, in his devotion to Buffy’s training, he is unable to live a “normal” life outside of his work.

In the first scene of Giles’s dream, he is holding a pocket watch, which, as a dream symbol, has various meanings. First, the watch symbolizes time: Giles is literally watching time pass him by. He is middle-aged and has yet to become the man he is “supposed” to be, the kind of “grown-up” he imagined he would become. He has not accomplished the rock stardom he pursued in his youth, and he is no longer Buffy’s official Watcher. The clock is a barometer of his progress, or more specifically, a reminder of his lack of progress, and thus, his failure. The watch also connotes Giles’s post as Buffy’s Watcher. Cynthia Bowers observes that Giles “seem[s] convinced that the younger generation is out-of-control, in need of Watching, correcting, and policing.” As such, we see him, in the opening scene of his dream, attempting to exert his will upon Buffy, directing her into a state where he can more effectively control, correct, and police her. Joss Whedon acknowledges that “Buffy is Giles’s little girl, in a sense, particularly because Buffy’s biological father is absent. Giles tries to fulfill the role of father figure and watcher simultaneously, but in trying to accomplish both he fails to achieve success in either role. He is overextending himself, trying to be everything for everyone, and subconsciously he fears that he is disappointing the most important people in his life: Buffy, his girlfriend, the Scooby Gang, and of course, himself.

The dream transitions to Giles and his girlfriend Olivia taking a youthful Buffy to a carnival; the rides and games are located in the cemetery, and all of the attractions are vampire-related. Buffy, depicted as a child in her ordinary adult surroundings, stresses Giles’s conflicted feelings about simultaneously being Buffy’s Watcher and substitute father. Rather than sheltering Buffy from trauma and danger, he thrust her into it, and now feels guilt for his role in robbing Buffy of her adolescence. Buffy’s teenage years have been like a carnival of supernatural elements, and Giles was the one who hoisted her onto this merry-go-round of dark forces, an endless cycle of horror. The mingling of purity and decay in this scene illustrates that Buffy’s innocence has been sacrificed, and Giles feels that he has been the one to sacrifice it. He cannot spare Buffy pain the way a father should; he cannot take the weight of the world from her. He can only hope to prepare her to bear that weight. This is again illustrated when Buffy plays a game where she throws objects at vampires. When she successfully knocks the figure over, she excitedly grins at Giles, clearly waiting for him to voice his approval. He impatiently says, “I haven’t got any treats.” He cannot give her the encouragement she craves: he has to push her to be better because she constantly needs to improve if she is to have any hope for survival: the only “treat” he can give her is keeping her alive. His dual role in Buffy’s life ensures that he cannot be fully successful as either a father or a Watcher. As such, he sees himself as a failure in both regards, amounting to his being unable to reach the expectations placed upon him by his ideal-I.

When Olivia tells him to be less harsh with Buffy, Giles explains that “[T]his is my business. Blood of the lamb and all that.” As Wilcox notes, the blood of the lamb is an allusion “to the sacrifice of the innocent…Buffy is often a Christ-like figure. Giles’s life is absorbed by guiding the saviour of the world” (Wilcox 170). Even if Giles feels like he is an ideal Watcher, he is still failing to become his ideal-I, for he cannot be the ideal Watcher and a responsible father; he cannot guarantee Buffy’s safety or success, as it is Buffy who acts. Giles instructs her, and prepares her to the best of his abilities, but he is helpless. He is one of the primary influences on Buffy’s super-ego, the internalization of the father figure: his presence, physical and mental, influences her decision making, but it is Buffy who makes the final decision.

Giles follows Spike into a crypt and Olivia, who has been pushing an empty stroller for the duration of the dream, is crying on top of a casket. Wilcox argues that this is suggestive of unfulfilled elements in Giles life, noting that “a normal marriage with children seems unlikely” (170) for a man with the kind of responsibility Giles carries. Giles can be seen to have displaced his feelings about Buffy onto the empty stroller: Buffy cannot be his little girl, so he tries to fill this void with a phantom. When Giles appears confused and unsure of himself in the crypt, and does not know how to react, Spike reproaches him: “You gotta make up your mind… Haven’t you figured it all out yet?” Again, time is of the essence for Giles. Will Giles start a “real” family of his own, and will he act in the capacity of Buffy’s father or Watcher? Can he handle the precarious balance, or will he sabotage Buffy’s safety or emotional well-being on account of their mixing? Giles’s expansive intellect does not hold the answer to these questions; no matter how much knowledge he acquires through studying, none of the pages in his innumerable tomes contain the answer on how to manipulate his life circumstances in order to come closer his ideal-I.

The final scene in Giles’s dream takes place in the Bronze, a club that Buffy and her friends frequent. When Xander and Willow demand explanations from Giles for why they are being stalked by a primordial creature, Giles takes the stage and sings his theories, referencing his history as a musician. Before he can sing a solution to either his own existential crisis or the mysterious figure preying on the Scooby Gang, the sound system shorts out. Attempting to be the problem-solver he believes he should, Giles follows his microphone cord in search of the faulty wire, finding nothing but a mass of tangles. This unsalvageable mess is representative of the way Giles views his life: disorganized, broken, and without a clear path. And yet within the mess, we find something glittering: the pocket watch. Rather than a light in the dark, the watch tells Giles that time has wasted away without him having figured anything out.

In the mass of cords, Giles is finally confronted with the shadow that has haunted Willow and Xander before him. Similar to Xander’s loss of heart, Giles is scalped and lobotomized; he loses his brain, that which he considers to be his primary use to Buffy. In the end, then, Giles inability to make a decision as to whether he should serve as Buffy’s Watcher or father leads to his destruction. Buffy’s Dream

Buffy’s dream, which is the fourth and final act of “Restless,” offers perhaps the most complex exploration of the human desire to live up to imposed standards. Buffy considers herself to be a well-rounded Slayer in that she is still able to be engaged with life, and yet her dream tells another story, one in which she is unable to be a successful daughter or girlfriend while maintaining her position as the one and only Slayer.

The transition from teenager to adult is never an easy one to make, for it is a time when the bond between children and parents is tested. In Buffy’s case, this inability to find common ground with her mother was evident even before her departure for college. As a teenage Slayer, Buffy chose to exclude Joyce from the Scooby circle, telling her friends about her role as the Slayer before confiding in her mother. Unlike Buffy’s friends, who play very active supporting roles in her Slayer duties, Joyce is rarely even aware of impending apocalypses. Ultimately, Buffy erects walls to keep her family life completely separate from her life as a Slayer. In her dream, this is represented quite literally, as Joyce is living in the walls of Buffy’s college. Though Buffy worries aloud the walls are an unsanitary dwelling place, she does not “break through the wall” as her mother suggests, but rather becomes distracted and leaves. As such, Buffy is sentencing Joyce to live on the outskirts of her life, neglecting even an attempt to break the partition that divides them. Though this is, to Buffy’s conscious mind, in service of protecting her mother from the dangers that wait around every corner for Buffy, it ultimately serves to sever the only biological parental relationship she knows. Thus, Buffy’s dream illuminates the ways in which she is unable to be an ideal (or even appropriate) daughter.

When Buffy first reveals her calling to her Mother, she criticizes Joyce for being in denial, for failing to notice how many times she had to wash blood out of Buffy’s clothes. Whereas Giles spills blood at Buffy’s side, Joyce bleaches its remnants out of her clothes. The male parent figure, Giles, is infinitely more involved with Buffy’s missions than Joyce is: whereas Giles trains, educates, and fights alongside Buffy, Joyce is shown shopping, watching movies, and cooking with her. Buffy’s “parents” thus conform to dominant gender roles. Buffy is unable to embody what is societally considered as an ideal daughter to Joyce partly because she is an atypical daughter with unusual circumstances, but also because she does not give Joyce a chance to adapt to her abnormalities.

While Buffy is recognized as “a radical reimagining of what a girl (and a woman) can do and be,” (Byars 173) the show reveals the consequences of rejecting gender norms. These consequences are exposed in Buffy’s scene with Riley, her boyfriend. Buffy finds Riley in a boardroom wearing a suit. He tells Buffy that his agency is in the midst of drawing up a plan for world domination; when Buffy questions whether that is a positive thing, Riley condescendingly responds, “Baby, we’re the government. It’s what we do.” At that instant, the camera zooms in on a gun placed on the table which is pointed in Buffy’s direction. Stevie Simkin observes that “The use of firearms–and especially pistols–can be seen as an important signifier of the wider issue of anxious masculinity” withinBuffy the Vampire Slayer. Riley does not need to give Buffy an elaborate justification for world-domination: the gun communicates his message clearly. He and his male partners are dominating the world because they can.

Judith Butler notes that “one does not ‘do’ one’s gender alone. One is always ‘doing’ with or for another, even if the other is only imaginary” (Undoing Gender 2). Riley is “performing” masculinity for Buffy and using the hyper-phallic symbol of a gun as a prop. Buffy is stronger than Riley, a fact which has been demonstrably difficult for him to come to terms with: he is compensating for his lack of strength by exaggerating his “masculine” power by displaying his gun. When Buffy enters the scene, Riley refers to her as “killer.” Butler argues that “we regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right” (Subversive Bodily Acts 381), and as such, we can see that Riley is taking on the role of stereotypical male to punish Buffy for failing to perform femininity correctly; she is supposed to be weaker than him, to require his protection. By referring to Buffy as “killer,” Riley detracts from Buffy’s honorable position as the Slayer, portraying her as a murderer rather than a hero as a punishment for her refusing to be the ideal woman to his ideal man. When under attack, Buffy does not need Riley and his gun to defend her: she has her own weapons. When her external weapons fail her, she can rely on her physical strength to conquer most opponents by embodying her slayer persona, which is represented in Buffy’s dream by what is akin to war paint. After Buffy’s weapons turn into mud, Buffy paints herself with this earthy matter: she is returning to the Slayer’s natural state, embracing her animalistic impulses. This return to the Slayer’s primordial roots leads Buffy to “turn to go out on her own quest for self in her dream of the desert” (Wilcox 51).

Buffy heads to the open, expansive, and totally isolated desert: this contrasts with the polished interior of the government building Riley is working in. Buffy is turning away from civilization and as a result of this, she meets her primal counterpart: the first Slayer. Freud identifies two basic instincts in the mind: eros and the destruction instinct, the death drive (The Mind and Its Workings 5). The encounter between Buffy and the first Slayer juxtaposes eros and the destructive drive: in this scene Buffy represents the former, and the first Slayer the latter.

The first Slayer embodies the death drive: “I live in the action of death. The bloodcry. The penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute. Alone.” Buffy resists this isolation: her supernatural lineage makes her different than other people, but she still manages to form meaningful social relations. She is not just the Slayer: she is Buffy, a person. She has friends, boyfriends, a mother. Joss Whedon explains that “the side of her that is Buffy is as important as the side of her that is the Slayer.” The Slayer may have been, like Riley says, a “killer,” but Buffy is a new Slayer: the kill is part of her duty, but she has an identity outside of her role as the Slayer. Buffy insists that she is not alone: she has loved ones, and her bonds to people make her more human than the first Slayer. When the first Slayer tells Buffy that the Slayer does not walk in this world, Buffy rejects this definition saying, “I walk. I talk. I shop. I sneeze.” Buffy will not accept her destiny as the Slayer as a sentencing to be nothing more than a machine designed to kill. She is Buffy and she is a Slayer, and in this differentiating characteristic, this ‘abnormality’, Buffy is whole. Smashing Lacan’s mirror, Buffy ultimately refuses to be limited by an ideal (personal or societal) that no longer holds relevance for her.

The dreams of Willow, Xander, Giles, and Buffy in “Restless” each explore the ways in which none of us is able to live up to the multitude of pressures placed on the self from forces both internal and external. We are none of us perfect friends, lovers, or parents; no one can ever be the perfect man or woman. Like the forces of good and evil, the conscious self and the unconscious “murky shadow self of the dark” (Bacon-Smith) must co-exist, and ultimately need each other to exist. Without an image of ourselves, whether that image comes from within us or without, we would be locked in the stasis of our unconscious desires and fears forever. By allowing viewers a glimpse into the subconscious ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer’s four main characters, creator Joss Whedon shows his audience that “Buffy’s rejection of simple black and white” (Wilcox 52) broadens beyond conceptions of good and evil, extending into considerations of the grey area between self and self-image including that of gender identity.