The following contains spoilers for In Your DreamsIn Your Dreams is a sweet story about family, with the ending focusing on the fallout of the family’s confrontation with the Sandman. In Your Dreams follows Stevie and Elliot as they chart an adventure through the dreamscape in hopes of gaining a wish from the supposedly all-powerful Sandman.
Along the way, the pair is able to overcome their own problems and finally reach the mystical force. However, the truth about his powers sets up the film’s true conflict and climax, all while highlighting the film’s themes about the importance of family in the face of an imperfect world.
The Sandman Is The Antagonist Of In Your Dreams
Despite being presented as an overarching good figure in the first half of In Your Dreams, the Sandman is the ultimate antagonist of the film and the force that Stevie, Elliot, and their family have to overcome. For much of the film, Stevie and Elliot are on the hunt for the Sandman.
Believing that he has the power to keep their family from splintering apart, the two are eventually successful in escaping Nightmara’s various challenges and make it to the Sandman’s castle. However, once there, they discover that the Sandman can only give them a dream where that comes true.
While Elliot is able to resist the temptation, Stevie is lured into this fantasy. This leaves her comatose in the real world, with a desperate rescue attempt by her family being the only way that she can be saved. The Sandman’s villainous turn is notably not one born of malice or malicious intent.
As Nightmara explains to Elliot when they meet one another, the Sandman used to work alongside her to ensure that people found comfort and bravery in their good and bad dreams alike. However, Sandman began to see only the value in happy dreams, even if they were ones that people couldn’t escape.
Sandman suffers from the same internal flaw as Stevie, with an unwillingness to accept the harsher truths and sadder possibilities that come with life. Her initial decision to give in to him is born from a desire to never let her happy life change, something he encourages and argues she should embrace.
However, this notably comes with a fantasy where her brother doesn’t exist. Realizing that conflicts and challenges also come with new experiences and loves is what shakes Stevie out of the illusion that the Sandman was right, leading her to try and escape him.
In Your Dreams takes a clever approach to the central conflict of the narrative, revealing that the Sandman and Stevie’s desire to lock themselves into a happy place is just hiding from the world. Instead, by confronting the Sandman and accepting that change is inevitable, Stevie isn’t only freed but also helps her family come back together.
What Happens To Stevie And Elliot’s Family
Much of the drama in In Your Dreams stems from Stevie’s fears that her parents’ marital strife will lead the pair of them to separate. While Dad wants to remain in their family home and carry on his musician dreams, Mom has accepted a new path for herself and wants them to move for a potential new teaching job.
By the end of the film, the danger posed to Stevie reunites the parents and sees them work together to help save their daughter. Afterwards, it becomes clear that Stevie’s own arc has helped them both recognize the importance of their family and how it’s better than any single dream.
One of the emotional undercurrents of In Your Dreams is the reveal that Dad and Mom had been in a band together and originally had larger aspirations of musical success. However, while Mom adjusted her expectations once they had a family, Dad has still been holding out hope that they could realize that dream.
In that sense, Dad is just as trapped by dreams as Stevie becomes, pushing their real family aside in hopes of an aspirational ideal version of the world. In the end, both of them have to give up the dream (metaphorically for Dad, literally for Stevie) so that they can be reunited in the real world.
This doesn’t mean that their hopes are gone, though. The movie ends with Stevie content with her family’s renewed connection to one another, even as she acknowledges life can get tricky sometimes. Conversely, Dad notes that he’ll start a new band in their new town, keeping his hopes alive even as he adjusts to his family’s needs.
The True Meaning Of In Your Dreams
In Your Dreams is very much a movie about family and how they are more valuable than any hopeful aspiration or surface-level joy. Stevie’s big arc in the film is to recognize that she loves her brother and all the chaos he brings to her life. Her seemingly idealized life wouldn’t have him, and she quickly finds it lacking.
Mom and Dad may spend much of the film arguing about their job prospects and their future together, but they are reunited in defense of their children and ultimately learn to compromise on personal desires for the sake of the family as a whole. Together, the family can overcome their challenges.
In Your Dreams is a sweet story about the importance of family, noting that dark challenges may be scary, but they make people stronger for surviving them. Despite being presented initially as a monster, Nightmara ultimately helps Elliot and even explains that nightmares aren’t just scary, but meant to help people discover their resolve.
The happiest dreams in the world sometimes aren’t the key to true happiness. Instead, love is the key — whether that be parental love, a married couple, sibling connections, or self-recognition. In Your Dreams is all about those connections and what makes them more valuable than any idealized version of the world.
In Your Dreams
4/10
- Release Date
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November 14, 2025
- Runtime
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99 minutes
- Director
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Alex Woo, Erik Benson
- Writers
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Erik Benson, Alex Woo, Stanley Moore
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Craig Robinson
Baloney Tony
