Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) has psychic abilities which he uses to win horse races. Bad guys are after him and he's had it with doctors prodding him. He left doctor Paul Novotny (Max von Sydow) years ago. Along with Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw), they are researching entering other people's dreams. Brash Tommy Ray Glatman (David Patrick Kelly) is another psychic in the program. Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer) runs the program. The president (Eddie Albert) is having nightmares and he asks for Bob's help. Charlie Prince (George Wendt) is a horror writer, who is looking to write a book, tells him that Bob is the most powerful man in the US government.The part that is holding this movie back are the dreams. It has to be considered that this is before CG. I really like the kid's nightmare. It has a Twilight Zone and horror feel. The president's nightmare isn't quite as good. The battle could be more inventive. It is constrained by technology more than the imagination. Dennis Quaid has the cockiness and he's good as the lead.

Dennis Quaid plays Alex Gardner, a young man with psychic abilities who is on the run from gangsters who want him to work for them.(He can pick the winners from horse races). Alex is saved by the timely intervention by his former teacher(Max Von Sydow) who wants his help with the secret government project he had once been involved with, in order to help both a young boy traumatized by nightmares, and also the U.S. president(played by Eddie Albert) who is having horrible nightmares about WWIII, and so wants a treaty with the Russians, which forces in the government(led by Christopher Plummer) want to prevent...Exciting and highly entertaining film is well acted by its stars, and has imaginative and scary visuals(including the Snake man) that work quite well. Villains may be one-dimensional, but film still works, and has a good score and satisfying ending.

I first saw this soon after release on TV having not been able to sleep. Probably not a good film choice, but I vaguely remember realising that I shouldn't really be watching it and was scared by it, my heart beating hard the whole time. It had quite a profound effect on me. Watching it again, whilst not "horror" as I'd previously thought, it does have enough to make it gripping and I jumped once or twice, despite it being quite obviously dated. The premise is very clever and good science-fiction and possibly the idea behind films like Inception. Whilst I don't like reboots as a general rule, I would be interested to see how this was tackled with today's CGI and technology. The stop-start model animation sequences let the film down in what is otherwise a not-bad watching for a nearly 30yo film.The plot is not as basic as it first appears, and unfolds in conspiracy-esque fashion and Dennis Quaid is perfect in the role; both funny and cheeky, flirty and sexy but also physical enough to handle some action and stunts believably. Christopher Plummer plays villainous research facility mastermind superbly well with his quiet calm and authoritative manner, perfect foil for Quaid's animation and brash style. There are shades of InnerSpace (insertion into a biological function inner world) but with more sinister and dark method, and with greater ramifications. Kate Capshaw as researcher Jane DeVries and David Patrick Kelly as obvious twisted bad-guy Tommy Ray are stereotype made-to-measure but suited and add to the film's plausibility.I'm not going to say it's a brilliant film but for it's time, the psychological potential of it and the fact that it's great science fiction and despite it's age is still gripping, I'm giving it a 6/10.

The whole concept of this movie was pretty interesting. The ability to go into someones dream and help them face their nightmares. But the only people who can do it are psychics. At first you are hook to a machine, but if you are strong enough, you can do it without the machine. The cast was pretty good. Dennis Quaid did a decent job. I guess you could say he had an enemy and it was David Patrick Kelly. He was pretty good too. More creepy than anything. The one thing this film lacked was story. It jumped around way too much. Plus it rushed a lot. The whole time you want to see Dennis Quaid in a dream, but when he finally gets into one, the scene doesn't last that long. That is the whole point to the movie; the dreams. The last dream he enters is longer, but still rushed. Maybe they were just afraid to extend the movie, I am not sure. But if done right, it could of been fantastic.