Somnium (2024) Ending Explained

Welcome to Knockout Horror. If you are new here, we review horror movies, explain horror movie endings, and put out horror movie ranking lists. Today, I’m going to be trying to clear up another horror movie’s plot with this Somnium Ending Explained article. This is a biggie so buckle up and grab a coffee, or something.

Well, I say clearing up the plot and explaining the ending but it is probably important for me to clarify. While I always state that ending explained articles are entirely based on my interpretation of the ending. Some movies leave their endings so open that actually explaining the ending becomes a bit of a difficult task. This is one of those cases.

Somnium is deliberately vague and deliberately open to interpretation. The horror also acts as something of an analogue for facing your fears and separating dreams from reality. With that being said, I am going to give it my best shot.

Do keep in mind, however, this is my own subjective interpretation of the ending. Your viewpoint may differ and that is totally fine. This article does contain spoilers. Check out our review to read my opinion on Somnium. Oh, and a special shoutout to the website that paraphrased the recap section of this article and then put up their “own” ending explained a few hours after mine. Nice work! Without further ado, let’s take a look.

Let’s Recap Somnium

As always, we will kick things off by recapping the plot of Somnium before explaining the ending. The movie starts off with our protagonist Gemma (Chloë Levine) sleeping on the floor of an apartment. Gemma has upped sticks and moved from a small town in Georgia to Los Angeles in the hopes of becoming an actress. I thought Levine was great in the lead role but man does her accent ever slip a lot. It’s like she forgets that her character is supposed to be a bit of a hick.

There’s a lot of emphasis here on how broke Gemma is. Her bank account is low on funds, she is using a budget moving company, and she is desperately in need of work. I don’t know why anyone would move across the country with $240 in their bank account. I guess it’s just to emphasise the absurdity of her plan. Gemma places an envelope full of money in the top of the cupboard. These are emergency funds to purchase a plane ticket should she need to go back home.

What Does The Somnium Clinic Do?

After being rejected at numerous potential workplaces. Gemma decides to enquire about a job at the Somnium clinic. This clinic was started by a former sports psychologist, Dr. Katherine Shaffer, who developed a formula for helping athletes attain success. The clinic takes clients in for a six-week treatment program. There, they are placed into an unconscious state and their brains are rewired through the injection of specific images and sounds into their dreams. These images reflect the life that they ideally want to live.

After spending so much time immersed in this world, the client begin to develop a subconscious connection with these images. When they wake up, they have a stronger belief in themselves and a desire to go out and attain what it is they think that they deserve. After all, they are now convinced that they actually already are what they always wanted to be.

I guess it’s like a “dream it into reality” type of thing. Sort of a modern science-fiction equivalent of those old positive thinking cassette tapes that claim they can help people lose weight or quit smoking. Make them believe they are successful in the deepest pits of their minds and they will manifest it in real life.

As Noah points out, later on, perception is, essentially, reality. The job Gemma applies for simply involves working overnight and making sure clients are sleeping soundly and doors, etc, are shut. Pay is low but this would leave afternoons free for auditions. Gemma is desperate so she happily accepts.

A Strange Break-in

When Gemma returns home, her apartment door is flung open. She walks in and is startled by her own reflection yet, surprisingly, everything else seems okay. I am not really sure what this part is supposed to illustrate which is something this film does over and over again. The most simple explanation is that it might be to emphasise that she lives in a dangerous area with break-ins or that she is paranoid.

This is common in the shadier parts of cities where properties are cheaper to rent. Obviously, Gemma has nothing to steal so they just left. This will, obviously, become something extra for Gemma to stress about, though. Remember, fear is going to play a big part in this movie. The next morning, Gemma’s personal stuff is delivered, awards, pens, her diary. Feels a bit silly to have pens delivered, they cost pennies to buy but, whatever.

We learn about Gemma’s relationship with her boyfriend Hunter through a flashback. Flashbacks are going to play a big part in Somnium. Hunter is an aspiring musician but, in contrast to Gemma, he is very grounded.

He has no expectations of fame and is very aware that he will likely spend his life working in his dad’s garage. Hunter sketches the house he wants to build, one day.. I think he might need to up his skills or invest in some proper blueprints as that picture is going to be tough for the builders to work with.

Gemma Starts Work at Somnium

Gemma is struggling to get auditions but at least she can earn money. After her first night on the job, she sits at home where she believes she hears something in her apartment. We then get another flashback to Gemma and her friends acting like absolute idiots in a supermarket carpark. This scene is so weird; all the characters look so old but are acting like 13 year olds. This is, obviously, to emphasise that Gemma is feeling a little home-sick.

Gemma heads to the arcade where she believes her co-worker Olivia will be hanging out. She wants to socialise but, instead, walks up to random people and smiles at them like an alien. Eventually, she heads outside where she meets a man named Brooks. Instead of being creeped out by this, frankly, pretty weird dude, she gets his number and tells him her life story. Brooks is a television and film producer and seems to be well connected in Los Angeles so at least that is a bonus.

The next day, Gemma receives a call about an audition. Maybe things are starting to look up? At work, Noah demonstrates how he manipulates the dreams of the people at the clinic. He takes a picture of Gemma to show how he can use AI to place her actual image into the clinic’s program.

He also shows her how he can directly influence the dreams of powerful people by doing this. If he inserts the person into billboards and magazines in the dream, they will become obsessed with them. Noah tells Gemma of how he could create a career for her by placing her into the dreams of a producer or director but she is, rightfully, pretty creeped out.

Gemma’s Audition and Trouble at Home

Gemma hits up her audition and, apparently, seems to do really well. Really strong performance from Levine, right here. The next day, while in work, she believes she sees a strange human-like, deformed creature in one of the rooms. He co-worker, Olivia, tells her it is nothing. While on the phone with a friend from home, Gemma learns that Hunter has apparently moved on with another girl.

Gemma is upset due to the short period of time since she left. We get a fairly cringe flashback scene highlighting them saying they would love each other forever. Gemma decides it’s time to call up Brooks and the pair hang out for a little. This is, probably, something of a rebound but also a way to work some connections in the industry.

Later on, Gemma still hasn’t heard about the audition and her money is starting to run out. She has a low bank balance and the rent is due. Open auditions all want girls with dance experience, slim physiques, or very specific looks. Gemma starts running to lose weight and her frustration builds. She is determined not to fail but things aren’t looking promising.

While in work, she finds the camera Noah used to take a picture of her stashed in a drawer. Checking the camera to delete the image, she sees a strange video recorded by Noah. It is directed at an unseen person and seems rather sinister. Before she can finish the video, the doors burst open.

Welcome to Cloud 9

An elderly woman is being forcibly dragged into the clinic. Noah relates that it is their first “Cloud 9” patient of the year. Cloud 9 is a procedure the clinic uses to treat mentally ill patients who are a danger to themselves or others. Whereas the regular program lasts 6 weeks and is designed to help the patient manifest their own hopes and dreams. Cloud 9 is an intensive and risky 9 hour program that makes the patient believe their dreams have already come true.

Patients are given a cocktail of MAOIs (Anti-depressants used to treat medication resistant depressive disorders) and DMT (A psychedelic). And are fed images that make them believe that they have experienced something they haven’t actually experienced. The process is irreversible and, basically, leads them to think their reality is different to what it actually is. Which Noah thinks is preferable to living in their actual, mentally unwell, reality.

Noah dismisses Olivia’s concerns related to the procedure and relates the success they had with Patient 221. The next day, Gemma starts searching for documents to find out what happened to patient 221 but they are strangely missing. After hearing something during her search, she heads to another part of the building where she hears the voice of a woman and finds Noah acting very suspiciously.

Gemma Discovers Noah’s Secret

Brooks invites Gemma to a party where there will be lots of producers and directors. He thinks this could be a great chance for her to network and create some connections with important people. Gemma is working but is determined to find a way to attend.

We get a quick flashback here showing Gemma asking a local band to let Hunter play with them. This is a little follow up to Hunter relating to Gemma how he sometimes mourns for the life he never got to live and the dreams he couldn’t follow. The band is called Twin Peaks because Somnium wears its inspirations on its sleeve, apparently.

Hunter is embarrassed because he looks up to the band. This whole scene is designed to emphasise that Hunter and Gemma have very different approaches to their hopes and dreams. Hunter is very realistic and considers dreams to be just that – dreams. Whereas Gemma believes that dreams are something to be pursued. This all plays into the film’s overarching concept of manifesting your dreams into reality.

Gemma decides that she can visit the party by deleting the security footage of her leaving work. While checking whether this would work, she sees footage of Noah assaulting a young woman. The woman is, obviously, very distressed and it appears that she isn’t the only one to have experienced this. There are many victims of Noah depicted in different pieces of footage. Rather than call the police, Gemma backs the footage up to an external hard drive before leaving for the party.

Who Was Somnium’s Patient 221?

At the party, Gemma meets the famous starlet, Max. We have been seeing Max in posters all over the place and on television. She is someone that Gemma apparently looks up to. It turns out, however, that Max was actually Patient 221 at the Somnium clinic. She was brought in against her will during an episode of mental illness.

Max went into a coma during the cloud 9 procedure at Somnium and nearly died. Eventually, just before they pulled the plug, she woke up and her entire reality had changed. Rather than just a regular person, the Cloud 9 procedure had made Max believe that she was a superstar. This, naturally, made her act and dress like a superstar which seems to have made the dream manifest into reality.

It seems as though Max only knows about what happened before the Cloud 9 procedure because of her friend. Her friend relates how Max came out completely different, full of confidence, and feeling like a superstar. This, obviously, illustrates the risks of the Cloud 9 procedure that Olivia mentioned earlier. Patients can die and success rate is incredibly rare. When it works, however, it can completely change the person’s life.

Gemma Messed Up!

Gemma heads back to the clinic but Olivia is standing outside using the phone; Gemma messed up and was caught absent at her post. She is going to be fired so she heads back to her apartment, rather than face the inevitable. When she gets home, she finds an eviction notice as she has not been paying the rent. She has three days to pay up or she has to leave.

Later that night, Gemma sees the human-like monster in her apartment, again. She hides from it but we will get into the whole monster thing a little more in just a little. Gemma calls Brooks over to retrieve his coat. He sees the state she is living in and relates his concern for her. There is crap everywhere, dirty dishes, and Gemma is obviously not doing well.

Gemma asks him why he hasn’t helped her find an acting job, yet, before trying to kiss him. Brooks tells her that he didn’t want that from her and if he did he would have just taken it.. Bit creepy but, okay. He tells her that the next time she comes face to face with her fears, she needs to confront them. This statement will be quite important later on.

Why Did Gemma and Hunter Split Up?

We get a few flashback scenes next that act as a bit of an exposition dump. Gemma and Hunter had been together for a couple of years but were having problems. It, ultimately, boiled down to the pair of them wanting different things.

It seems as though Hunter had agreed to go to L.A with Gemma. Despite this, it isn’t what he actually wanted. He still loves Gemma but he feels like he is holding her back as he has always been content to live a normal life.

Hunter doesn’t want to hold Gemma down and make her stay in their small Georgia town for the sake of him. He tells her to go and follow her dreams. Gemma, reluctant and sad at first, eventually buys herself a one way plane ticket to Los Angeles and leaves Hunter behind.

Back in the present day, in a rage, Gemma puts all of her old pictures and remnants of her past life in a trash bag and throws it out. When she re-enters her apartment, she believes she sees the monstrous figure that has been haunting her but, instead, it is Noah. He sedates her and takes her back to the clinic.

Gemma Enters Noah’s Nightmare World

When Gemma briefly wakes from the sedative, she hears Noah talking to her. He tells her he will come and get her later and she will forget this ever happened. It seems as though Noah was actually infatuated with Gemma. He asked her on a date earlier in the movie but she rejected him. Now, since she was fired from the Somnium clinic, he decided to kidnap her, instead.

We actually learn here that the last person who worked at the Somnium clinic, in the same position as Gemma, also figured out what Noah was up to. This is why there have been so many people hired and fired there. They figure out what was going on and Noah removes their memories using the Cloud 9 program so that they don’t tell anyone.

Gemma is now in the Cloud 9 dream world so nothing that she actually sees here is really happening. It is the result of the program that Noah has created for her. Gemma sees herself on the John Parks late night talk show where she completely fluffs the answers to simple questions due to being completely confused. The audience boo her off the stage.

She then sees a place that looks like her mum and dad’s diner where Hunter is waiting. He tells her that she is a failure, having lost her apartment and job, not succeeded in becoming an actress, and her friends having moved on. He mocks her for leaving to follow her dreams. Gemma, in a moment of clarity, realises this isn’t real and tells him that. She tells him that Hunter showed her what real love was, even if it meant letting her go. She couldn’t stay there; she had to leave.

Gemma Confronts Her Fear

Gemma walks away from Hunter before finding herself in a black space confronted by the monster she has been seeing throughout the film. She walks up to the monster, suppressing her fear and looks it in the eyes. The monster then begins to break apart, leaving Gemma to suddenly wake from the Cloud 9 program.

Gemma leaves the clinic with a new found confidence and sense of self. As she does, she tells Olivia about the hard drive containing the footage of Noah assaulting the women. Noah is incredibly shocked to see her, believing she would still be in the Cloud 9 program. Gemma heads back to her apartment. She takes the money from her emergency ticket fund and uses it to pay her rent. A nice way of emphasising her new found confidence. She doesn’t need the money to go back home because she will succeed regardless of the odds being stacked against her.

Gemma cleans up her apartment and finally does the dishes. We then see a television report relating that Noah had been caught. All thanks to Gemma backing the incriminating footage up onto the hard drive and he will be charged with assaulting a number of women.

Gemma then receives a phone call. It is the people from her first audition. There was a delay in production but they are ready to proceed and want to cast her in a role. Gemma has already secured her first acting job and everything is looking pretty rosy for her, all of a sudden.

Was It All A Dream?

This has got to be the kick off point for explaining this ending, right? We really need to answer the question, was it all just a dream or was it real? Somnium has a deliberately non-linear timeline, throughout. It’s supposed to feel Lynchian and dream-like; almost like an episode of Twin Peaks.

This means, anything we actually see in the movie could have taken place in any order. There’s really no defined continuity. This means that Gemma could have been a client of the Somnium clinic all along. Having turned to them early into her journey to L.A to help her succeed as an actress or even as a patient after a mental health episode.

Perhaps everything that happened all took place right after she became a client of the clinic and it was all part of the program itself. The failure in her auditions and the losing of her job was necessary to give her a sense of having overcome the odds. Brooks telling her to confront her fear was the program’s way of showing her how to overcome the monster of fear and self doubt.

At the end of the dream, she confronts the monster face to face, completing the program. Eventually, she comes out with the belief that she can be a successful actress. Noah wasn’t real, Brooks didn’t exist, the monster wasn’t real, and so on and so forth. It was all just part of the program.

After all, that is the whole point of it. It blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. When it is successful, the patient will come out with a new sense of self belief. If you ask me, that’s a pretty boring explanation but I imagine a lot of people will jump on that first. One thing doesn’t make sense, though.

Noah and the Cloud 9 Program

A lot of the above theory hinges on whether the character of Noah was real in the first place. After all, why would the Somnium clinic inject the whole “Noah kidnaps women” sub-plot into the program designed to help Gemma become an actress? We have to assume that Noah was real because the story doesn’t make much sense, otherwise.

Noah was real, he was kidnapping women, and Gemma found out. With that in mind, we also need to look at what exactly it was that Noah was intending to do by putting Gemma in the Cloud 9 program.

We know that Noah was kidnapping and assaulting women. He is surprised when Gemma emerges from the Cloud 9 program and he is then arrested for the crimes. We see his mugshot on television and it is, presumably, a big story. This actually happened in the film’s reality. With this in mind, we can say, concretely, that Gemma caught him in the act via the security footage. Here’s the assumed timeline.

Gemma arrives in L.A -> Gemma gets a job at Somnium -> Gemma has an audition -> Gemma finds the security footage of Noah -> Noah puts her into the Cloud 9 program -> Gemma wakes up -> Noah is arrested.

Noah needed to get rid of Gemma or else he would be in trouble, hence why he kidnaps her and puts her into the Cloud 9 program. This has happened before with employees at the Somnium night shift. Remember, this program will make people completely forget their past and believe that whatever happened in the dream world was reality. The images in the Cloud 9 program would replace their own memories.

What Was Noah’s Plan?

It would seem as though Noah was trying to use the Cloud 9 program to make Gemma believe that she was a failed actress who hadn’t achieved anything she intended to achieve. That way, she would return home and the people around her would be none the wiser because the story would check out. Hence, they wouldn’t push her and she wouldn’t remember her past.

After all, this was partly based on reality. Her family and friends knew she was leaving for Los Angeles and already doubted her ability to make it as an actress. Not only had she not had success through auditions, she had also lost her regular job, was living in squalor, and was being evicted.

Noah is aware of all of this and incorporates it into the program. I, also, believe that Noah has acquired her diary from the trash and is aware of Gemma’s past. This is why Gemma sees Hunter in the dream world and he berates her and knows things he shouldn’t know.

Had the Cloud 9 program worked, Gemma would have simply woke up and decided to go back to her home town. Entirely believing she had completely failed. Noah would get away with everything.

The problem is, Gemma faced her fears in the dream world by looking the monster in the face. Brooks had told her earlier in the movie that she needs to confront the things she is scared of and so she did. She then woke up with a new found sense of confidence. Noah was arrested and Gemma got her first acting job.

It All Actually Happened

Director and writer Racheal Cain has said, herself, that we only see the real world and flashbacks in Somnium. There is no dream world other than the one at the end that came as a result of the Cloud 9 program. I guess I should elaborate on my theory based on Cain’s own words. The majority of what we see actually happens. Gemma does struggle to get auditions, she does run out of money, she does lose her job, and she does nearly get evicted.

This is just the reality of life in L.A for young aspiring actors and actresses. Taking menial, low-paying, jobs is just part of the experience. You live in dangerous areas, you have little in the way of spare money, and you spend all of your time working and auditioning. Gemma was just living the real life L.A experience.

Brooks was real. Connections in the industry are important and Gemma tried to use those connections through Brooks. Trying to take advantage of that did lose her the job at the Somnium clinic. Noah really was kidnapping and assaulting women and Gemma did find out. He put her into the Cloud 9 program to try and erase her memories and get rid of her so that he would get away with it again.

But What About The Monster?

The big question here is the monster that Gemma sees, right? Well, the unsatisfying explanation for that is that it is a symbolic monster. In much the same way as Mr Babadook is a manifestation of the character’s depression, the monster in Somnium is a manifestation of Gemma’s fears and self doubt.

It appears whenever she is scared of failing. It appears when she doesn’t hear back from auditions, it appears when she is fired, and there is the hint of it in the back of the car after Hunter tells her to follow her dreams. The monster is a symbolic representation of Gemma’s fear of not succeeding and having to return home having failed.

Brooks tells her that she has to look her fear in the face and confront it. This is what gives her the knowledge to do just that when trapped in the Cloud 9 program. She confronts her fear head on and that’s why she can wake up from the program. Noah believed that she was weak but he was wrong. Rather than succumbing to the Cloud 9’s reconditioning, she woke up like Max, Patient 221, and had a new sense of self confidence.

When she left the facility, Noah was arrested, she paid her rent because she knew she was going to stay in Los Angeles and pursue her acting career, and finally heard back about the audition. The timing there being nothing more than coincidence. In fact, the timing of the call about the audition is the thing that really solidifies this explanation. She had that audition very early in the movie.

The True Explanation

If I am being perfectly honest, the one thing that absolutely confirms that this is the actual explanation for the ending of Somnium is director and writer Rachael Cain, herself. This movie is Cain’s real life story, minus the science-fiction aspects, of course.

Cain left her original home in 2012 after having her heart broken. She bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and crashed on a friend’s sofa. She had hopes of making it big with a script she was working on. That script was Somnium. She worked menial jobs at night and spent her afternoons crafting and refining the script.

Gemma is a self-insert for Cain. This is her story and her depiction of how she, herself, manifested her own dreams into reality. In a way, that makes it all the more interesting.

A Messy Narrative

The truth of the matter is that, in her attempt to channel David Lynch, Cain simply muddled her narrative a little. I think she wanted to draw parallels between dreams and reality and the notion of wishing things into existence, and she partly succeeded. So many people fail at what they dream of before they even start because they can’t get past the fear that stops them from trying in the first place.

The reality is, taking the steps towards accomplishing your dreams might be tough and scary. But you have no chance of succeeding if you don’t take those steps. You sort of do have to dream it into existence, when you really think about it. Cain draws further attention to those parallels by asking the viewer whether Gemma’s new found confidence and, indeed, success was of her own doing, or a result of the Cloud 9 program

In reality, Gemma was always confronting her fears and taking the steps she needed to take and we could see she had talent. In a way, she already had everything she needed to succeed. The audition took place early on. She was always going to get the part, it was just a matter of time. The narrative is, unfortunately, a bit poorly defined and left ambiguous for the sake of being ambiguous.

There is enough doubt in there to suggest it may all just be a dream or a program at the Somnium clinic. So much of that doesn’t make sense, though, that there is only one real way to look at it. Like Cain said herself, we only see flashbacks and the real world. None of this was a dream. If the writer said that, I have to take her word for it. This is her story and it is based on how she, herself, manifested dreams into reality.

Writers Love Ambiguity

One thing that might help you to understand the writing is the simple fact that directors and writers adore the idea of ambiguity. They want you to fill in the gaps, even if the gaps they have left are more like massive craters.

Whenever I have spoken to a writer or director about a film, they rarely give concrete answers. They protect their plots the same way a magician protects their tricks. Even if it just a slasher with minimal narrative.

With that being said, some people will read this ending explained and disagree with me. That’s fine, but I am just working with the writer’s own words, her own experience, and what I see on screen. If you prefer the dream theory, go with that. Thanks for reading and spending your time at Knockout Horror.

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