Ever found the world of David Lynch confusing? His autobiography might provide you with clarifications.

David Lynch passed away last week. For many viewers, his name has always been synonymous with "mystery."

From Eraserhead to Mulholland Drive, from Wild at Heart to Twin Peaks, Lynch's films are beautiful yet dangerous enigmas. Audiences can sense their allure and violence but are rarely confident enough to say they fully "understand" any of them. This has made the secrets embedded in his work all the more tantalizing.

Seven years before his death, Lynch authorized and co-wrote an official biography titled Room to Dream. This comprehensive examination of his life and career, featuring a wealth of first-hand interviews and nearly a hundred high-resolution images, offers an unprecedented glimpse into his methods and mindset.

But I believe the question that most people will inevitably focus on is: Can this biography unlock the mysteries of Lynch’s films?

Lynch's B-Side: A Jolly Good Fella

Room to Dream is officially Lynch's autobiography, but it wasn’t completed solely by him. The biography is divided into 12 chapters, each representing different phases of Lynch's life and career. Co-author Kristine McKenna interviewed Lynch's partners and collaborators at each stage of his life and then shaped these materials into an oral history. Lynch provided personal recollections and comments after reading McKenna’s drafts, correcting details along the way.

This structure gives Lynch’s image in the book remarkable depth. Surprisingly, most of the people interviewed described Lynch in ways that were strikingly consistent and quite different from the public image of him.

Lynch's work often leads the public to expect the following: He is a strange person living in a fascinating yet chaotic private world, possibly mentally unstable, with little interest in the mundane realities of life. But those who knew him deeply describe him as stable, sunny, warm, peaceful, genuinely caring and loving toward others. He is friendly, treating everyone equally, and even the staff who bring him coffee on set receive his utmost respect. He exudes positive energy and is a deeply considerate leader on set: when actors don't meet expectations, he offers feedback gently without embarrassing them; when the crew is understaffed or the shoot is behind schedule, he will step in, rearranging sets and moving equipment without hesitation, not feeling ashamed of doing manual labor.

Lynch's family and friends describe his approach to life and others as almost childishly direct. He doesn’t fully understand social etiquette. For instance, while filming The Elephant Man, he seriously asked a museum director if he could borrow the museum’s prized "Elephant Man" body model (he succeeded), and while working on Dune, he suggested an actor undergoing minor surgery to make two small holes in their cheeks for realism (it didn’t work).

Yet, Lynch's talent lies in this directness. He is able to see the essence of a person’s character with incredible clarity and use it to his advantage. Bill Pullman, who often played the loyal, good-natured guy, caught Lynch’s eye for a role as a schizophrenic wife-killer in Lost Highway. Naomi Watts, who struggled in Hollywood before Mulholland Drive, was seen by Lynch as someone with both vulnerability and strength, qualities he captured in the film. Watts, in turn, views Lynch as her benefactor because, before him, no director had treated her as a respected individual.

Lynch's A-Side: The Dark Artist

No matter how kind Lynch may appear to be, there is something more important than kindness: his art. When his creative freedom is compromised, he becomes someone you absolutely do not want to cross.

As Room to Dream recounts, Lynch made this realization after finishing Dune. He received a generous director’s fee from the film, and the luxurious lifestyle of producer Dino De Laurentiis opened his eyes to new possibilities. But in the end, he had given up control over the film's editing and did not create the film he wanted. This was probably the moment when David Lynch truly became David Lynch. In an alternate world, he could have chosen to sell out to Hollywood, becoming a more conventional but wealthier director. Instead, he deeply regretted his past “betrayal” of art and vowed to only make films he truly wanted to make, no matter the pay, and to retain full control over his editing.

From then on, Lynch became one of the most unique filmmakers in American cinema. With each groundbreaking film, he pushed the psychological and sensory limits of audiences, expanding the boundaries of cinematic language. The first two seasons of Twin Peaks made a lot of money, but Lynch didn’t consider it a serious work, except for the pilot and finale; Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and Mulholland Drive didn’t make much money but gained critical acclaim, cementing Lynch’s reputation as a master; Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Inland Empire neither made money nor earned praise, but Lynch had no regrets: "Dune killed me twice because I hated it, and it lost money. Fire Walk with Me only killed me once because the public didn’t like it, but it’s okay, I love it."

Lynch’s ability to become Lynch is grounded in his belief in art, but it is his art itself that is fundamental. In life, Lynch may be kind and warm, but when he explores the darker realms of the soul in his work, he is stubborn and unflinching. He is never afraid to confront the evil and madness of human nature. People often use Freudian theories to explain Lynch’s work, but this rigid interpretation overlooks the true brilliance of his films: They create a world between reality and dreams, filled with complex and even contradictory emotions. This is the true essence of the human soul.

So, does Room to Dream unravel the mysteries in Lynch’s films? Clearly not. But that’s not important. Because Lynch's films are meant to be experienced, not solved. If you don't accept this, you’re probably not the ideal audience for him.

On the other hand, does Room to Dream unlock the mysteries of Lynch himself? The answer is definitely yes. As a person, Lynch is half cheerful, half crazy, half kind, half stubborn—much like his masterpiece Mulholland Drive: it shows you the brutal reality of the world while offering a lush dream of an ideal one, but it constantly reminds you that both dreams and reality are not the whole of the world. This is the essence of David Lynch’s black-and-white duality, complementary yet contrasting, disturbing your soul during the screening and comforting it after the credits roll.