The images of protests coming from Tehran are all the more haunting because of their quality. With a government clampdown on press coverage in effect (not to mention official attempts to hamper access to the internet), the world has been watching events unfold through cell phone cameras. The fuzzy, shaky nature of the pictures — thousands of protesters silently marching, individuals grievously wounded and even killed by paramilitary forces — makes the unfolding happenings look like a nightmare. Or a dream. 

In Wim Wenders 1991 film Until the End of the World, a mad doctor invents a device that allows the user to send images directly to the brain, which lets the doctor’s blind wife see by bypassing her eyes. I know, I know — it’s sci-fi, kids, a particular kind of slightly stoned, rock-and-roll sci-fi at that. But the conceit of going around the official aperture to convey an image of what is really happening remains.

The media has leapt on the idea of events in Iran being another “Twitter revolution” (Moldova’s April uprising having been the beta test), with savvy Peter Pans, raising one hand in protest while texting their homies with the other, flying circles around technically challenged Captain Hookahs of the old guard. There are problems with that conceit. Ahmadenijad’s supporters are using Twitter to spread disinformation (followed by Moussavi supporters ferreting out the fakers), and if the ruling party was not so intent on beating up people and lying about the election results, they could learn to Tweet with the kids and maybe lay down those batons. 

But in the meanwhile we get glimpses of the truth, a sort of Zapruder film of the death of an empire. Even if Iran’s leaders manage to put this particular genie back in the bottle, either by forcefully repressing the current dissent or letting it play out into nothing, the cry for democracy will rise again and be broadcast, one tiny image at a time, to a world waking up to its own dreaming.