“Identification is a highly important motive in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled to express in their symptoms not merely their own experiences, but the experiences of quite a number of other persons; they can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama with their own personalities. [...] In hysteria, identification is most frequently employed to express a sexual community. The hysterical woman identifies herself by her symptoms most readily - though not exclusively - with persons with whom she has had sexual relations, or who have had sexual intercourse with the same persons as herself. Language takes cognizance of this tendency: two lovers are said to be "one."” (The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapter IV)
Diane’s identifying herself with her lover is the most vivid case of identification in Mulholland Drive. It happens several times throughout the dream, in most frightening ways. If we divide the „dream-part” into two sections, then it will be at the end of the first section that a corpse of a girl is discovered by Betty and Rita. The flat, in the „real life”, belongs to the unfortunate Diane. The dead body is “wearing” a black dress (Camilla’s black dress), and it has blond hair (Diane’s blond hair). The two women are thus fused into one, which reveals the connection between Betty and Rita on the one hand, and stands for the death of Camilla (who had been already killed by the moment Diane started dreaming) and the future suicide of Diane. This case of identification in a dream bears all features of the hysterical identification described by Freud (see the above quotation): Diane is identifying herself with Camilla because she used to be her lover (two lovers are „one”), and she suffers for Camilla, undertaking her pain (in this case – death).
The case with the corpse being quite accidental, the next identification case is rather purposeful (if at all there is a possibility to speak about the accidental and the purposeful in a dream). Making Rita cut her dark hair and put on a blond wig, Diane identifies herself with her victim and lover completely. Rita’s appearance changed, Betty and Rita make love, which is the realization of Diane’s own suppressed wish. The sleeping faces of Betty and Rita merge in one, which is one more, and the most frightening one, example of identification.
Further, in search for the identification examples, the viewer should turn to the final part of the film, that is, to the account of the “real” events. When “placing an order” for Camilla’s murder in a wayside restaurant, Diane sees a young man standing at the counter. Remembering that the man, whose name is Dan, appeared earlier in the film, the viewer will realize that Diane identifies herself with Dan, making him the personification of her own guilt, i.e., of the information her sore consciousness has tried to displace.