In a manner of speaking... His life at the start of the movie is the real dream - or illusion as it were. Because his will is so strong, his subconscious never let's go of his real life - the undercover agent stuff he falls back into as a result of his screwed up Recall trip to Mars. It's perhaps an intentional coincidence that when he visits Recall the scenario he picks is so closely related to what has actually happened in his former life. The reason for this conclusion, that the movie as it plays out is real and not the dream, is simply because if it WERE just a dream he played out in Recall, we'd have seen him wake up at the end of the movie, go home and make love to Sharon Stone again.
On whole the movie suggests that he was an agent - double or other - and had a memory erasure... His trip to Recall set into motion a storm of all who knew the truth and Quaid was left seeing the life he had at the start of the film was a lie. It was left to him to backtrack and fill in the blanks and eventually fight for the greater good. IMHO anyway.
On whole the movie suggests that he was an agent - double or other - and had a memory erasure... His trip to Recall set into motion a storm of all who knew the truth and Quaid was left seeing the life he had at the start of the film was a lie. It was left to him to backtrack and fill in the blanks and eventually fight for the greater good. IMHO anyway.