The above lyric from You Only Live Twice has always felt like a euphemism of encouragement.

But take it seriously and it becomes a sly invitation to reinvent Bond. Imagine a Bond 26 under Denis Villeneuve that leans into a cerebral sci-fi scenario where a freshly minted 007 in his late 20s lives one life in the present (“for himself”), only to slip into a second existence post-graduation each time he sleeps (“in his dreams”), returning to a 1960s MI6 as a fully active agent. Only Bond realizes he transitions between the realities when he goes to sleep in each reality, and somehow a connection between the two lead to some mind-bending plotlines where allies and enemies echo across decades and intel gathered in one timeline reshapes the other.

I’m typically skeptical of dream sequences since they feel gimmicky and seem to be used as a narrative crutch. But in this case, they could actually drive a bold, contemporary Bond movie. After all, this is a character who has already crossed the line between life and death, so bending reality a little further hardly feels like a stretch.