dreamlike confusion (SPOILER)

I must admit I didn't understand the film on first viewing and went to bed after the first blue stone scene, dismissing the film as slow and "weird". Whatever you might have thought about the directing or acting, and yes it's all a little weird, there are so many details in this film that are repititions or circular references, that they give the storyline a kind of literary depth youd expect from Paul Auster. The storyline confusion also hints that the sequence is a product of the unconscious mind (Izzy's). I wonder how many of you noticed the following details, starting with the more obvious:
(1) He finds the body of a man who has been shot and is appalled at the wound. He himself is a gunshot victim.
(2) He meets an ex-actress who has relaunched her career as a director. This mirrors his own situation in which he laments not being able to return to his career.
(3) He then meets an aspiring actress and puts her in touch with the ex-actress, another circular reference.
(4) He finds a stone inside a kind of Pandora's Box (thanks to discussion in other thread for pointing this out!). The actress goes on the shoot a remake of the 1920s film with Louise Brooks, Pandora's Box.
(5) The stone glows in the dark. Willem Defoe's character reminds him how much fireflies meant to him as a child. There is an unconscious link between the two.
(6) His friend (Many Patinkin) tells him an anecdote about an airplane toilet he finds has been soiled by a beautiful woman who used it just before him. Willem Defoe later quotes Montaigne about "kings and even ladies sometimes need to defecate".
(7) This leads him to ask himself whetehr he has ever done anything "so generous". A similar soul searching becomes more intense later on with the Defoe interview.
(8) Besides these dreamlike repititions, there is a clue that the whole thing is in his imagination when you realise that he saw photos of both Lulu (Louise Brooks) and Cecilia on the bathroom wall before going out to perform.

Realising these things afterwards adds to the pleasure of this film. I'd recommend another film based on a Paul Auster story, also starring Mandy Patinkin incidentally, it's the Music of Chance (1993). Although I found Lulu more enjoyable.