I have seen Inland Empire a few weeks ago, and was searching the web for more information about it. In the forum of a german site dedicated to David Lynch, i came across a thread that listed some interviews from various magazines and blogs with David Lynch and others about the movie. Now the interesting thing is, that in all the interviews he declined to tell his interpretation of the movie (as usually), yet in one interview he mentions that Laura Dern has an interpretation of the movie, and that that interpretation is very close to his own interpretation. I then came across an interview with Laura Dern, in which she actually states this interpretation!
So it seems David Lynch and Laura Dern "accidently" gave away David's interpretation of the movie.

Here are the two interviews which i am referring to:

http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/art ... mpire_3392
http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/art ... lynch_3393

from the first one:
[David Lynch:] "I’ll tell you another thing: Before she saw the final film, it was suggested that Laura write down what she thought it was and she was amazingly accurate."

from the second one:
[Laura Dern:] "My experience of it is the character that we started with, which is the character in the monologue. To me, it was about this woman in trouble, a woman who is dismantling, and her emotional and abstract journey of trying to define a character for an audience, emotionally. The girls, I don’t know what other people think of them, but to me they’re these abstractions in her mind, what she’s feeling. For me, [I’m playing] one person. I don’t know if David intended that, but that’s how I acted it."


I think that means that the woman telling the monologue is the "real" one, while most of the other events/persons in that movie are fantasies or abstractions of persons and things that had happened in her life (like being a prostitute, for example).

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.

I really ought to take another look at IE again at some point. It's been a while.