Nightmare Sequence in Hugo (Broadly)

In the film Hugo, the nightmare scene leaves a big question mark in trying to find out the role of technology. How does this nightmare sequence show the audience technology's role? This scene starts with Hugo locating the heart shaped key needed to start his broken automaton, as a train pulling into the station is about to run him over while on the track. To me the train symbolizes how technology can be of great use but can also destroy society and all around us. In the film we see that Hugo and George. M become broken people through the idea of technology. Hugo is lost without family and all the memory he has left of a passed father is a broken machine. Hugo also lives in the workings of a clock and the last memory he has of his drunken uncle is the teachings of how to work and fix them. George. M became broken through the idea that no one kept interest of his amazing film work after the war. Before technology had a negative affect on their lives, it was doing good and making people happy. Technology can do just as much bad as it can good. The nightmare opened up central concerns by Hugo having a dream within a dream,and him turning into the automaton. Why does this machine mean so much Hugo that he is dreaming about it? Why does he feel that his father left him something behind in relation to this machine that will be sure to answer all questions? What caused Hugo's father's death, and started that fire in the museum? Why doesn't the film go into his death at all? Does Hugo transform into the automaton because he feels that he functions as it does and only has one sole purpose in life? Why is Hugo then surrounded by clock tools in the dream, as if all he has ever known was clockwprk?