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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'><div>Last one, no-time gang...again, sorry for the overload.</div><div><br></div><div>South Beach Science 8/27/10 - Dreams Vol. 5 - Inception</div><br><style><!--
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--></style><div><font face="Verdana">There is probably no perfect way to wrap up this awesome topic du Summer, courtesy of Inception. (Excuse me, Flo?) All I can really do is group things into comprehensible topics/themes, reference Inception as I have been promising to do for so long, and then end this more-glorious-than-originally-anticipated topic for good. Since we started the dreams topic, Brett Fav-ruh has only fake retired once, so it's not like it has been THAT long - but still, it may get a bit dusty above the keyboard at the end here. At least we have Part 6: Freddy vs. Jason in our back pocket!<br> <br>First things last: Definitions<br> <br>Inception - the act of planting an idea in someone's head/imagination, IN A DREAM, so that they wake up and came up with that idea on their OWN and in no way suspect that it was suggested to them or forced upon them.<br> <br>Waking Conciousness/World/State - our normal lives when we are awake, which until recently we thought was the most dominant/real aspect of ourselves, as opposed to those silly, childish, warped, random dreams we occasionally remember. When you are in this waking state (regular life), you focus on physical realities, and are unaware of other dimensions.<br> <br>Dream System/World/Universe - another dimension that you visit when you are dreaming that is just as "real" as your "life" when you are awake. You will never have a chance to comprehend it in this waking conciousness life, just as you will never have a chance of remembering the beginning of a dream. The parts that we remember more than just subconciously are from when we are closer to being back awake.<br> <br>Lucid Dreaming - when you are dreaming and you know that you are.<br> <br>Construction - You construct the environment in the dream system just like you construct the chair you are sitting in. You use psychic energy in the dream world to construct the environment around you, but this happens in a field that you cannot physically perceive when awake. There is no physical matter like we are used to dealing with when awake, but the environment is no less real than our normal physical stuff.</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><font face="Verdana">Architect - The designer or constructor of your dreams, which is normally you. In the movie, Ellen Page (Ariadne) is the architect, and the mark (Fisher Jr.) fills in the environment with his own projections.</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><font face="Verdana">Projections - The people and things that you insert or "project" into your dreams - what you use to construct them.</font><br><font face="Verdana"> <br>Totem - a small nicknack or personal item that has a unique characteristic in our waking, physical state, such as a loaded die. You can use it to double check if you are lucid dreaming or awake, when unsure, because it will always act a certain way in the waking state, but will not be subjected to normal physical rules if you are dreaming. <br> <br>Matter + Energy = Conciousness<br> <br>Ego - the non-subconcious part of you. The part that makes you think our normal world is the actual only world, and that makes things semi-normal in your daily life. You can't fly when you are awake. You might be able to when you are dreaming. There are far fewer rules, because the "ego" is not present.</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><font face="Verdana">String Theory - every tiny physical particle is like a vibrating string, which can be in an infinite number of physical positions, like an infinite range of sharp and flat notes from A-G in music. There is or might be parallel universes "right in front of us" that we can't perceive as our entire physical existence is based on one particular "note."</font><br> <br>Kick - the event that snaps you out of your dream and back to normal waking life.<br><br><font face="Verdana">QUICK INCEPTION REFRESHER (Full summary below if you would like to read it first)</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><a href="http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=myneurons.wordpress.com&url=http://myneurons.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/image004.jpg&sref=http://myneurons.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/inception-detailed-analysis/" target="_blank"><font face="Verdana"><img class="ecxalignnone ecxsize-full ecxwp-image-353" title="image004" alt="" src="http://myneurons.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/image004.jpg?w=640&h=1040" width="640" height="1040"></font></a><font face="Verdana"> <br> <br>OK! So where were we? That's right...let's finish off our journey with Seth, Inception-style!<br> </font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><font face="Verdana"></font> <img border="0" hspace="8" alt="Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.newworldview.com/library/images/dreams_ev1.jpg" width="93" height="140"><b>Seth on “Consciousness Units (CUs), Electromagnetic Energy Units (EEs), and The Sleepwalkers” (pt.2)</b><br><i>Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment</i>, Vol. 1, Session 892, January 02, 1980.<br>“You were each present at the beginning of the world, then, though you may be present <u>in</u> the world now in a somewhat different fashion.<br>“Remember that each unit of consciousness is a fragment of All-That-Is, a divine portion. Then perhaps what I am about to explain will make more sense.<br>“For some time, in your terms, the sleepwalkers remained more or less at that level of [primarily dream-based] activity, and for many centuries they used the surface of the earth as a kind of background for other activity. Their real life was what you would now call the dreaming one. They worked mentally while asleep, constructing in their individual minds and in their joint mental endeavors all of the dazzling images that would later become a mental reservoir from which men could draw. In that multidimensional array, consciousness mentally learned to form itself into EE units, atoms and molecules, electrons and chromosomes. It mentally formed the patterns through which all physical life could flow. The world then came into physical existence. Those units of consciousness are indestructible and vitalized, regardless of the forms they take, and while men’s forms were dream images, consciousness spun forms into physical material. <strong>Sure sounds like "Limbo" in Inception - sooo many levels of dreaming down from our waking self that time is going uber-slow. We had to dream the entire physical universe into existence - in effect, we very slowly constructed the entire physical universe that we live in, and everything we know is one sting theory note, one specific "shared dream" of the infinite possibilities. </strong><br>“Consciousness possesses the most unimaginable agility without ever losing any potency. Those units of consciousness, for example, can mix and combine with others to form a million different sequences of memory and desire, of neural achievement and recognition [of] structure and design.” <strong>If we were aware of EVERYTHING, we would laugh (or freak out) about how how few things are actually agreed upon by us humans in our waking existence. Similar to how Cobb's wife Mal kind of "knew too much" and was so unsatisfied with real physical life, even with a beautiful family. </strong><br>“... Initially, then, the world was a dream, and what you think of as waking consciousness was the dreaming consciousness. In that regard the earth’s entire environment was built mentally, atom by conscious atom – each atom, again, being initially formed by units of consciousness. I said that these units could operate as entities [particles], and as forces [waves], so we are not speaking of a mental mechanics but of entities in the true meaning of the word: entities of unimaginable creative and psychic properties, purposeful fragments propelled from the infinite mind as that mind was filled with the inspiration that gave light to the world. Those entities, in your terms so ancient, left fragments of themselves <u>in trance</u>, so to speak, that form the rocks and hills, the mountains, the air and the water, and all of the elements that exist on the face of the earth. <strong>The all-knowing parts of our complete selves are still connected to us from limbo/even deeper. They are aware of this tiny sliver of everything journey we are on in our everyday lives.</strong><br>“Those entities are in trance, in those terms, but their potency is not diminished, and there is constant communication among them always. <strong>Apparently we have to die in order to be tuned into that communication. Or else people in comas would have woken up with some of these secrets already. The enlightenment = heaven?</strong><br>“There is also constant communication between them and you at other levels than those you recognize, so that there is an unending interplay between each species and its environment. <strong>This plays into the fact that we "share" dreams with other humans that we are connected to more than say, insects. If the (deeper than) limbo Dan dreams about the limbo Keith, both of our limbo selves know it, they both know about the SBS daily email string, but the low on liver and brain cells Dan and Keith that you know have no clue. </strong><br>“There is no place where consciousness stops and the environment begins, or vice verse. Each form of life is created along with each other form – environment and organism in those terms creating each other. After forms were fully physical, however, all species operated as sleepwalkers for many centuries, though on the scale that existed then the passage of time was not considered in the same fashion. During that period the work of wedding nonphysical consciousness to matter was accomplished. Effects of gravity, for example, were stabilized. The seasons took on the rhythms best suited to the creatures in various locations. The environment and the creatures accommodated each other. <strong>Does anyone else have the dream where they jump or hop and there is no gravity, like you are on the moon? When I do, I always eventually float too high for comfort and then wake up before ever falling or floating all the way back down. How about a dream where you are in a phone booth and coins just start spilling out of the change holder? I haven't had that one but bet more than one of you did. We share the dream world just like the players in Inception did on purpose. </strong><br>“Up until then, the main communications had followed the characteristic patterns of units of consciousness, each unit knowing its relationship to all others upon the planet. Creatures relied upon inner senses while learning to operate the new, highly specific physical ones that pinpointed perception in time and place. This pinpointing of perception was of vital importance, for with the full arousal of consciousness in flesh, intersections with space and time [had to be] impeccable. <strong>It is so pinpointed that only taking LSD or something can break us out of our cycle. The fact that heavy drugs were used in Inception was a big part of it all. That room Cobb visited with Yousuf where people were sleeping for weeks...freaking epic. A glimpse into the future once our civilization is enlightened.</strong><br>“Dream bodies became physical, and through the use of the senses <u>tuned</u> to physical frequencies – frequencies of such power and <u>allure</u> that they would reach all creatures of every kind, from microbe to elephant, holding them together in a cohesive web of space-and-time alignment. <strong>Getting warmer to string theory and agreeing with actual human physicists!!</strong><br>“... This tale, I admit, is far more difficult to understand than a simple story of God’s creation of the world, or its actual production in a meaningless universe through the slippery hand of chance – and yet my story is more magnificent because elements of its truth will find resonance in the minds and hearts of those open enough to listen. For men’s minds themselves are alive with the desire to <u>read properly</u>, and they are aware of their own vast heritage. It is not simply that man has a soul that is somehow blessed while the rest of him is not, but that in those terms everything [he knows], regardless of size or degree, is made of ‘soul stuff.’ Each portion has its own identity and validity – and no portion is ever annihilated or destroyed. The form may change.<strong> Things die, decompose, and turn into coal or methane or something else. The potential energy you die with cannot be destroyed. Good to know that even your pinky finger has "soul stuff" and it's not just a part of yourself that you can't knowingly communicate with.</strong><br>“I must of necessity tell this story in serial terms, but the world and all of its creatures actually come together like some spontaneously composed, ever-playing musical composition in which the notes themselves are alive and play themselves, so that the musician and the notes are one and the same, the purpose and the performance being one, with each note played continuing to strike all of its own probable versions, forming all of its own probable compositions while at the same time taking part in all of the themes, melodies, and notes of the other compositions – so that each note, striking, defines itself, and yet also exists by virtue of its position in the composition as a whole. <strong>Welcome to string theory, officially! When they are dreaming in Inception, they are not simply asleep. They are somewhere else in the multiverse (infinite parallel universes), just like you are every night. The energy (matter) of your nightstand is used as psychic energy to construct the dream. We get dumb in a hurry when we are kicked back to the waking state.</strong><br>“The conscious mind cannot handle that kind of multidimensional creativity, yet it can expand into a kind of new recognition when it is carried along, still being itself, by its own theme. <strong>They say that if you take 7 total tabs of LSD in your life that you are clinically insane. Anyone who has taken a strong ONE can attest that you get a peek thru a tiny window into this multidimensional stuff. All the rules are thrown out the window about 100 times more forcefully than a standard freaky dream. Solids don't have to be solids, as string theory confirms. The nightstand can turn into anything, just like in your dream. </strong><br>“In a way, your world follows its own theme in creativity’s composition. You want to know where you came into the musical production, so to speak. I use a musical analogy here, if a simple one, to point out that we are also dealing with frequencies of perception. You are tuned into earth’s orchestration [you might say], and your perception of time is simply the result of habits – habits of perception that you had to <u>learn</u> in the beginning of the world. And you learned those habits as your physical senses gradually became more alert and specific. <strong>The music metaphors are really helping to conceptualize this stuff. </strong><br>“You ‘timed’ yourselves – but greater perceptions always appeared in the background of your consciousnesses and in the dream state. It is the great activity of the dream state that allows you, as psychological and physical creatures, to recognize and inhabit <u>the world that you know</u>.” <strong>Without the activity of the dream state, we would all of a sudden be more clueless about the world than a newborn, who was just DREAMING for 9 months to get ready to face the world. We dream more as small children than we do the rest of our lives...</strong><br>------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><font face="Verdana">INCEPTION</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><font face="Verdana">What a great freaking movie. They used this giant rolling studio thing in London so that the bar tilting was completely real! Somehow used it to the hotel/elevator weightlessness was done without CGI but is a very closely guarded secret. The non-CGI is glorious as we have freaky dreams all the time without CGI. Maybe Seth is a total crock, but even if so, some of his stuff on dreams could easily be close to dead on. There is so little that we understand about overall consciousness and existence. There is so little that we know about dreams. Why the heck wouldn't it makes sense for dreams to be prominently involved in the ultimate secrets of everything? So when a movie like this comes out and is just very well done and very well acted and makes 2h 28m seem like about 1h 45m at most, it is just a super solid movie and many people will leave it at that.</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br><font face="Verdana">But for those of us that went into it with slightly open minds about dreaming, and have since believed small portions of this Seth/String Theory/other craziness that we have been checking out, does it now make sense that this movie touched you or moved you in a different way than your typical movie-of-the-year? Your whole self knows why, just not your waking consciousness. </font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br>Just as some of the Seth stuff from the CRAZY end of the spectrum might be true, Inception was basically starting us down the path of dream enlightenment from our NON-CRAZY end, and was probably mostly true. It's like a sci-fi movie that not only turns out to be real, but is just a small part of the whole, real, story. <br> <br>The concept of the kick is glorious in itself, and one of the lynchpins of why the film was so effing cool. And you were at risk of not being able to kick out of limbo. What symmetry with us never being able to KICK IN to the dream world fully to understand it! Us needing to die to get to LIMBO. A dreamer needing to die or have a monster kick to have a chance of getting OUT of LIMBO in the movie! I could go on and on. Maybe Level 1 equates to us lucid dreaming, or continuing a dream in light sleep after a middle of the night pee break. Maybe level 2 equates to our deep/REM sleep. Maybe level 3 equates to an after-alcohol blackout or other drug-induced crazy sleep session. Maybe level 4 equates to a coma. <br> <br>Inception just provided one deep symbol after the next that can possibly be used as keys to unlock the greatest story never told. Even the totems, as symbolic as they are practical, are a subject unto themselves. I won't do a super-spoiler in case some of you are reading all of this and planning to watch for the first time in the coming months, but at the very very end, when we are looking closely and wondering what's going to happen, Cobb isn't looking. He has what he needs. On a certain level, it no longer matters. A whole additional layer of a poignant revelation on top of the obvious suspense! <br> <br>We just need to watch it again after giving 25,000 words to the subject in this space and I bet a whole lot more opens up. Unofficial DVD/Blu-Ray release date is 12/6/10. How about watching the opening 5 minute sequence again now that we understand everything from the movie and are further enlightened in waking life? Add in the Blu-Ray extras and commentaries, and I am almost ready to take my talents to South Beach in excitement. <br><br><font face="Verdana"></font>STAY WITH ME NOW...<br> <br>LEO = COBB = EXTRACTOR = INCEPTION ATTEMPTOR = OUR COMPLETE SELF/SOUL IN DREAM WORLD<br>FISHER JR = MARK = EVERY ONE OF US AS OUR NORMAL "REAL" WAKING SELF, UNKNOWINGLY BEING CONTROLLED BY OUR FULL/REAL/DREAM SELF<br>OUR CLOSEST CONNECTION TO DREAM WORLD = WAKING IMAGINATION<br>WHAT YOU REMEMBER FROM DREAMS BEING IMPORTANT OR JUST TOO FAR AWAY FROM THE SECRET REAL DREAM WORLD = ?<br>TIME = NOT AS CONSTANT AS THE SPEED OF LIGHT = ONLY APPEARS TO BE CONSTANT AND LINEAR<br>EVERYTHING THAT IS AND WAS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW AND SIMULTANEOUSLY = IT WAS (AND IS) ALL A DREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br> <br><font face="Verdana">South Beach Peace- do we need a Part 6: Freddy vs. Jason?</font><br><font face="Verdana"></font> <br>+<br><font face="Verdana">+</font><br><font face="Verdana">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</font><br><font face="Verdana">FULL INCEPTION REFRESHER AND ANALYSIS</font><br><font face="Verdana">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</font><br><a href="http://www.blogged.com/b247103214" target="_blank"><font face="Verdana">http://www.blogged.com/b247103214</font></a><br><br><div class="ecxposttop"><h2 class="ecxposttitle"><a title="Permalink to Inception – Detailed Analysis" href="http://myneurons.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/inception-detailed-analysis/" rel="bookmark" target="_blank"><font color="#afdaff" size="2" face="Verdana">Inception – Detailed Analysis</font></a></h2><div class="ecxpostmetatop"><div class="ecxcategs"><font face="Verdana">Filed under: </font><a title="View all posts in Uncategorized" href="http://myneurons.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">Uncategorized</font></a><font face="Verdana"> by aaRDee — </font><a title="Comment on Inception – Detailed Analysis" href="http://myneurons.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/inception-detailed-analysis/#respond" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">Leave a comment</font></a><font face="Verdana"></font></div><div class="ecxdate"><font face="Verdana">July 26, 2010</font></div></div></div><div class="ecxpostcontent"><font face="Verdana">Many people walked away from <em>Inception</em> impressed. Some were confused, some were even feeling like they had their brains woken by the most exciting and thought-provoking movie experience to come along all year.</font><br><font face="Verdana">I realize that most people who saw <em>Inception</em> have already made up their minds about what they perceived the film to be (and Nolan will undoubtedly be proud of that). However, for those of you still looking for an <em>Inception</em> explanation, we like to offer a few thoughts.</font><br><font face="Verdana">So, the first thing to talk about are the rules of the dream world Nolan created for the film. With all the action that happened onscreen, it was easy to forget some of the finer details – but once the lights came up, and people had time to think, I know the question of who was dreaming which </font><a href="http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">dreams</font></a><font face="Verdana"> certainly came up (among others questions as well).</font><br><font face="Verdana">Remember the basic premise: Cobb (the extractor) and his team are con artists, and like any con artists their job is to construct a false reality and manipulate it in order to confuse and/or fool a mark (in this case industrialist Robert Fischer, played by Cillian Murphy). Nolan takes the classic concept of a con man a step further by making Cobb and his team dream thieves, but in the end, the basic concept is still your classic con/heist movie.</font><br><strong><font face="Verdana">Dream Levels and Dream Time</font></strong><br><font face="Verdana">Nolan throws a lot of fancy math at you but it’s all really inconsequential. All you need to really know are the basic concepts:</font><br><font face="Verdana">The dream within a dream process puts you into a deeper state of dreaming. The deeper you go, the further removed your mind is from reality. We all know what that’s like: the deeper you sleep, the harder it is to be woken up and the more vivid and real-feeling a dream becomes. If you’re in a deep enough sleep, not even the usual physical ques to wake up effect you, such as the sensation of falling (“the kick”) or even, say, having to go to the bathroom.</font><br><font face="Verdana">By the time you reach the Limbo state it can be so difficult to wake, and the dream can feel so vividly real, that the mind stops trying to wake at all – the mind accepts the dream as its reality, like slipping into a coma.</font><br><font face="Verdana">When you wake up in Limbo you don’t remember that there is such a thing as a “real world” – as in any dream, you wake up in the middle of a scene and simply accept it for what it is. Breaking yourself out of this cycle is extremely difficult, which is why Cobb and his wife Mal were trapped in Limbo for what seemed like decades.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Time is the other factor. The deeper you go into a dream state, the faster your mind is able to imagine and perceive things within that dream state. We’re told the increase is exponential, so going deeper into dreams turns minutes into hours, into days, into years. This is why Cobb and his team are able to pull off the Fischer job while the van is still falling through the air, before the soldiers break into the snow fortress, before Arthur rigs the elevator, and all within the span of a flight from Sydney Australia to LA.</font><br><font face="Verdana">In Limbo, the mind works so fast that actual minutes can be interpreted as years gone by. When Saito “dies” from the gunshot wound he received on level 1 of the dream, his mind falls into Limbo, and Saito remains there for the minutes it takes Cobb and Ariadne (Ellen Page) to follow him into Limbo – those minutes in one dream state feel like decades to Saito in his Limbo state. By the time Cobb deals with expelling Mal’s “shadow” from his subconscious, Saito has begun to perceive himself as an old man.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Mal’s shadow stabs Cobb during the film’s climax, which throws Cobb back out into Limbo and onto the shores of Saito’s limbo house. When Cobb has to “wake” again in Limbo, his mind is muddled just like old man Saito’s brain. Through Saito’s memory of Cobb’s totem and some shared dialogue that included key trigger phrases – “Leap of faith,” “Old man full of regret, waiting to die alone,” etc. – Cobb and Saito are able to remember the meaningful conversations they had and that there is a reality they existed in before Limbo, where both of them had deep desires still waiting to be fulfilled (Cobb and his kids, Saito and his business). Once they remember that limbo is limbo, they are able to wake themselves up (likely with a gunshot to the head).</font><br><font face="Verdana"><strong>The Extractor – </strong>The extractor is a master con man, a person who knows how to manipulate a dreaming mark into revealing their deepest mental secrets. At heart, an extractor is a classic con man – he creates a false set of circumstances that manipulate the mark into revealing his secrets. Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) uses the same type of con man repertoire as George Clooney in <em>Oceans 11</em> – only Cobb knows how to literally do his work on a subconscious level. Fancy premise aside though, the extractor (as I said) is basically your classic con man.</font><br><font face="Verdana"><strong>The Architect – </strong>The architect is the designer of the </font><a href="http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/2/" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">dream</font></a><font face="Verdana"> constructs into which an extractor brings a “mark.” Think of an architect as a video game designer, except in this case they create the “levels” within a dream, complete with all the aesthetic and tactile details. The mark (also known as “the subject”) is brought into that dream construct and fills it with details from their own subconscious and memories, which convince the mark that the dream the architect built is real – or at the very least, is the mark’s own dream.</font><br><font face="Verdana">The architect can manipulate real world architecture and physics in order to create paradoxes like an endless staircase, which makes the dream world function as a sort of maze. The dream is constructed as a maze so that A) The mark doesn’t reach the edge of the maze, realizing that they are in an imaginary place. B) So the mark runs the maze, leading the extractor toward “the cheese” – i.e., mental secrets the mark is protecting.</font><br><font face="Verdana"><strong>The Dreamer – </strong>The architect and the dreamer are not always the same person. The architect designs the dream world/maze and can then teach that maze to a separate dreamer. The dreamer is the person whose mind actually houses the dream and it is the dreamer’s mind that the subject/mark is ultimately brought into in order to to be conned by the extractor. The dreamer allows the mark to fill their mind with the mark’s subconscious, and unless the dreamer maintains the stability of the dream, the mark’s subconscious will realize it’s been invaded by foreign mind(s) and will try to locate and eliminate the dreamer to free itself.</font><br><font face="Verdana">When you start getting into the whole dream within a dream aspect of the </font><a href="http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/2/" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">movie</font></a><font face="Verdana">, identifying the dreamer can be tricky – this is especially true when Cobb and his team start running their con on Fischer using three separate levels of dreaming. Once the tri-level dream sequence starts, one good way to keep track of the dreamers is by noticing which team member stays awake and doesn’t follow the team down to the next level of dreaming – a dreamer can’t enter a lower dream state, otherwise their level of the dream would end.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Here’s a rundown of who is actually dreaming each level of the Fischer con:</font><br><ol><li><font face="Verdana"><strong>The rainy city</strong> – Yusuf the chemist (Dileep Rao) is dreaming this level. Yusuf is drinking a lot of champagne in the “real world” on the plane, so when he goes to sleep he has to pee (hence the rainfall). Since Yusuf is the dreamer of level 1, he has to stay in that level of the dream, hence why he has to drive the van.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><strong>The hotel</strong> – Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) dreams the hotel, which is why he has to stay awake when the rest of the team goes down to the snow level. When the van Yusuf is driving goes off the bridge and is flying through the air, Aurthur’s “body” is suspended in air, which is why gravity in the hotel level of the dream goes haywire – as the dreamer’s body is shifted and moved, it effects the physics of the dream he’s dreaming, since the mind (and inner-ear) is registering the change in gravity.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><strong>The snow fortress</strong> – Eames the “forger” (Tom hardy) is dreaming this level of the dream. A question has been raised about why the gravity in the snow world doesn’t go haywire when Eames’ body starts floating in the zer0-gravity hotel. Well, you could say that Eames’ body isn’t being shook up or shifted in any way his mind (or inner-ear) would actively register or that being so deep in a dream state cushioned Eames from the effect of gravity. Or, you could say that it’s a glaring plot hole. Truthfully, it’s questionable.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><strong>Limbo – </strong>Limbo is actually unconstructed dream space – a place of raw (and random) subconscious impulse. Ariadne drops a line early on about the fact that the extractor team can bring elements of their own subconscious into the dream levels if they’re not careful, and since Cobb has spent time in Limbo and has a raging subconscious, the Limbo space they enter includes his memory of the city he and Mal built for themselves.</font></li></ol><font face="Verdana"><strong>The Mark – </strong>The mark (Cillain Murphy) is the person who the extractor and his team are trying to con. The mark is brought into the mind of the dreamer, and since the mark is unaware that he/she is dreaming, they perceive the dreamer’s world as real while simultaneously making it feel real to themselves by filling it with details and secrets from their own subconscious. The extractor uses those details and various mental prompts to steer the mark through the dream world maze, towards the mental secrets the extractor wants to steal.</font><br><font face="Verdana">As stated, the mark thinks he is still awake, perceives the dream world as real and reinforces that notion by “projecting” his conscious view of the world onto the dream – this is why projection people populate the dream cities, etc. Because of the extractor’s manipulations, the mark goes along with the faux reality of dream, ultimately reaching the point where they either realize it’s a dream, or open their mind and reveal their secrets.</font><br><font face="Verdana"><strong>Projections – </strong>Dreams feel real to us when we’re dreaming and part of the reason for that is our mind’s ability to construct a faux real-world setting for us to interact with in dreams. Often, that dream is something like a city or any populated area which has other people walking around it. in <em>Inception</em>, those people that the unknowing mark populates the dream world with are known as “projections.”</font><br><font face="Verdana">As is explained in the film, projections are not part of the mark’s mind – they are manifestations of the mark’s vision of reality. If a mark has been trained to defend themselves against extractors, they have a part of their subconscious which is always on guard against mind-crime in the form of militarized security which attack mind invaders. In Cobb’s case, Mal (“the shade”) is a projection based on his need to remember his dead wife. Mal wanted Cobb back in limbo – his own subconscious trying to pull him back to a place where he could “be with her.”</font><br><font face="Verdana"><strong>The Forger – </strong>As in “forgery,” Eames (Tom Hardy) is a master of imitating people’s handwriting, mannerisms – and in the dream world, even their very appearance. This is key to Cobb’s plan: on dream level 1 (the rainy city) Eames impersonates Peter Browning (Tom Berenger), Robert Fischer’s closest advisor.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Using Browning’s image, Eames subtly suggests things to Fischer that fools Fischer into creating his own subconscious version of Browning (seen in dream level 2, the hotel). The version of Browning Fischer conjures in his subconscious motivates him to run deeper into Cobb’s maze (dream level 3, the snow fortress) in order to find “the cheese” – i.e., the inception of the idea Saito wanted Cobb to plant. Basically, the Forger fools Fischer into using his own subconscious projections against himself.</font><br><font face="Verdana"><strong>Mal (and her shadow) – </strong>Mal is the character who acts as a vessel for all the more complex notions and questions about reality the </font><a href="http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/2/" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">film</font></a><font face="Verdana"> raises. Mal not only thought but <em>felt </em>that the world she and Cobb had built in limbo was real – it fed her emotionally and made her happy. When Cobb planted the idea that “Your world is not real” in her mind, he only meant for it to wake her from limbo. Instead, what he actually did by allowing that idea to take root in her mind was to destroy that sense of fulfillment and connection she once had – and once it was destroyed, it couldn’t be repaired.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Even with her husband and children all back together, Mal couldn’t access that <em>emotional</em> reality that comes with the bond of love and connection to our love ones. Because of inception, Mal couldn’t value love or connection the same way because a fake reality only offered fake connections and emotions – only she and Cobb and their love was real to her anymore. She needed to keep trying to reach some higher state where the nagging doubt would be cured and she could be happy again. And so, thinking Cobb lost in a faux reality, she arranged the hotel suicide and murder implication in order to force Cobb to follow her. The idea Cobb implanted in her led her to her death (seemingly), and the guilt of that act led Cobb to create a shadow of her in his subconscious.</font><br><font face="Verdana">At the climax of the film, Mal throws deep questions at Cobb (and the audience) asking if having faceless corporations chase somebody around isn’t yet another dream state. She questions the very nature of reality for all of us and certainly whether or not the faux reality of film isn’t its own sort of dream state – a place where fantastic things occur – an imagined place we as movie goers share and perceive differently and fill with our own subconscious views and interpretations. Pretty deep meta-thinking stuff.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Well, as an answer Mr. Nolan, I can say: only when a movie like <em>Inception</em> comes around to light that sort of spark in our minds.</font><br><strong><font face="Verdana">The Ending</font></strong><br><font face="Verdana">There are a ton of theories being tossed around the Internet about the ending of <em>Inception</em>, the two biggest debates being whether Cobb was still in a dream or did he in fact return to his children in the “real world.”</font><br><font face="Verdana">The ending of <em>Inception </em>is meant to leave you thinking and questioning the nature of reality. The important question is not “<em>Is Cobb still dreaming?</em>” – What is important is the fact that the character of Cobb goes from being a guy who is obsessed with “knowing what’s real” to ultimately being a person who stops questioning and accepts what makes him truly happy as what’s real.</font><br><font face="Verdana">But people want more concrete answers than that, so here you go:</font><br><font face="Verdana">After two viewings I can tell you that from the moment that Cobb and Saito (seem to) wake up from limbo, Nolan very purposefully shifts the film into an ambiguous state that leaves it somewhat open to the viewer’s perception and interpretation of that perception – two big themes of the movie, coincidentally enough.</font><br><font face="Verdana">From the moment Cobb and Saito wake, there is no more dialogue between the characters and few shots or images that would concretely explain or prove one interpretation. Is Cobb still dreaming and his team and family (and maybe Saito) are all projections? Or is it the job completed, everyone is back in reality and everything is happily ever after? There are a few pieces of “evidence” that we can certainly address:</font><br><ul><li><font face="Verdana"><em>Was Saito truly powerful enough to make one phone call and end Cobb’s problems or was that just Cobb in limbo projecting his subconscious wish to go home?</em> You can argue logistics all you want, but if it’s said that Saito is a powerful and wealthy man (he bought a whole airline on a whim), then there’s reason enough to infer that he could bend the legal system for Cobb. Rich powerful people bend laws all the time.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><em>Is there something up with that immigration agent or is he just an immigration agent?</em> After two viewings, the conclusion should be that the immigration guy is just a guy. If he’s staring at Cobb, it’s because his job is to look people over and scrutinize them. Would <em>you</em> want immigration letting people through without face-to-face scrutiny?</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><em>Did Cobb’s father (Michael Caine) arrange to meet him at the airport or is he there because he’s Cobb’s projection?</em> At this point we’re reading way too much into things. There is a phone on the plane, so Cobb could’ve easily arranged for pickup. This was also an intricate plan they were hatching, so arranging for airport pickup would probably be on the to-do list.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><em>In early dream scenes Cobb is wearing a wedding band that doesn’t appear in the “real world” scenes or the end scenes in the airport – does that mean the ending is “reality?”</em> Details like that are certainly strong evidence that there is a real world and that Cobb does live in it at times – such as when he isn’t wearing a </font><a href="http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/3/" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">wedding band</font></a><font face="Verdana">.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><em>Does the fact that Cobb uses Mal’s totem mean it doesn’t work as a totem and therefore he never knows if he’s in reality or not?</em> Again, we’re reading a little too deep into things. The only people who know the weight and feel of that totem are Mal and Cobb, and since Mal is dead, Cobb is the only one left who knows the totem’s tactile details. So yes, he could certainly use it as a measure of reality, the totem was not “ruined” by him using it.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><em>At the end, Cobb’s kids seem to be the same age and are seemingly wearing the same clothes as they were in his memory of them – is it “proof” he’s still dreaming? </em>As carefully documented by our own Vic Holtreman, at the end of the film Cobb’s kids are wearing similar outfits to the ones he remembers, but their shoes are different. As for their ages: if you check </font><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/fullcredits#cast" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">IMDB</font></a><font face="Verdana">, there are actually two set of actors credited with playing Cobb’s kids. The daughter, Phillipa, is credited as being both 3 and 5 years old, while the son, James, is credited as being both 20 months and 3 years old. This suggests that while it might be subtle, there is a difference between the kids in Cobb’s memories and the </font><a href="http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/3/" target="_blank"><font color="#a8ef9d" face="Verdana">kids</font></a><font face="Verdana"> Cobb comes home to. That would suggest the homecoming is in fact “reality.” But feel free to debate that.</font></li><li><font face="Verdana"><em>Will the spinning top keep spinning or was it about to fall over just before Nolan cut to black?</em> Sorry, we will never know for sure, although it does start to wobble and it is never shown doing that in the dream world. Each of us will take away a guess – kind of the point of that final shot.</font></li></ul><font face="Verdana">At the beginning of the film, after the first job Cobb’s team tries to pull on Saito, we see Cobb sitting in his hotel room alone, spinning the top and watching it intently, gun in hand. This is a guy who is ready to blow his brains out if the top keeps spinning, in order to “wake himself up.” That’s how obsessed and paranoid he’s become.</font><br><font face="Verdana">Throughout the film, Cobb continues to obsess about spinning the top and verifying reality – however, at the end of movie, he spins the top and <em>walks away</em> from it before he can verify if it stops spinning or not. His kids come running in and Cobb could care less about about the top or “true reality” or extraction/inception anymore. He just wants to be with his children, in whatever place he can be with them. That emotional connection and desire is “reality” enough for him.</font><br><font face="Verdana">In the end, Cobb walking away from the top is a statement in itself that also completes the arc of his character. In a way, the movie is its own maze designed to plant a simple little idea in the viewer’s mind: “reality” is a relative concept.</font></div></div> </div></body>
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