Dream Physics

If you happen to read my posts day-by-day you will know I rewatched part of Inception yesterday but was not given the time to view all of it again. A friend who was there watching the movie as well (their first time viewing it) asked me a question about the physics of dreams and exterior influence's effecting dreams.

In the movie, there is a scene where everyone is in a dream already. They have gone into another dream and are still in a moving van (in the first dream). One member stays in the first dream in order to drive, however the projections of the dream are attacking them. I suspect the individual they are trying to extract information from may have training in dream defence.

Oh, this reminds me of Harry Potter; in the fifth book (The Order Of The Phoenix), where Snape gives Harry Occlumency lessons. The individual who is having information removed from his subconscious may of been trained in dream protection.

There are far too many people around me. I will finish this later.
It is now several hours later, kind of like a time laps in a video... but you saw no change I suppose.

Anyways, he is driving rather quickly in order to create his distance as well as with some fast turns. This of course creates some sideways force due to inertia, making gravity feel as if it is shifting away from the direction that is being turned; as the turn is carried out. This is one of many examples of external influences having effects in dreams. Another example is water; water is used a couple times to create a very rainy situation in the dream. As the van drives through a puddle some water splashes into the windows creating a downpour.

This happens in real dreams as well, exterior influences may intrude on dreams much easier than you think. Have you ever heard of putting someone's hands in warm and cold water when they sleep? It's the same idea I believe. I'm not sure if this actually works, I don't intend on finding out myself. Sounds, scents, even light can change your dream as you are asleep. You can feel something different as you toss and turn in the real world and it may cause your dream to shift, change, or have something new introduced. There is a story of someone who had their headboard fall onto their throat when they slept triggering their dream to quickly relate to them being beheaded.

Personal examples I have of this are many. I use to frequently fall asleep on the couch in my living room as my family was watching Family Chanel. At this age I had many dreams, and quite often they would somehow be related to what was on the television if I happen to be resigning in my living room at the time. I remember the show Recess being a very common influence of my dreams, perhaps because I knew the episodes very well. I'm sure I still do.

Many times my alarm has gone off and I have still been in a deep REM sleep, or perhaps already in a dream. My dream will frequently turn to annoying beeping and I slowly drift into the real world. Several times this has happened and I've realized I was in a dream (lucid dreaming is amazing, I might write about it some time) but I also knew I heard my alarm going off and couldn't figure out how to turn it off.

Another example could be of a very vivid dream I had a long time ago but have not remembered until now. When I had this dream I think I was still in middle school, but my dream took place in the time I was in elementary school. I may of just been in one of the higher grades of elementary school when I had this dream. I remember at times everything in my dream was ridiculously bright, and I could not open my eyes in the dream. I actually ran about a bit looking for where it may be less bright. After a while I must of found it, or woken up. After waking up (immediately or some time after, I don't remember) I realized that I must of been facing my window when I was having this dream. At the time, the sun shone directly into my window onto my face in the morning. I'm not sure if, as I was having this dream, my eyes were open in the real world; or when I closed my eyes in my dream I was only shutting my eyes tighter in the real world, but the fact the sun was bombarding my pupils was a very influencing event for my dream. This has occurred several times.

In Inception, the scene with a the van and some sharp corners leaves the dreamers to feel as if gravity is shifting. It happens quite slowly though, due to the time dilation of the dream. I intend on writing about dream-time dilation at some point soon. I don't have time for it tonight, I need to dream for myself at some point soon.

As they turn right quickly, they are pulled to the left, and this happens in their dream as well. This is transferred over into the third level of dreaming as well but the time dilation is even more due to the time dilation being exponential by the level of dream. This causes gravity to shift, in the second and third dream, to the left a bit.

The question I was asked, was if there was an equal force to the force experienced in the first dream as in the second dream, would the two vector forces cancel out in the third dream? So, if you turn right quickly in the first dream you would have the force of gravity shift in the second and third dream. If in the second dream something caused a shift in gravity to the right, counteracting the gravity shift to the left due to the first dream, would the third dream have gravity remain as it is?

Wow, all this laying of dreams is confusing; and I think it might keep getting more so.

At a glance, I would say yes, but there is a little bit to think about in this. First of all dream-time dilation must be considered. A two second force in the first dream may cause a forty second force in the second dream and an eight hundred second force in the third dream (assuming each dream's time dilation is twenty fold, the number I think I remember hearing in the movie). This means that the force in the second dream must be much longer than the force in the first dream in order for the third dream to remain with gravity being normal.

A second feature to think of, is what gravity is in a dream and even more so in the world of Inception.

Have you ever had a dream where you are flying? Not by the power of any machine, but by your own power? I've had one dream like this that I can remember, probobly a few that I cannot recall. I do not remember the reasoning behind me realizing I could fly in this dream, perhaps it was a lucid dream. Assuming it was a lucid dream, I had complete faith that was in a dream. I believed it was a dream, I believed what happened in it would not harm me, and I trusted it completely. I did not think it was a dream but then was cautious not to do anything that may cause me harm in the real world but not in a dream. I took a leap of faith, literally.

I remember standing on a stoop, the back of someone's house. In fact it may of been based on my aunt and uncle's house now that I think of it, mixed into my backyard a bit. This concrete block had stairs to the left, but the flat part of it had no railings. I simply jumped off face first towards the ground. At the last moment, in a rather dramatic way for I'm sure I could of flown in this dream without this part, I pulled up and began to fly. I remember thinking I was just like Peter Pan. Several times I had issues figuring out how to fly exactly and things just wouldn't work. Random drops in height, though I never went very high. I suppose this was because of what I knew in the real world.

You can only view in dreams what you may synthesize with real information. I did not know of what the area looked like with a birds eye view, though I'm sure if I were to of gone up higher I would of found out somewhat. I would of made an interpretation of what it could be, or synthesized a completely new area. All in all, I stayed low to the ground.

So why did I go off about this all? Well I like to go off on tangents and I wanted to bring up the point, even if I could of done so this way much faster, that gravity is an illusion when you are in a dream.

In the real world gravity is the result of the huge quantity of matter that makes up earth, pulling us towards it. In a dream you do not have the entirety of the world to worry about. The only matter that exists is what you observe. There is simply not enough matter to create gravity. It's all in your head.

In Inception the dreams are made out by an 'architect' who builds the environment. They know every nook and cranny of it all, or should at least. These environments are closed systems that are made to look like they are a full building, park, city, etc, but really they are closed circuit that you cannot get out of. There is more mass than what is observable, however there is still not enough to create gravity. The gravity is still in the mind of the dreamer, and remember the dreamer may experience a shift in the real world that will be translated in the dream as a shift of gravity.

If I remember correctly, the third layer of dreaming has no gravity shifts but there is never anything to really cancel it out. I didn't get to see much of the third dream before my time was cut short, so I could be wrong. This could be because the gravity shift does not actually translate over more than one dream, or because of time dilation the shift never reaches the third dream maybe? It's hard to say, this is something I would like to ask the writer but I if you have read my last post you would know my thoughts on speaking to the writer.

So to answer my friends question, I think the two forces could cancel eachother out but it would be tricky to get the cancel to be perfect. Maybe not all forces are transfered into dreams, because it must be held in mind that not all exterior forces influence our dreams in the real world.

If everything that was around us influenced our dreams, all of mine would feature everything feeling like a very soft blanket that I fancy.

=Bugworlds==