Inception and The Reality Test

I've decided I may be posting more shorter posts. I'll see how that goes. Some feedback would be nice, but again, no one loves me. No comments for the unloved. Also; huge spoilers for the movie Inception so:

Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie. View the movie, then come back and give me three more page views to make up for not viewing this amazing movie.

Inception. It hit theatres, it blew everyone's mind, and no one had the rewind button to rewatch parts when they were in their plush seat with some cardboard resembling popcorn and soft drink. Now it's out on legal disks (not sure how long it took for the illegal ones to get out) and I got to view it again, this time with comfort and a bit more freedom to chat.

This is one of those movies that must be watched twice. It must be discussed. It's great. Your mind will mull over the ideas in it, and in the end you will decide it's just a really good movie and not trying to inspire some test of your reality. Your reality should be fairly secure and real, if it isn't, well I can't help you too much there but you should watch this movie anyways.

One of the big features in this movie, even though it was subtle, was the reality testing idea. The (and here comes my poor remembering for names of items and people) tolken.. no.. avatar.. nope... not anchor.. the item that everyone carried to test if they were in a dream or not. One person had a top, the other person had a loaded die, and another had a chess piece. I'm sure there were more that were not mentioned or I just missed.

I'm going to focus on the die. My friend just messaged me informing me the name is a totem. I was close with tolken. The test was, in order to check if reality or a dream was present, if the die would stop or not. If it is spun and it does not stop then there is a dream occurring. There's a story behind this die.

Now I did not see this part of the movie this time, I got cut off about half way through though I remember it from my theatre viewing. When the husband and wife are in their very deep dreams (bleh, names? I have no idea) the totem is locked away. I'm not sure why this is, if someone knows I would love to find out but for now I forget or it was not revealed. Anyways, it is not used to test if they are in reality or not; rather it is just hidden away. There is no doubt that they are in a dream at this point.

Now, throughout the movie there is the occasional use of this die but all the tests I saw on this second viewing are interrupted. There may of been proper tests later on but I forget of them. Just note, the test is not used.

Another quick note to put in for later, remember that no one is able to touch or examine the totem but the owner. It is a matter of safety, so it cannot be simulated in a dream.

Now, in the final scene the die is spun and if it stops or not is not shown. In the background there is a dinosaur. It is the most exciting scene in the entire movie because of this. Lets consider the two possibilities.

If it stops, it means they are reality. He has become reunited with his family and it can be assumed all is good. He is safe from the law for now and will continue his life as he wished to.

If it does not stop, he is still in a dream. This dream has been presented as reality the entire time. This means he is in someone's dreams, maybe not his own? Likely it is his own though. If it is his own though, would he not be able to manipulate the top to continue going or stop even though he is in a dream? His subconscious could stop it from spinning in hopes of landing in a 'reality' to him. If it does not stop, guaranteeing he is in a dream, does this mean previous attempts to use it that have proven it does not work? The reality he was told was real by the top may of not been real.

This means if it stops there is still a chance there is a dream. There is also a chance it is his dream, or someone else's. If it is someone else's, who is it? Consider that in a dream it is shown that someone who is conscious of being in someone else's dream may disguise themselves.

A quick recap; if the die keeps spinning there is a garenteed dream. This could be his, this could be an outsiders dream. If the die stops he could be in reality, he could be in his dream, he could be in someone else's dream who has knowledge of the totem.

The totems do not always work. Perhaps his does not always work, or maybe it is all of them. It does not matter what is the case, there is a chance his totem does not work. I think this is the case and he has been in a dream all along but I'll expand on this more soon.

Thinking it was all in a dream was my initial thought after the movie was over, and I think so even more after watching parts of it more. This is a movie that must be watched twice, once you have had time to think about it. It's just too amazing to be viewed once. The details of it are so, amazing. Just like Wal-E. Watch Wal-E atleast three times.

Since totem do not work, or so I assume, the chance of the two (well three) situations become a bit blurred. More small details in the movie must be looked at. To find the key to all of this I thought of who was a reoccurring figure in the movie.

The Chinese guy who hires them (sorry for a lack of names), the elderly Chinese guy in the first dream that introduces the movie. He may be the same person. If I remember correctly, his mismatched eyes (one blue and one brown) matched the elderly individuals even though his eyes were grey with age and blindness perhaps. They also seem to answer questions in a similar fashion, and I did not notice this but Sleepingbeauty (who now has a blog that I might just link to in a different post for I frequently forget the URL's details and cannot reliably type it out. I could just copy and paste it, but I think I should finish this and sleep) said some of the dialog is almost the same if not matching perfectly. If this is wrong, blame her.

The elderly individual, after apprehending the main character and feeding him what I think is porridge, makes note of the top. He says he has seen something like this before. That could be reference to any top like the one he has found on the main character, or it could be a taunt or hint towards the fact he already knows he is in a dream and the situation around him. He is already aware of the top and what it is there for.

If the elderly man is the same individual as the buisness man, there is a problem in chronological order. The first scene of the movie should have a younger version, right? The only thing is though, what is the elderly/buisness man can manipulate chronological order a bit.

When you are a dream everything seams normal. When you exit the dream it doesn't really make sense. Our main character may of never exited the dream until the last scene of the movie. He may of never left a dream at the end. The kick could of pushed him through the last layer of dream that he was in.

It is said after using the sedative to dream, you are no longer able to dream by your own power. You need the sedative to dream. I think this would be terrible, I love my dreams.. but the sedative may have some upside. To be able to control when I dream and even parts of how would be phenomenal. Perhaps a bit too much power, but that is why the female college student comes back to the team. It's too much to just leave.

Our main character can no longer dream under his own power, but maybe the elderly/buisness man can. Maybe they are in a dream the entire time, his dream. Perhaps the reality that is conceived is his dream, or at least shared with him. He was able to present himself as an elderly individual when our main character was washed up onto the beach initially. He could do what ever he wished. I'm not sure his motives, but maybe I'll figure something out as I type.

I would like to make note of the beach. It was said you should not make dreams out of your reality, out of your memories. Only details of it should be incorporated. Consider the beach. The detail of it is where he viewed his dead wife playing with their children (in a dream of course.. for zombies just don't fit in this movie well), consider where they wash up on the 'edge of subconscious' at the start of their fifty year dream, and I think there was one more scene featuring a beach but it does not come to mind. The beach is reoccurring, it may even be the same beach. This beach could be a detail of the main character or the elderly/buisness man's reality.

How ever the beach is formed, the individual whos dream is being lived in has knowledge of the dream tapping. He knows of the token, and therefore perhaps may manipulate it. The elderly man mentioning he has seen something like it before, I think it was a hint towards the fact they were in a dream and he knew of it.

A second summarization. The tokens may not work, I think they do not. What is presented as reality, is really a dream, possibly of the elderly/busisness man who are the same person but one is an alter ego of the other. Now that I mention this, I think the elderly man may be the original and true being. This would allow himself to protect himself as a younger version of himself.

As for motives to all of this, I'm unsure. There's a chance that some members of the team could of been moles working for the original dream maker (assuming it's the elderly individual). Maybe everyone who was anchored in 'reality' was actually a mole, or perhaps they were just a clever projection. Maybe they were pulled into the dream as well.

Revenge is a common theme in movies, maybe there are some sort of relations to the elderly man and the main characters wife, who has a habit of being angry. Maybe this is all driven by the wife, who after sharing a dream with him for fifty years will know him amazingly well and might be able to manipulate his dreams better than he can.

Maybe power or knowledge is the motivation? There could be a full story, only known to the writer, that was not included in the movie. The true reason for going into dream after dream could be to extract information out of the main character's mind, and he has a persona in the real reality (more real than what is presented as the reality in the movie) of a very high position. The writer could of cut out the back story, leaving the back stories within the main story, just because it would be too much to fit all into one movie.

Perhaps, because dreams cause projections of your subconscious, the only individual in the the universe of the movie is the main character. Perhaps he is the only individual, and his projections have taken on a more personalized appearance than what one may expect of a projection. Perhaps the higher states of consciousness, that we do not see in the movie, can make projections of what we would view to be a real person in our reality but in actuality it's just another side of us.

The problem with this movie is the end is indeterminate and it is left for interpretation. That last idea was put there to emphasize this. There could be dozens of possibilities that I could think of, and more that others could think of. Even more that the writers could of thought of. The only way of knowing for sure what is happening, is to ask the writer. I kind of want to stay ignorant and keep thinking this through. Maybe I'll find a loop hole in my own ideas after watching this movie again. I kind of hope I do, just so all of this is wrong.

Maybe the movie is actually strait forward, he gets home, and the reality that is presented as reality is the real reality (for really).

Bugworlds . . . ,