That's rather impressive, for a movie to be able to get my attention enough that I may use it as a partial inspiration to write about for three days in a row. I might of even mentioned it when I first watched it in theater on this blog, although it will be several pages back and I see no reason to go and find it.
Normally movies do not really catch my attention. If I try to watch a movie by myself there's a high chance I'm going to fall asleep, or at least drift into a semi-conscious state of mind. If there are people around me there is a high chance this will happen as well. The exception is if the people around don't mind conversation that is not necessarily related to the movie. If I can talk through a movie, point out what I see to be wrong or what I find interesting, then I will stay awake.
Inception blew my mind. There was little more I could say initial, then a metaphoric flood of expanding ideas, contemplated thoughts, and flexible opinions crashed at the flood gates of my ability to communicate and everyone who I knew had seen this movie was engaged in conversation about it for a moment or three. Over time this diminished and if the topic came up I would love to speak about it but I did not bring it up all that often. Now I've seen the movie again, or part of it atleast, and my mind has gone back into the need to share thoughts. Inspiration to write? Yes it is.
There is one large aspect of this movie that I found interesting, and I have discussed it in my last two posts (two? Perhaps only in my previous) but I am going to expand on it. Dream-time dilation. The idea that when you are in a dream time may appear to be going at a normal rate, however it is really going at a much faster rate than reality.
This is expanded on through the layering of dream. I think the number given is twenty, regarding how many times faster time goes by in a dream (in the world of Inception) in comparison to reality. If you are in a dream, and you enter a second dream this works exponential. Time is now passing at four hundred times the regular speed (normal speed, time twenty, times twenty).
Due to this time dilation being exponential (20^{#-of-dreams}) there is an issue with exterior forces within dreams canceling eachother out, but that's in my previous post. You should read it.
The math is sound and correct, but does anyone else see the problem with this? I'll expose it later on.
Normally time dilation is relating to special relativity. When something is traveling at incredible speeds, which are comparable to high percentages of c (the speed of light), the time around the object moving quickly moves slower according to a much slower frame of reference. When I say comparable to high percentages of c, you are considering speeds that are 95% of the speed or light or higher. There is a slight dilation at every day speeds but it is so small it is negligible and you should never worry about it. The fastest speeds that man has traveled (I think) has been of astronauts, who experience a one millionth of a second time difference. This may not be true, but I recall hearing it somewhere. If you want to do the math, I'm sure the equations will be found in the link (and they are quite manageable to work with if you have your tenth grade math, if not ask me. I'll run the numbers for you if you give them to me).
I won't go into the reasons for this much, but it relates to c being a constant speed no matter your frame of reference. In order for this to stay true time is slowed down when you are at incredibly high speeds. Instead of being able to change the m in meters per second (m/s) the s, second, is extended. These numbers are ridiculously out of place and should only be considered as an example with no context, but if you are moving at 10m/s that is ten meters in one second. If this was anywhere close to the speed of light, from a stationary observer's point of view it might become ten meters in two seconds. The distance traveled is the same, but the amount of time needed is more; hence time dilation.
Time dilation relating to dreams exists as well, but it is a mental dilation. This is possible only because time does not really exist in the way it is traditionally thought of. It is more or less a human (or at least conscious-requiring) invention. Humans have quantified it, so that we may keep track of various events. I like to think of time as a 'human invention that judges the distance between events,' but that's just my definition. I know it doesn't match up to any dictionary.com time definitions. Well, not exactly at least. I was rather surprised to find that the first definition related to what I like to think. This must be a very complex word, theory, or concept; there are sixty-four definitions in the first list.
When you are in a sleep state, and your consciousness is also in this sleep state, you have nothing to reference to for time. Time may pass as your mind wishes it to. This is why when you sleep you do not remember sleeping. Time does not exist in the time that it does not need to. Performing the same action for eight hours at a time would be fairly boring, but you do not really know it happened. You cannot observe yourself sleeping, it does not really exit to you. You may observe the results of sleeping but the act itself is rather invisible to the individual carrying out the action. The only time you can really observe yourself sleeping is when you are in a lucid dream.
Lucid dreams are the most wonderful type of dream. It is where you are aware of the fact you are in a dream. If you know you are in a dream, you will also know you are asleep. It is simple as that. In Inception, the characters enter others dreams. They are aware they are doing this, therefore it is a lucid dream for them at least. It is not always a lucid dream for the one dreaming. This full entering others dreams makes everything so much more complicated. I'm glad this cannot happen in reality, that I am aware of at least.
In a real dream, mental time dilation does not occur at a given rate. Further more, here's the problem with Inceptions dream time dilation being exponential I said I would point out, I do not think dreams can be layered as they do in the movie. I think you may have one dream at a time. A dream inside a dream is not possible.
But no, it is, I've had one! Or so several people may say, or they would if I had several readers. Perhaps a few people may say this. What about false awakenings? Is that not just a dream in a dream, or exiting a second layer of dream to expose the original dream? Even though the Wikipedia article also titles false awakenings as a 'dream within a dream' I think this is only a way to make it easier to explain.
Lets say you are in a dream, and then in this dream you fall asleep and find yourself in a different dream. I do not think that you are still existing in the first dream. I think that first dream stops existing until you 'wake up' from your second dream. However, any experiences I've had with dreams within dreams or lase awakenings have not lead me back to the original dream. Once I am in the second dream that is the only dream that is present.
Have you ever seen the old Daffy Duck cartoon, where he's selling a house? It's a rather impressive house that has the ability the change floors without the use of stairs. There is a fixed elevator instead. You walk into it, pick the floor you want, and the elevator stays where it is. Rather than it moving, the floor you want comes to you. The problem with it though, is it squishes what ever floor was under it. This was put in for comical reasons, but it is a great way to explain layered dreaming.
Once you enter the second layer of the house, the second layer of the dream, the first layer of the house is destroyed. The first layer of the dream no longer is there, and with dreams being non-physical there is nothing left of it but a memory (if you have remembered this dream).
I did some searches to find out how many dreams you can have in one night, and found several numbers ranging from 3 to 6, to 100, to an unlimited number. I think there is no limit to how many you could have but on average you will have a handful. You may remember some, all, or none of them. The reason to there being no limit is the time it takes for a dream to pass in comparison to the clock beside you as you sleep is not set. It could last one fraction of a second and yet still appear as long as a dream that will take several minutes to an hour to pass in real time. It's all in the perspective.
The point I'm getting to, is you will have several dreams a night but you will not remember all of them probobly. Who is to say the dreams do not sometimes come right after the other one. If you are monitoring brain waves, there could be a chance one dream flows seamlessly into another and it shows up as on dream on the chart but it is actually two. Perhaps this is a dream within a dream, just a dream fluctuating into another one so that you see no difference.
Inception is a great movie, but I just don't think a dream within a dream is a way to get deeper into someone's subconscious. I think they do not exist at all. I would love to speak to a neurologist, or someone else who was very knowledgeable regarding dreams, and see what they have to think about all of this. If anyone reads this and is of this status or a similar one, even if you have nothing to say; I know you have something to say. Am I right, am I wrong? If you're not of this position, tell me your opinion anyways.
`~,Bugworlds
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a phychologist would study dreams more so :)
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