http://jonahhaas.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/6stepstolucidskillz/

http://i.imgur.com/SIQ59.jpg

I enjoyed your discussion of Inception. As an avid lucid dreamer, I have had alot to say about the movie and am crafting a similar review of particular dream-related issues brought up by the film. One thing that I can share now is an Inception-inspired dream quiz that I developed after watching the movie.

Learn where YOU stand as a dreamer! Feel free to post your results or feedback as comments on the page.

http://jonahhaas.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/inception-dream-quiz/

Anyway, regarding dreams, I was surprised how much of a “fantasy” it was. In some way The Matrix was less fantastic. In a surface sense, of course The Matrix was much more of a comic book, with all the OTT kung fu and shades and robots – but actually responding to the coherence of the film world, once you accepted the futuristic scenario, the VR rationale, everything fit together relatively slickly. Inception tries to posit this present / near-future scenario much closer to us, and uses dreams. Even though the dreams are technologically enhanced, a lot of the way dreams were seen to work was too rigid and technically consistent, very distorted versions of actual dream mechanics. There was almost nothing of the mercurial nature of dreams – it’s like this aspect was entirely handed over to the special effects, not explored in the character dynamics, emotional atmospherics, and yes, plain weirdness. I think the trick to this is that most dream weirdness doesn’t seem weird at the time, so just making the viewer freak out doesn’t work well – you need to portray weirdness as casual and accepted.

Anyway, the film’s fantasy of rigid dream rules irked me for a while, but sure, provided some thrilling scenes. Criticizing a Hollywood blockbuster for fantasy is pretty dumb! Fair enough, all that rigidity was really just setting up a truly stunning set-piece. Even though the set-up annoyed me, getting all those rules in place still worked well to totally involve me in the nested-dreams action climax.

Great review! One aspect of the movie I particularly enjoyed was the portrayal of the difference in the passage of time from one dream layer to the next. I’ve had many dreams in which weeks or months of time passed, and those dreams tend to affect me more deeply than other dreams. I loved your story about dreaming of spending a month learning to make rope and then waking up feeling centered and aged.

~ Kris

Actually got a question. I have a few dreams where if I have a gun/weapon involved pulling a trigger, the trigger is real tight and most of the time doesn’t shoot the projectile or if i squeeze it enough to make it work nothing really happens. And during these situations I am thinking and know that this isn’t right. Anyway there are a few other dreams where I know something isn’t right and yes have had a few of telling people that “this is a dream” lol.

But of the original situation (like the gun trigger) is it possible that because I haven’t experienced that situation in real life (not saying that I will go do it just to make my dreams more realistic lol) that the brain distorts the processes in making things logical? i.e. things become bizarre? I mean even things that you are familiar with in real life etc. seem to still get distorted in dreams sometimes.

thanks for your time in reading this people and help is appreciated

cheers,
Bray

I’m fine if people aren’t all Jungians and don’t want to delve into their deeper sides and that Cobb didn’t want to find out about himself in experiencing Mal as an autonomous or semi-autonomous being in her own right… but couldn’t he have just said, ok, you got your thing to do, I got mine?
I guess I haven’t even been that nice in a break either…

RC

Isn’t that bizarre? This happens frequently to me, too. I’ll say, “I’m dreaming! This is a dream.” And the dream characters will be all “No, you’re not” and look at me like I’m nuts. Only twice have any characters admitted to it, and one was my husband (go figure). It’s like a strange self-preservation instinct on their part, perhaps.