Inception came out over the weekend and I was not disappointed. The movie felt like a dizzy sci-fi lucid dream and I stumbled out of the theater afterward like I has just crawled out of a hall of mirrors. Don’t worry, there’s no big spoilers in this review.
I have already covered the actual possibilities of mutual lucid dreaming as well as the clever use of real dream researchers to create the impression of government dream research in the film’s viral marketing campaign. In this article, I am focusing on how the film portrayed dreaming well, and where it fell flat.
Dream Creation
The Architects are the folks in Inception who craft the infrastructure of the dream. In lucid dreaming, this sort of dream construction is very possible and the depiction of the mind-bending scenery changes is true to my experience. I particularly liked how the dream characters would stare if the architect changed too much…. this also has a thread of dreaming reality. In my dreams, dream figures actively respond to changes of the dream and may try to prevent the changes from occurring. And they don’t always like being told they are figures on a dream, either. In one dream, I announced to a restaurant of people “This is only a dream!” and they crowd yelled back a cacophony of “no, no, no, it’s not true.”
I then did what most lucid dreamers eventually do: threw myself off a cliff to see what would happen.
Pain and Death in the Dream
Which leads me to my next point. Pain is possible, and it can be excruciatingly real, so it makes for a lousy reality check. Dying in dreams is also possible. But neither pain nor death can stop the dreamer. Rather than waking up, it’s not uncommon for lucid dreamers to enter another dream. For me, I enter the lucid void for a while, and I then patiently wait for the dream to recreate itself around me. This is more exciting for me then manipulating the architecture of a dream scene.
Spontaneous Intrusion
Without going into too much detail, I found Cobb’s struggle with intruding dream material true to life. Even in the most “lucid” of dreams, when we are completely aware and confident in our movements, unexpected and sometimes terrifying dream material will interject into the dream. Inception does an excellent job portraying this psychological truth. The harder you push against this material, moreover, and try to shove it down and away, the harder it will hit you back the next time. Lucid dreaming is a tension between openness and resistance. The resistance is nothing to be ashamed of… it’s part of the package. But we can become more aware of our resistances the more time we spend in lucid dreams, and become more adept at facing them when they spontaneously appear… rather than running away.
But where’s the bizarreness?
I’ve heard many complain about the lack of dream bizarreness in Inception. The truth is, dream bizarreness is over-reported. Most dreams are fairly mundane recreations of our everyday life, our jobs, homes and the relationships that make it all worthwhile. Big dreams don’t come often, but it is these dreams that steal the headlines with all their half-human/half-animal creatures, abstract geometric imagery and intense colors that make us say WTF when we wake up.
Also, Inception was set in drug-induced stupors, not even in ordinary dreams. Who could even say what stage of sleep the dreamers were in?
Still, I would have enjoyed some more dream bizarreness. The movie was so heavy, all focused on the drama drama drama. Several times I wish everyone would just become a little more lucid and enter a non-dual state so all actors suddenly merged minds. Or flew into a gigantic kaleidoscope mandala. I would even have laughed at some old-school Freudian imagery, but nay, the closest the movie got to Freud was the fact that the characters had their weapons drawn the entire time. But I can’t complain about the weapons… it was primarily a heist film after-all.
Dream Time versus Real Time
Lastly, again without going into detail here, I loved the sci-fi imagining of how different layers of dreams have different senses of time. Some dreams really do seem to last hours, only to wake up and find 15 minutes has gone by. Often this is a narrative effect, in which a story is told through vignettes that create the span of time between scenes. But sometimes it is the feeling of time passing that is so vivid. I recently had a dream in which I worked with a mentor making rope from strings. In the dream, I realized I had been there a month. My entire personality had changed in the dream through this meditative work. I woke up so centered, aged, as if I had actually gotten dropped in an infinite time bucket. My wife tells me she once lived an entire life in a dream. These things happen, and they are sometimes more than a trick of the narrative.
Overall, I had a great time watching this movie. But once I account for my love of any movie that uses dreaming as a plot point, I’d say that Inception is a little confused. It is a heist or a psychological thriller? A sci-fi parable or a love story? Inception tries to be all, and ends up not doing any particularly well. True to most dreams, and to waking life, this film has some truth, some distractions, and some fun imagery, but at the end, it’s the journey, not the destination that really matters, because if you think about it too hard, the whole thing kinda unravels anyways.
Ryan,
I really liked that you use your own dream experience to explore how Inception uses dreams.
Freud: note that it was Freud that said that dreams were about protecting sleep. The genital references everyone knows and laughs about are about the content of dreams. In this sense, the Inception projections were (non literally) quite true to form… in protecting the dreamscapes converging on anomolies. I recall when using the dream-mask (that beeps and blinks when one goes into rem sleep) that my dream incorporation mechanisms were quite hostile to these intrusions. Several times I was riding in a car or on a motorcycle and was panicked because I couldn’t see as something was on my eyes. Other times I saw the blinking red lights, and they appeared as intruding flying saucers or warnings on streets I shouldn’t go down.
Of course, having read Freud, this means these examples are no proof of his theory – since I knew the theory, my mind might just be playing it out.
In Freud’s more advanced theory, the projections, in service of protecting sleep, would try to do two things at the same time, to keep the intrusion from being too disturbing, while at the same time helping the intrusive feeling blow off a little steam.
I kept thinking in the film, why don’t they just fly? The apology I came up with was that either the projections would freak out or there was something in the dream-machine/architecture/drugs that inhibited these kinds of actions.
I’m more thinking (in my made up story of Inception) that it has to be the limitations imposed by the architect. When I am flying in my dreams, my other ‘projections’ pretty much ignore the situation.
— You have me wanting to think more about lucid dream character reactions, thanks! RC
Geese! Somehow I got linked to your blogs for rmtoee viewing through another site program (silva ultra mind or american monk). I downloaded the sample RV exercise and used it last night after the long relax exercise from silva. I haven’t purchased the RV program yet, but will. I have had lucid dreams before and OBE’s quite often. At first the experience of the OBE’s scared me out of my wits! After a while I started to get used to the sound and vibration and just relax during the process. I can’t control it though, not sure if I am supposed to either.Last night’s OBE gave me 3 messages. Actually to back up a minute at the end of the RV exercise, I twinkled my body of light out to infinity, then I went to bed. The OBE’s that I had experienced before were localized in my home, last night’s was further. My point of awareness shot out to the cosmos, I could see the night sky and stars and I was out there. I also had my awareness enter something like a warp hole??? Not sure what it is called but came back through it with another being type person who brought with her (?) a baby black and orange tiger looking animal (sooo adorable). After a few minutes of spending time with them they went back through the hole and it was timed, like they had to go back before something happened, but again, I’m not sure what that something is or was. The messages were an address, I should’ve written it down, think it was 9 S. Main St., no town, I was shown a man proposing to me, no face, but a name, and an announcement of a baby coming, no name, no other info. I’m a little older so I don’t think it’s me although it is not impossible.I got up this morning and checked my emails and your email about OBE’s and lucid dreaming with the link was in the mailbox, so I checked it out. Thank you for what you do! I believe we have the capability to travel with intentions and instead of bringing back a baby tiger, bring back advanced science, technology, medicine, etc…, but I don’t know how to do these things or what to do with them when they are brought back, just a hunch.enjoy!Tereseps. This happened Jan 26 pmYes, I also experience the paralysis and the ringing sounds more like a jet engine, the sound also has a very intense vibration where it feels like the atoms are going to explode, but they don’t. I believe we do this every night, but only recall it when we are conscious of it, having the experience of being conscious of it makes it easier for us to recognize the sensations which helps us be aware of the experiences more often. Exercises like the RV sample or meditation help more than one would think.
Oh one more ‘caution’ (– some spoilers caution — )
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You had that great picture of the spinning top – which I just loved and as mentioned elsewhere, loved it when it became ‘symbolic’ as a reality-testing-factor that Mal locked it away, as we all do at times.
But I have to say, though I thought it was perfect in the film, the test is quite absurd and I don’t recommend it to any wannabe lucid dreamer. One could quite easily dream that the top falls and stops.
Nor would I recommend Ryan’s jumping off the cliff technique — eeek — how about you just try hovering first?
RC
lol – I’m not recommending cliff-jumping as a reality test — where’s my lawyer? KIDS, do not try this at home — but as a means of exploring ego death when you know you’re dreaming. it’s really fascinating.
thanks for the Freud Facts. shhhh- everybody stay calm.
I agree about the lack of flying — that is really such a lynch pin for so many’s lucid dreams. In the early LD literature (Laberge, Hunt, etc) there was discussion about how realizing you’re dreaming often created excitement and spontaneous levitation. in the movie, when told he was dreaming, the guy looked like someone had kicked him in the groin. I thought “lighten up!”
“And they don’t always like being told they are figures on a dream, either. In one dream, I announced to a restaurant of people “This is only a dream!” and they crowd yelled back a cacophony of “no, no, no, it’s not true.””
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.
How about that finally raking of the Mal projection? I thought that was kind of cruel as well.
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
Hi all,
I haven’t seen the movie yet but deff. looking forward to it. I’ve read more about the architects and can see that its a bit like matrix in the sense that they can upload equipment etc. into the dream? Initially I was thinking that how could they get things into the dream when the person dreaming (their brain) has control of the dream.
Talk about the bizarreness of dreams, I guess you could put it into a movie but it would make a messy storyline, I mean even though it seems to make sense to us in our own dreams sometimes lol.
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
Hi Ryan,
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
Just saw it last night, I enjoyed it a lot but I was a bit disappointed. I agree about the drama, drama, drama. Not saying that he should have “light relief” in there (some one-liner attempts at this, like the “Paradox!” quip were pretty lame). Maybe it’s more about the pacing, the rhythm – something I think was also too unremitting in The Dark Knight, but which he got just right in The Prestige (his best film by far).
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.
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for sending your piece. I’ve enjoyed reading all the opinions here. I haven’t worked much with dreams outside of my own since I graduated. Seeing the movie made me want to take a second look and if for nothing else I am glad for that. Out here in mainstream land the word is people either love it or hate (the movie that is). I believe the love, hate has to do with understanding what dreaming really is and what people don’t understand and don’t want to work that hard at a movie to try to understand. I think it may be a great time for more information to come out about dreams. Perhaps an emailto local media?
Ryan,
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/
I thought this was clever, I’m not sure I agree with it yet, but it’s a map, not the territory…
http://i.imgur.com/SIQ59.jpg
Ryan, I’d be interested to see you do a similar analysis of the film Stay
6 easy steps to enhance your lucid dream skills!
http://jonahhaas.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/6stepstolucidskillz/