Thread: How accuate is Inception's portrayal of lucid dreaming/dreaming in general? (SPOILERS in this topic)

i really liked the film too and there were a few parts that did accurately respesent dreams or atleast my experiences of them. the bullets and the water are just to keep the story realistic thrilling and engaging. i dont believe that kind of stability is impossible, numerous times in dreams ive done reality checks that have come up real.

Concerning the whole idea of pain in a dream, it is possible to feel pain, i have felt it, your mind does make it real if the dream is vivid enough.

I would have liked to see more forger too though, a part of the film that wasnt exploited enough.

The whole idea of limbo was interesting, all lucid dreamers have some experiences of something like this, lack of memory in a ld, even experiencing non existance and trying to bring yourself out of it. really liked that idea.

I also liked the way the world melted/fell apart when stability faded, kind of accurate.

The use of shared dreaming is interesting maybe one day technology may live up to that, we'll see, hopefully

overall a great film!

I thought a few of the things they mentioned seemed pretty accurate. The idea behind the "totem" is reminiscent to the way that we reality check. The more they changed the dream the more turbulent it got--that's also similar, I think, to lucid dreaming.

I don't know, really, much past that. I thought the movie was amazing.

I just watched it on Monday and am hoping to go see it again. I agree that there are things that weren't 100% true-to-dream (can't really say true-to-life in this context), but we're talking about Hollywood here. I'm sure they had a few dreamers on the team while they were writing this movie, but there were probably also some others who thought it might be too fantastic or the public would lose interest or be confused or something. Who knows. I, too, was enthralled when the city was folded in on itself, as I'm sure everyone here who's seen it was.

I thought they did a fairly decent job of capturing one interpretation of the dream world. The elimination of physics, the core of creation, and the importance of feelings were spot on in terms of what really comprises a dream. I even feel that the jolting from plot segment to plot segment was also well done, representing how dreams feel sometimes... what I consider the "Wait, what?" factor. I like how they brought in the idea of reality checks ("totems") and to a small degree, dream signs. I don't have much to say about the whole "dream levels" idea, though, as I feel that that was more of a Hollywood move. I know of people who have fallen asleep in their dreams and gone into another dream, but I personally doubt they're going down to another "level." That doesn't mean one can't delve deeply into one's own mind, but the physical representation struck me as "Um, okay..."

Originally Posted by MJMax

And I'm sure you all remember the part of the movie where the "forger" pulls out a grenade launcher out of nowhere. "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." I was really hoping we'd see more of that. What sort of control does the "forger" have that the others don't?

Well, it was established that the Forger could manipulate his own appearance, and so it's not out of the realm of probability that he could manipulate other things, at least related to himself. Perhaps he had the best grasp on the dream and/or the best level of control with the exception of the Architect and Cobb. Who knows? Everyone's level of control is different in their dreams, and some people may excel in one area (dreamscaping, shifting, etc.) while others excel in something else.

I agree with what else has been stated and overall I gave it a solid 9/10. I had been giving it an 8, but the fact that it didn't have what I consider a bunch of unnecessary crap made me bump it up. I'll be buying this.

the stuff, like the mirror working and needing the oxygen under water, never really bothered me, because the movie takes place in a future where all the dreams and dreamers were connected by some kind of computer device thingy, and the "architect" designs it, so though the world is created in the mind its more structured than an actual real life dream, more like a really good video game.

Originally Posted by MJMax

One thing I wondered is why everyone was bound by the constraints of the real world in the dream.

I got the idea that the rules of the dream were maintained by the Architect (ie: Yusef, Arthur, Eames). So whatever rules the Architect put in place would have to be followed by the rest of the dreamers.

Maybe I should learn to suspend my belief more.

Nah, picking movies apart is the fun bit.

I am pretty sure the exponentially compounding time thing was completely made up, although I have seen evidence of both time being the same as real-world time in dreams and being faster in dreams, but I think 50 years is a bit much.

I got battery acid on my hand in a dream last night and it hurt like hell, so I can vouch for pain being a real thing, although easily forgettable.

Originally Posted by MJMax

Stability, for one thing. I was hoping we'd be able to see more of that "bending the city in half" god like control and surrealism.

As far as the movie goes, the architect, or the person who created the dream world, can't change things because the dreamers mind, whoever they were trying to plant the idea in (forgot his name...), would try to eradicate the unknown presence. They had to act like they were part of his mind in order to pull it off.

Originally Posted by MJMax

One thing I wondered is why everyone was bound by the constraints of the real world in the dream. Couldn't bullets be ignored, water be breathed, etc?

Once again, they had to act like they were part of his mind in order for him to reveal his secrets and preform inception correctly. If they acted like they ruled the place, then the dreamers mind would try to exterminate the outsiders.

Simply, in order to preform inception correctly, they had to act like all of his DCs, which means no awesome, god-like rule of the place.

Though I would've preferred that XD

i thought it was clever how they portrayed the minds weakness. how you exploit something in the first level of fischer's subconcious and in the second level of the dream the mind carries that exploitation over and feeds it back to you. Like the scene when saito approaches fischers projection of his uncle thinking that its eames still portraying the uncle. and then he apologizes for mistaking him for someone else and the two of them (saito and eames) follow him and eames says this "that fischers projection of browning, lets follow him and see if his subconcious is reacting to the suspiscion like we want him to." So easily and effectively turning his subconcious against itself. later convincing him to join the team and helping the people invading his mind to break into his own subconcious. Brilliant writing by mr nolan who happens to be a fellow lucid dreamer.

i think they explained the architect thing earlier in the movie. How ariadne designs the levels, but you never find out any specific elements ie. snow or rain. So ariadne teaches them to the "Dreamers" (Yusuf, Arthur and Eames) and they remain awake during "their" level of the dream. Ariadne is the only architect. The only thing that any of the dreamers design is the shortcut that eames adds to his dream level. but because Ariadne explains it to cobb, Mal shows up.

How do you get out of limbo? The only way we saw was killing yourself(Cobb and Mal were run over by a train, and Cobb and the chinese guy shot themselves). So why didn't Cobb and Mal kill themselves in the FIRST PLACE!!!!1

Originally Posted by Mike02

How do you get out of limbo? The only way we saw was killing yourself(Cobb and Mal were run over by a train, and Cobb and the chinese guy shot themselves). So why didn't Cobb and Mal kill themselves in the FIRST PLACE!!!!1

They went in on purpose.

The totems, the inability to control the dream characters (even by the person whose dream it was) were the two things that stood out largely for me. I'm sure there were others but at the moment I'm blanking. :3

I think someone should make a section on the Wiki page titled "Differences from real Lucid Dreaming".

That totem is a pretty good idea. It would be an easy way to reality check. Of course, it may seem real in the dream because you're used to it.

Originally Posted by oniman7

That totem is a pretty good idea. It would be an easy way to reality check. Of course, it may seem real in the dream because you're used to it.

Yes, but it wasn't as convenient though, because you had to be sneaky about using them... No one else is supposed to see them.

the inability to control the dream characters (even by the person whose dream it was)

Was this for or against? I still have trouble controlling swarms of DCs.

I think the concept of the DC's noticing something is wrong is pretty accurate. I had the most intense lucid dream this morning for the first time, and I think it was because I saw inception. I saw a couple (guy and girl) and I explained to them that they were dreaming. I started flirting with the girl (looked like Eva Mendez, so hot) and told her we should hook up because it is after all, a dream. She started kissing me and then her boyfriend went into another room with a window and just stared at me. I tried to ignore it but he gave me the damn heebie jeebies, like he knew this wasn't right. He gave that same look that Mal gave Cobb in the dream, just creepy.

I'm a huge fan of the film-seen it twice- and I completely agree that I would have liked to see more of the Ellen Page "bending cities and shattering mirror" kinda stuff. The whole dream concept seemed way to concrete, and even as people who don't lucid dream know, dreams just aren't that stable. It is possible though, that the dream sharing machine was responsible for it, like you mentioned.

Is the dream lengths accurate? like if i sleep for 10hrs one night and i start to lucid dream right away, will i have one week in my dream?

Originally Posted by mariob316

Is the dream lengths accurate? like if i sleep for 10hrs one night and i start to lucid dream right away, will i have one week in my dream?

I don't think so. Christopher Nolan explained the slow moving time by having the time move slower depending on how many layers of dreams you're in. I think it's true that an hour in the real world would be like two or more hours in the dream world, but I'm not sure the exact change in time. I'm no expert, that's just what I've heard.

About the dream length thing, I've had some dreams where days have passed...but I'm not sure if I necessarily 'felt' the time like I would in real life.

I have to say their portrayal of lucid dreaming was good, because the limitations could have been due to the strange contraption they were all linked to (which I would have liked more indepth detail on, I'm curious on how that's supposed to work) and how the architect 'maps' out the dream.

I also really liked how they portrayed DC's, it's nothing I have ever heard of or experienced but I have always found it extremely uncomfortable to talk to DC's in a lucid dream, maybe because I feel that I am more real than them? I don't know..

The experience of time is definitely different in dreams, lucid or not, but I'm pretty confident there's no fixed ratio.

Stephen LaBerge did an experiment to test the time differences between the dream world and real world. Since in REM sleep, your eyes are moving the same way that your dream eyes are moving, he gave the dreamers an eye movement pattern that they had to do once they became lucid. Then they had to count to 10, and then do the pattern again. After reviewing the eye movements, the pattern showed up, and then showed up again 10 seconds later, so the dream time was equal to the real world. He explained that the reason for dreams that seem very long were because it just seems that way, because there are a lot of time skips that we just don't notice.

Originally Posted by Deco

Stephen LaBerge did an experiment to test the time differences between the dream world and real world. Since in REM sleep, your eyes are moving the same way that your dream eyes are moving, he gave the dreamers an eye movement pattern that they had to do once they became lucid. Then they had to count to 10, and then do the pattern again. After reviewing the eye movements, the pattern showed up, and then showed up again 10 seconds later, so the dream time was equal to the real world. He explained that the reason for dreams that seem very long were because it just seems that way, because there are a lot of time skips that we just don't notice.

While I agree that the iffiness of dream time likely owes to skips and filling in gaps, the study is far from conclusive. I would consider it quite the lucid feat to repeat pre-established eye movements between ten counts, assuming the unlikely scenario that REM patterns follow one's "dream eyes" and the slightly more likely but far from certain assertion that one has "dream eyes."

Originally Posted by Mike02

How do you get out of limbo? The only way we saw was killing yourself(Cobb and Mal were run over by a train, and Cobb and the chinese guy shot themselves). So why didn't Cobb and Mal kill themselves in the FIRST PLACE!!!!1

Because Mal began to believe it was real. She was down there so long it became her reality. Hence why cobb had to implant the idea in her head that it wasn't real: to get her to kill herself so they could both wake up together.