Thread: Inception totem

I think that a cell phone would work because most of us carry them around with us everywhere, plus they tell the time and have tons of writing in them.

I guess if you can call it a totem mine would be a metal die. I actually have 2 dice, one chrome and one gold in colour, eg:


I tend to carry one in my pocket nearly all of the time, its a small token i can carry around that reminds me of dreaming and lucidity. I also use it to reality check with by randomly taking it out and counting the spots on whatever side is initially facing me, i then add that number to the spots on the reverse to make sure they add up to 7. While doing this I study the face to make sure the dots look even and non....dreamlike . It only takes a few seconds and nobody ever notices me doing it which means i can perform a lot more RC's.

Sometimes the object doesn't have to have any uniqueness in it. I mean, I carried an object in my pocket and every time I felt it (about every 3 hours), I would do reality checks. If its not in your pocket (for whatever reason), just thinking about the object reminds you to perform reality checks so in a dream, you think about the object or feel the object, just do reality checks.

Well, goodnight!

I think a totem would work as a good reality check. I've heard of people who do the five finger reality check, but they still have five fingers in their dreams. I think it's because they see their hands so often, and it's ingrained in their subconscious that it should have five fingers. Maybe a good totem would be a pair of dice, with one catch; only one die is loaded. So then, when you test one of the die, you don't know if it will land on your loaded number or not. This could work for or against you in dreams however: either you roll the die and it lands on a random number, and you go on about your dream, or it lands on your loaded number, and you realize. Really a 50/50 chance, I guess.

It's a brilliant way to reality check imo. I use a loaded dice just like Arthur. I can use it in different ways and it works perfectly.

I find many of Inceptions tools for story to be a blindfold for those new to lucid dreaming. The most blatant being death = waking up, which is just completely untrue. Carrying around a totem where ever you go is also silly, because the entire world is full of dream signs; there's no reason to carry one around with you.

Remorseless: That was one of the most stupid things I've ever heard since everone's dreams are different. Maybe for you it works great without a "totem", but don't you seriously think people have used this way of checking before the film? Who are you to tell what is working and not, when the way of dreaming is one of the most individual things we have?

And sure, it is not necessarily just so simple that when you die in a dream you wake up, I know people who have "revived" themselves in the dream and also people who have turned into living dead's in their dreams. But for some people, maybe this is the way it works. For myself, I always wake up before I die.

^ That's just your mindset, though. You can't shake the habit of waking up before you die, it's not a law of the dreamworld that can't be avoided like in Inception.

Another example is the "five minutes in the dream is an hour in the real world". Completely untrue.

The laws and methods of dreams in Inception are strictly there for the story--which was all the film had going for it--but are completely confusing when taken as fact.

Originally Posted by Remorseless

^ That's just your mindset, though.

Exactly, that's someone elses mind set, not yours. You kind of just proved their point there... Personally I think the totem is a nice idea and if someone can find something that they connect to, carrying it around might have some effect. Sure depending what the object is it might not work all that well as a reality check, but it could still hold significance to being in touch with your dreams...

I think it's important to point out here that totems could actually be used in real life as dream indicators. For example, if you were to go out and buy a totem like the main character in Inception's, you could train your subconscious to make it spin continuously whenever you're dreaming. It's similar to the case where you tell a DC to tell you you're dreaming in a future dream. The DC doesn't always alert you that you're dreaming, but we don't perform reality checks (nor would one whip out their totem and use it) in every dream, either.
Of course this requires some previous action on the lucid dreamer's part in order to make this work.

In my honest opinion, though, unless you're an Inception fanboy, stick with reality checks.


No offense to any fanboys here.

My Idea for a totem: a glass pendant with a swirly design you can where as a necklace all the time in waking life. When you look at it in a dream it will actually be swirling like a little portal or something. The expectation would cause it to work in a dream.

Jeez, Remorseless. If you don't like the movie just say so. Who cares if it's untrue? IT'S A MOVIE. The only True movies are documentaries! Inception was a kick-ass movie, so whatever if it doesn't apply to real life. Either talk about the forum subject, or just shut it.

Originally Posted by TheExtractor

Jeez, Remorseless. If you don't like the movie just say so. Who cares if it's untrue? IT'S A MOVIE. The only True movies are documentaries! Inception was a kick-ass movie, so whatever if it doesn't apply to real life. Either talk about the forum subject, or just shut it.

Excuse me, but I'm stating that the fictional Inception methods shouldn't be attempted in real life, which is indeed the forum subject; so shut your little fanboy hole up, stop excusing the movie, and let the thread come to a conclusion.

Inception Totems would only be worn by suckers and fanboys, the same way Materia is worn by FF7 nerds, who probably think that shit is real, too.

Don't tell me to "shut [my] little fanboy hole up", Remorsless. At least I'm not an ignorant dick who judges people based off their profile, like you. And, honestly, I don't give a shit about what you think.

Hmm...wouldn't work in my opinion...
In the movie the purpose of the totem was to check if they were in someone else's dream...
Since they knew exactly how the object behaves,it would behave differently in another person's dream...
Face the fact that its only a movie...It was amazing,my favorite movie hands down..
But the movie features many things which aren't possible or untrue...
And the possibility of using a totem seems rather silly...I mean its your dream,your subconscious,why would you be testing it?
just my opinion
-sam

Well I have noticed that my class ring was different in a dream before. I was even remaking about how my ring kept changing but I didnt realize it was because I was in a dream. I wish I could get that implanted in my mind. If my ring looks different then it is definitely a dream. That would probably increase my lucid rate by quite a bit because normally I just beomce lucid without any clues. I just suddenly know its a dream but to have something to look at and determine if Im dreaming would be good.

^ Yeah, I've noticed things like that, too: it's like you just get the feel you're dreaming, or in another state at least. Normally, my weight and immobility contributes to my lucidity, it's like some primal instinct telling you you don't feel quite normal.

They're all just dream signs, though; reality-check tools which can be applied to many things.

Carrying an object around with you works best by reminding you to perform reality checks. I believe that the behaviors don't change from reality to dreams majority of the time. I carried a top just to see if it would spin forever in my dream and never spun it when dreaming because every time I see the top, I perform reality checks and those are what really showed me if I was dreaming.

So yes, carrying an object in your pocket that has "special qualities" doesn't really help, but it just reminds us to perform reality checks more often and therefore will make us reality check in our dreams more leading to more lucid dreams.

It has nothing to do with being a fan boy really (well, it could to some), especially if it could have a benefit to someone's dreams. An idea is just an idea; whether or not it was used to support the plot of a movie, an idea that at least attempts to fit into the world it's touching on is one that's worth thinking about. What is stupid however is carrying a lump of "Materia" around with you as if it's actually going to have any effect, because we all know for sure that it isn't. That's for the fan boys...

I could really imagine Nolan taking advantage of the gullibility of some people out there. Chess pieces, spinning tops, and sets of weighted dice, all at ridiculously high prices because people will actually believe that shit is just the best--and possibly only--way to lucid dream.

Also, all I've stated is that many of Inceptions methods are fictional and overdramatized; carrying a totem around may work, yes, but it's pointless busywork since dream signs are all around you. What ever happened to breathing through a blocked nose, or pushing your finger through your hand? Oh, I think I just broke the system by making it too simplistic. Don't tell anybody, okay?

Stop getting pissed off when you know I'm right.

That, and that Inception was an average movie

Originally Posted by Remorseless

I could really imagine Nolan taking advantage of the gullibility of some people out there. Chess pieces, spinning tops, and sets of weighted dice, all at ridiculously high prices because people will actually believe that shit is just the best--and possibly only--way to lucid dream.

Also, all I've stated is that many of Inceptions methods are fictional and overdramatized; carrying a totem around may work, yes, but it's pointless busywork since dream signs are all around you. What ever happened to breathing through a blocked nose, or pushing your finger through your hand? Oh, I think I just broke the system by making it too simplistic. Don't tell anybody, okay?

Stop getting pissed off when you know I'm right.

That, and that Inception was an average movie

The only person getting pissed off is you because people are disagreeing with you...

Carrying something small with you that reminds you to reality check and think about dreaming isn't a bad thing. The point isn't to rely on the unique behaviour of an object like in the film, its to bring your mind to the subject of dreaming when you feel it in your pocket (as an example).

I think the idea is you have an object that reminds you to reality check and is a reality check in its self. Like my idea to check if the pendant on my necklace has a portal in it every time I feel it or see it or whatever.

Thought that the idea of using the concept of totems to check if you are dreaming was interesting, and works in mainly two ways:
1. You believe that the object will change in some minor way, as your mind can't recreate it perfectly, so seeing the object behave/look/feel in a different way will give you a cue.
2. For those like me, who believe that the mind can recreate everything that will actually cue you it's a dream, you can use it to remind yourself to do a reality check.

Really it depends on the mind set.

But it should be noted obviously the whole reasoning behind the totem which was used for the movie, DOESN'T carry over here. The first two possible ways you could use a totem above is merely something obtained through basically common sense, and past experiences in dreams. In the movie of course, totems are only for understanding if they are in someone else's dream, as they do not know how the totem works. Technically if we wanted to actually follow the movie, you could even say totems would never work on your own dreams, as the movie says how people are unable to understand how strange a dream is, when they're in a dream, and only realize it when they wake up.

So obviously for this thread, I would like to refrain from constantly repeating what I said in the above paragraph, and rather focus on the effectiveness of totems in general in dreams.
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EDIT: Oh and I kind of added the second paragraph just because of the arguments with remorseless.... "I could really imagine Nolan taking advantage of the gullibility of some people out there". Again, the actual movie states totems are for OTHER people's dreams, in other words, Nolan couldn't take advantage of anyone even if they could. What you have failed to realize, is that everyone else who is writing in the thread right now, is not talking about the exact same totem as depicted in the movie, but rather the viability of a totem in general as something to use as a reality check.
"That, and that Inception was an average movie"
^ Frankly I felt the only reason why you would be so unable to be flexible in this thread is because you only keep telling yourself "OMG INCEPTION IS SO OVER RATED", and not actually really thinking about what we're talking about.

I think all of you are missing something, I believe it can be used in a similar way as the movie but differently. if your totem is a loaded die set to 5, you will practice during the day to make it land on anything but 5. it will only be in a dream that you will be able to get it to land on something else. when it does your dreaming. the same goes for the top, you try to make it spin for two or three minutes.