Thread: Inception Totom. Does It Work.

Inception Has been running on Hbo alot lately and I have probably watched it 5 times already. I do enjoy the movie but there are alot of flaws and it makes me wonder if dreamviews was ever consulted?? lol. Anyways what about the totem idea is it viable. Has anybody had a similar experience?

Well it could work but not always. You have to really believe it will keep spinning and be confident that it will. If you are then in a dream it will keep spinning. But it real life no matter how much you want it to spin it will stop. But if you just randomly spin it in real life without thinking about it it won't work.

LOL! It is not supposed to be a realistic movie. It is fictional. Totems wouldn't work, their purpose is to show you if you are in your own dream, or another persons dream.

Originally Posted by zebrah

LOL! It is not supposed to be a realistic movie. It is fictional. Totems wouldn't work, their purpose is to show you if you are in your own dream, or another persons dream.

That's interesting that you say the movie is not supposed to be realistic. Most people agree that Cobb was dreaming the whole movie, which could imply the movies inaccurate nature was made deliberate by the director so the audience would realize that Cobb was dreaming the whole time and if the audience did not realize this they to are apart of the dream. Ingenius by the director interesting how u brought up the realism of the movie. Even if you were just saying the film is fiction just because it's a film. Namaste

It's pretty useless as a reality check, unless you just happen to carry a top in your pocket all the time. In the movie it was to make sure that you were in your own dream.

Originally Posted by Raphael

It's pretty useless as a reality check, unless you just happen to carry a top in your pocket all the time. In the movie it was to make sure that you were in your own dream.

Cobbs purpose for the totem was to figure out if he was dreaming if he was dreaming he was ready to put a bullet in his head so he could wake up. I do agree though using a totem in a real dream situation doesn't really work u could will the totem to do what u want.

Originally Posted by dreamcatcher81

Cobbs purpose for the totem was to figure out if he was dreaming if he was dreaming he was ready to put a bullet in his head so he could wake up. I do agree though using a totem in a real dream situation doesn't really work u could will the totem to do what u want.

The top was made a unique shape so that only Cobb could recreate it with his mind, and other dream architects couldn't replicate it. As a reality check it's useless, like I said. The top could easily fall over in a if spun in a dream, especially if he expects it to.

Originally Posted by zebrah

LOL! It is not supposed to be a realistic movie. It is fictional. Totems wouldn't work, their purpose is to show you if you are in your own dream, or another persons dream.

Damn man.... don't even try. I explained this at LEAST 3 or 4 times in the first Inception thread. Nobody could grasp the concept that it wasn't a normal reality check.
If people actually paid attention to the movie they would have realised the point of them.

Originally Posted by tommo

Damn man.... don't even try. I explained this at LEAST 3 or 4 times in the first Inception thread. Nobody could grasp the concept that it wasn't a normal reality check.
If people actually paid attention to the movie they would have realised the point of them.

It wouldn't work either if it was a reality check in the movie or a way to find out if you are in your own dream or another's.
You are 100% sure the totem will fall because of the gravity...how would you tell it is a dream if the totem acts like in the real life?

I thought the Totem was basically Hollywood's interpretation of reality checking. Maybe there's something I missed in the movie, but I suppose my totem then would be electronics/digital clocks not functioning properly.

Dreaming within a dream.... within a dream, nonsense.

No it doesn't. It isnt reliable anyway. It might work 1/8 of the time, (if that)

Totems were not used as an RC. They were used to tell if you were in another person's dream or if you were in your own. In another person's dream they will control whether the top falls or keeps on spinning. Obviously they would assume it fell over, so when it falls then Cobb would know he wasn't controlling the dream. So he already knew he was dreaming, he just wasn't sure who's dream he was in.

The inception picture i have above clearly states that if the top stops spinning your in the real world. This was cobbs purpose for the totem. Cobb never saw the top totem continue to spin if he did he was going to kill himself thus the gun in hand shown in the pic. Unfortunately that wasn't even his totem it was his wife's totem that she left behind for him after she jumped off the building supposedly killing herself. The only time cobb's top (really mal's top his wife) continues to spin is at the end of the movie when he takes his attention away from it and goes to hug his kids. I think Nolan was playing with the idea of willing things to happen the way you want them to in the dream. Which in that light is more accurate to the real lucid dreaming experience. I thought Nolan wasn't privy to the real lucid dream experience but now i think the inaccuracy of the movie was done on purpose. Brilliant.

Originally Posted by cutiepie0248

Totems were not used as an RC. They were used to tell if you were in another person's dream or if you were in your own. In another person's dream they will control whether the top falls or keeps on spinning. Obviously they would assume it fell over, so when it falls then Cobb would know he wasn't controlling the dream. So he already knew he was dreaming, he just wasn't sure who's dream he was in.

Originally Posted by dreamcatcher81

The inception picture i have above clearly states that if the top stops spinning your in the real world. This was cobbs purpose for the totem. Cobb never saw the top totem continue to spin if he did he was going to kill himself thus the gun in hand shown in the pic. Unfortunately that wasn't even his totem it was his wife's totem that she left behind for him after she jumped off the building supposedly killing herself. Cobbs's right hand man explains to the architect girl that a totem has to be exclusive to the dreamer or it wont work. The only time cobb's top (really mal's top his wife) continues to spin is at the end of the movie when he takes his attention away from it and goes to hug his kids. I think Nolan was playing with the idea of willing things to happen the way you want them to in the dream. Which in that light is more accurate to the real lucid dreaming experience. I thought Nolan wasn't privy to the real lucid dream experience but now i think the inaccuracy of the movie was done on purpose. Brilliant.

The purpose of the totem is not to tell them whether or not they are in the real world. (That it tells them that is actually a residual benefit, not the purpose.) The purpose of the totem is to tell them whether they are in someone else's dream or not. They are extractors, and dream hacking is a common crime in their time. The totems are used to protect the team from having someone else invade their mind and extract from (or otherwise manipulate) them. If someone dragged them into a dream that they designed, the team can use their totem, knowing how it's supposed to behave in a dream. If it does not behave the way that they know it's supposed to, then they are in a dream that someone else designed, because that person doesn't know how to create the pre-established behavior of the totem.

So, to answer your initial question; the totems don't work (in the way that they are intended in the movie), unless you believe that shared dreaming is possible. Even then, their concept is completely fictitious, and they would not even make reliable reality checks, as all reality checks are fallible.

[Edit:]
Also, I believe the only significance of the top spinning at the end was so that Nolan can build the suspense and show the top only begin to wobble, before cutting to black and letting the audience draw their own conclusion about Cobb's Fate. (Planting an idea, as it were.)

I also believe he wasn't dreaming, at the end.

Cobbs right hand man explains clearly to the architect girl what the totem is supposed to be used for. I'm not debating this. I'm debating cobb's intentions for the totem. Do you remember the scene when cobbs right hand man and the architect point out that Cobb does exactly what he tells people not to do. They were referring to how Cobb is making the mark pay attention to the odd things happening in the dream. Cobb has a habit of saying one thing then doing another. Now who introduced the whole totem idea? Cobb. And it wasn't even his idea it was mal's idea. Do u remember at the beginning of the movie Cobb spins his top with gun in hand implying he was ready to kill himself. With in the concept of the film
do you think that if he thought he may be sharing a dream he would put a bullet in his head. No because if you are pulled into someone else dream you are heavily druged and if u kill yourself you go into deeper limbo. Cobb told the mark this would happen in the bathroom scene. He only wanted to go to limbo to get the Asian guy out to honor their deal. What happen was Mal put alot of doubts in his head about what his reality truely was. That's why I feel the top was used for a reality check in regards to Cobb only.

It should be noted that in the scene where cobbs right hand man explains the purpose of the totem, Cobb himself goes to a back room and spins his totem top for 15secs before it topples over. I counted.

During the end scene cobb spins his top again but this time it spins for more then 49 secs and we never see it topple. Interesting how the top topples in 15 secs earlier in the film - vs. 49secs of continous spinning once he takes his attention away from it.

Inception End scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibX4WbnFdHo

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

The purpose of the totem is not to tell them whether or not they are in the real world. (That it tells them that is actually a residual benefit, not the purpose.) The purpose of the totem is to tell them whether they are in someone else's dream or not. They are extractors, and dream hacking is a common crime in their time. The totems are used to protect the team from having someone else invade their mind and extract from (or otherwise manipulate) them. If someone dragged them into a dream that they designed, the team can use their totem, knowing how it's supposed to behave in a dream. If it does not behave the way that they know it's supposed to, then they are in a dream that someone else designed, because that person doesn't know how to create the pre-established behavior of the totem.

So, to answer your initial question; the totems don't work (in the way that they are intended in the movie), unless you believe that shared dreaming is possible. Even then, their concept is completely fictitious, and they would not even make reliable reality checks, as all reality checks are fallible.

[Edit:]
Also, I believe the only significance of the top spinning at the end was so that Nolan can build the suspense and show the top only begin to wobble, before cutting to black and letting the audience draw their own conclusion about Cobb's Fate. (Planting an idea, as it were.)

I also believe he wasn't dreaming, at the end.

Originally Posted by dreamcatcher81

do you think that if he thought he may be sharing a dream he would put a bullet in his head. No because if you are pulled into someone else dream you are heavily druged and if u kill yourself you go into deeper limbo. Cobb told the mark this would happen in the bathroom scene.

This is not correct. If you were normally sharing a dream, putting a bullet in your head would just wake you up. When you are so heavily sedated as to have an Inception performed on you (which is not the 'normal' level of sedation), killing yourself drops you into a lower dream-state. Cobb's plea to Fisher was a con, in the bathroom. He was telling him the truth (that Fisher would drop into a lower dream state if he killed himself) but that truth is only because he was so heavily sedated. That part was a complete lie, on Cobb's part. Fisher was correct in suggesting that he would wake up - during an extraction - but this was in Inception, so Cobb had to stop him from killing himself.

In any normal extraction job - which is what the totems were created to defend against - killing yourself (or being killed) wakes you up, even under sedation.

Originally Posted by dreamcatcher

It should be noted that in the scene where cobbs right hand man explains the purpose of the totem, Cobb himself goes to a back room and spins his totem top for 15secs before it topples over. I counted.

During the end scene cobb spins his top again but this time it spins for more then 49 secs and we never see it topple. Interesting how the top topples in 15 secs earlier in the film - vs. 49secs of continous spinning once he takes his attention away from it.

You do understand that counting means nothing, during a movie. This is editing. I have read an interview where Christopher Nolan (the director) has said that the top was made specifically for its ability to spin for a long time, and that the length of the spin - even in the final scene - had no significance. When they initially showed the top spin and fall, they cut away from it and show Cobb's face. This completely kills all reference of time, and is not meant to imply that they showed the top for the entire duration of its spin.

I think its just a metaphor for a reality check.

Originally Posted by superchaz

I think its just a metaphor for a reality check.

I agree with you.

No, it'll do what your brain tells it to do. If you think you are awake, it'll fall over.

I agrree with ninja, here. :-D

Originally Posted by ninja9578

No, it'll do what your brain tells it to do. If you think you are awake, it'll fall over.

It wouldn't work.
When you are in a dream you think you are awake before doing an RC and you are 100% sure that the totem will fall due to the gravity.
This is pretty much how the dream mechanism works. If you are 100% sure that something will happen it will happen, if you doubt it would not happen.

In HIS OWN DREAM it keeps spinning. IN REAL LIFE it falls over. Therefore IN ANOTHER PERSON'S DREAM they would assume it would fall over too, so it does.

It's not meant to see weather he is in the real world. It's meant to see if he is in another person's dream or his own.
So yeah it is actually pointless to argue over whether he was in a dream at the end or the whole movie or anything like that.
Because, as you say, if you think it will keep spinning it will. As long as he's not in another person's dream.
But he could still be in his own.

Whatever it's just a movie. I don't think the totem thingy would work anyway.

I just....
*almighty sigh*

Totems are totally fictional, although yes, I'm guessing that they're based off RCs.

The issue with using a totem as an RC is that if you were dreaming, you probably wouldn't be carrying it around with you unless you've been holding it in real life for years, similar to how we wear clothing in our dreams because it's a part of our lifestyle. There's the issue with summoning it; if you're not fully confident that you could be dreaming, you won't be able to get it to appear. Even if you were confident, there's the chance that the specific dream you're in will not co-operate. And if you've already summoned it, then there's no need to use the totem from that point on, since you already used dream control to get the object to appear.

Along with this, objects (including "totems") can act totally normal in dreams. Around a year ago I spun a spinning top (well, more like a blue dreidel), and it fell over after I watched it for only a few seconds.

Using one to see if you're in someone else's dream (if you believe in shared dreaming), well, I'm guessing there wouldn't be much of a difference in how it behaves. Both your dream, and the other persons' dream essentially run on expectations, so if you expect the totem to act like you're still in your own dream, it will. If you expect it to act like you're in someone else's dream, it can do that too. Remember that Inception's storyline and dream systems don't rely on expectations, and instead more realistic, plausible scenarios.

Your best bet is just doing the nose-plug RC.