Thread: Inception: Fact in the fiction.

After the debut of inception DreamViews has been inundated with threads and posts concerning things like; dreams within dreams, totems, projections etc. In all my time on pre-inception DV I never saw a thread containing these terms. So why is this still such a popular trend? And is there any truth to the movie?

First off everyone needs to understand two things.

1) Inception is a great movie in my opinion.

2) It is a work of fiction.

There are certain elements in this work of fiction that are directly based on lucid dreaming fact. I'll cover the basic elements of inception and tell you what's true and what isn't.

Dreams Within Dreams:

Here is the big one, dreams within dreams. Are they possible? Well.. yes and no.

No technically they are not actually possible. You can't go "deeper" in a dream. That's right you can stop fretting about limbo.

"You're wrong zebrah I have had dreams within dreams." No actually you haven't. You have dreamt that you had a dream within a dream ,if that makes sense.

You are just changing the dream scene. There was no talk of layered dreams that I ever saw before inception. It is just a trick your mind plays, sorry

Projections:

From the inception wiki, "The images of people or objects in a dream that are "projected" by the sleepers' subconscious minds. While any sleeper can project these images, part of the subject's role in a shared dream is to populate a dream space with projections."

So are projections real? Yes they are essentially dream characters with a different name to sound more exciting.

What is false about projections? They will not attack anyone if the dream is changed drastically. That was just something added to make the movie more interesting.

Totems:

Totems are tools used by the dreamer to see who's dream they are in. Are they real? No. Even if you were in someone else's dream you a totem would feel how you expect it to feel.

What are they based on? Reality checks of course. Totems are a way of becoming lucid in a shared dream and reality checks are a way of becoming lucid in your dreams. See the connection?

Limbo:

Ok here we go limbo. Is limbo real? No. Absolutely not. Limbo is 100% fictional thus there is no such place.

Is it possible to feel like you are in a dream for years? Yeah, but you aren't trapped in some deep down layer that breaks your spirit and makes you an old man in a young man's body.

Shared Dream Machines:

Are shared dream machines real? Nope, at least not yet.

What about shared dreams? This is highly debated but some people do believe it is possible. Most likely this was something that Nolan used to make the shared dreaming interesting and less "new age".

Inception and Extraction:

The possibility of these would be highly dependent on the reality of shared dreaming. Yes in theory both could be possible. Although maybe differently then how they were portrayed in the film.

Thanks for reading this I hope I clarified some things for any people that have questions about inception.

I agree with alot of what youre saying...However, I do think it is possible to have layered dreams...I have indeed had a dream where I have woken up in the dream and then woken up from my "real" dream. Now, maybe the layered dream in a sense of what youre talking about is impossible but in my definition I have had layered dreams before...

~Icy

Originally Posted by Icyquartz

I agree with alot of what youre saying...However, I do think it is possible to have layered dreams...I have indeed had a dream where I have woken up in the dream and then woken up from my "real" dream. Now, maybe the layered dream in a sense of what youre talking about is impossible but in my definition I have had layered dreams before...

~Icy

Yes, but what he's saying is that the "upper layer" dream didn't exist untill you entered it, at which point the "lower layer" dream ended. It's all 1 dream, the scenario just changes.

Thank you for pointing that out Zebrah. That definately seems to be the most persistent misconception generated by the film.

Originally Posted by Icyquartz

I agree with alot of what youre saying...However, I do think it is possible to have layered dreams...I have indeed had a dream where I have woken up in the dream and then woken up from my "real" dream. Now, maybe the layered dream in a sense of what youre talking about is impossible but in my definition I have had layered dreams before...

~Icy

Isn't that called False Awakening?

Yeah by all means this isn't definitive but I figured I would try and clairfy some things. I also recall someone asking if limbo was real in IRC. Idk if that actually happened but I think it did. And yes the dream seems layered but it really is just one dream. It depends on how you look at it.

Yeah I agree with everything that your saying. It's about time someone made a thread for the newbies to clear this up.

Originally Posted by dakotahnok

Yeah I agree with everything that your saying. It's about time someone made a thread for the newbies to clear this up.

Thank you sir.

Indeed, not to bash the inception induced lucid dreamers (IIND) but Inception was mostly based of false concepts to keep the movie going, heres how it would have been had they stayed in fact.

"The end"