If you haven’t seen the latest film buzzing these days, you may want to check it out. Especially since the final scene has put some questions on whether Leonardo DiCaprio was awake or dreaming, you have to wonder if the same thing is indeed happening in the real world.
Of course, Inception is a film so most probably the writers left that last part as a twist. Regardless, are we awake or dreaming? This include our state right now. Are you reading this post for real or maybe it is something playing around in your mind.
Inception seems to be getting a lot of great reviews. But it looks like the last part is up for debate. Was DiCaprio awake or dreaming? Watch it to find out and see if it does indeed apply to the real world.
More similar categories at Sleepzine: Sleep Celebrity, Sleep Issues.
If Cob and Sato died and never woke up to reality, then there would have been a commotion of some sort in the plane when the others woke up!?!
It was reality.
Because when it is a dream it doesn’t show how u arrive there. and at the end it showed how Cobb left from the air plane into his house, and plus he saw his kids face which indicates that it wasn’t a dream. in the dream he could never see their faces witch he dint have the memory off.
Ok, I am neither right nor wrong as there is definitely no clear indication of the answer to the overall question. I think Wolf has touched upon some key points, which I will hit as well, but I also believe that Director Christopher Nolan left us with some subtle, yet key points to draw some conclusions upon. First, I will hit on Wolf’s points:
“Though there is no clear evidence to point squarely at one theory, I believe that, at a minimum, the end of the movie is a dream. The 4 arguments for that opinion are:
1) Throughout the entire movie (with the exception of the beach scene in the elevator) James is wearing a plaid shirt and grey shorts while Phillipa is wearing the same pink dress. At the end of the movie, yes the kids are older (played by separate actors) however, the likelihood of the kids wearing the exact same outfits together is too slim to ignore.”
Although this is an excellent interpretation of what is seen in the film, I think we lack (and I will touch upon this later as well) that we are neglecting the “memory” angle of any of the sequences, including this one.
“2) The scene where Mal jumps to her death she is a building across from the honeymoon suite. Dom pleads with her to come inside and motions towards him. Being across the street makes no sense yet Cobb, and we the audience, accept it. Why is she across the street and why would he motion to come towards him, towards the direction of a suicide jump, instead of back into her room? Her room across the street has the exact same setup (white couch, brown lamp table, white door with molding) as the honeymoon suite too. It doesn’t make sense, just as a dream doesn’t make sense but we accept it. These details are too unusual to neglect.”
To this, it is the place where they spend their anniversary yearly, not their honeymoon suite. I think the being across the street aspect can be examined or just accepted as the story line, without any underlying clues to the story. He does motion to Mal to come back inside, and does wave her towards him, so is this definitive in of itself? Is Cobb merely reacting and gesturing? The point about the room across the street being the same is true, and not. On Cobb’s side, the room is in disarray, specifically visible in the dialogue portion between Cobb and Mal out on the ledge(s). Concentrating on that, Mal’s side is not in disarray, while Cobb’s is. Are we merely looking more into the aspect that this could be another room of the same hotel (a wrap-around, perhaps) on the opposite side of the street?
“3) On the hospital/Snow Fortress level, Dom and Ariadne go first into limbo. Saito goes later. So why then is Saito an old man and Dom is young when in fact is should be the other way around. The only explanation is that there are seperate limbos but if that were the case, how does Dom move from one limbo to another. This kind of stuff wasn’t explained in the movie.”
Agreed and granted. The only explanation I can think of for this is the exponential theory that was spoke about in the film, and also in the posts here. When Saito went into limbo, it was from the ‘level 1′ dream. Remember, that is where he was shot. Remember that Cobb specifically mentioned that in the time it was going to take to do this job, by they time they got down to level 3, 10 years could pass, in the same amount of time that only 10 hours was passing on the control, or sleep level — still on the plane. So, conceivably, for Saito to have actually passed to limbo from his level 1 injuries, decades could have passed. Remember that Arthur said that going down the levels would only decrease Saito’s pain, he never mentioned that if Saito was planted further down the levels that it would change the course of time for Saito. As to how Cobb got to Saito in limbo….I have a thought on that which I will get to at the end of all of this jazz….
“4) Once Saito was shot he could not go back to the 747 reality because the sedative was too strong. His death would send him to limbo. So I am guessing this means a “kick” such as throwing him out of a window is out of the question too, otherwise the team would have done it. If the team had to wait for the sedatives to subside how did they go back after less than a day transpired in that first level of dreaming? They left the warehouse in a van and drove the van off a bridge. Maybe 6hrs or so transpired? The full 10hrs were spent asleep on the plane and that would require a week of existence in the first level of dreaming. The team can’t go back to the 747 reality after less than a day yet they do? It doesn’t make sense which is indicative of dreaming.”
Your confusing this with time passing as we know it. The levels are all that count here; and exponentially at that. So, if you put this back into the perspective of Arthur being one level above the team as they were storming the snow fortress, Cobb specifically says that Arthur has only minutes to position them for the kick, while they have (exponentially) about five times as long to complete their mission. Once Ariadne and Cobb descend into limbo their time is exponentially increased again, giving them hours to find Mal, whereas minutes are only going by on the level up, 1/2 minutes on the level up from that, and only seconds while the van falls into the water.
“Some other oddities that can be interpreted either way:
1) The professor says, “Come back to reality Dom” and, “So you want me to let someone follow you into your fantasy.”” **Key point, will get to this in a bit.
“2) A totem should be an object that is so unique, someone who hasn’t held it could not know all of its properties yet Mal’s totem is not unique. Everyone knows the property of a gyro. A gyro eventually topples over. Any dreamer in this case could make a top eternally spin or fall after a period of time. They could not, however, know how Arthur’s die was loaded. The idea that if Mal’s totem falls over, she is not dreaming doesn’t fit the explanation given in the movie.” **key point…it was Mal’s totem…will get to this in a bit.
OK, here is my take on the whole deal. Again, I don’t think there is any right or wrong, but I think Chris Nolan left us enough clues to NOT have to dissect it, still draw your on conclusion at the end, but point you where he wanted you to go (and what he wanted you to know.)
This movie is based on a mix of four critical aspects, reality, dreams, memories, and most importantly: rules.
Reality is never really known. We know that the whole story is about a dream, or a series of dreams, and some possible (however doubtful) interludes of reality. But we don’t may close attention to the fact that Cobb’s memories play a very important role in this. Each time he sees his children….it is his memory that is giving him that vision….or more precisely, that projection. Just like the notion mentioned by Luis Sans that Cobb’s totem was his wedding band. He never alludes to it as his totem, and it is there in some scenes and not in others…A mere projection of his memories within a dream. He actually never mentions exactly what is, or if he has his own totem at all. Remember, he said that he had to really search for that thing that Mal kept locked away…he found it in the safe in the doll house and it was HER totem……he the apparently set her inception in motion. Again….never his own totem…just hers, and now he has it. But then come the rules.
Rule #1, which everyone has eluded to: You have to have your own Totem, to know the exact weight and its characteristics, for only the maker to know if they were in 1) reality, 2) someone else’s dream, or 3) in their own dream. Remember the scene very early on when Cobb is spinning “a” totem” while apparently getting ready to shoot himself in the head if it didn’t topple. 1st rule, and 1st point to pay attention to, is this is NOT Cobb’s totem….remember, it is Mal’s. You can’t use someone else’s totem, again, because you will never know the inherent qualities of it. So, the bigger question is….where is Cobb’s totem, instead of him using Mal’s? At whatever “state” you choose to pick this up, Arthur was protective of his own loaded die; Ariadne made her own chess piece, and when tested by even Cobb, she would not let him hold or touch it. He (being impressed) tells her that she is learning. It’s all about the rules.
Rule#2, is that Cobb broke every rule that he taught to the others various times throughout the course of the film. The other characters make obvious statements to this fact that Cobb continuously breaks his own rules throughout the course of the movie.
Rule#3, in the fantasy, or dream…anything is possible…like a train railing down the middle of the street… Did anyone else happen to catch that just about every character on Cobb’s team had “weapons on demand?” The would produce virtually any type of weapon (including sniper rifles, automatic rifles, handguns, grenades, explosives, and best of all, a grenade launcher to take out the electrical tower) when needed…or thought of. But they did not seem to ‘pack’ for that, and if it was Ariadne’s architecture that dictated the demand for them, why would they have had them since Arthur had not done his homework and learned that the team was in for an ambush? They didn’t know Fischer had his own ‘dream security’ and were planning for a much lighter day, by all accounts….but they had everything short of missiles to launch at the bad-guys.
Rule#4, and I think this is one of the most pressing….The ‘dream machines’ and the drugs. At every (dream) level of the film, they needed a machine (which apparently administered something that created a sleep/dreaming state). How would this work if one was truly one level into the dream-state. It wouldn’t. It could only be imagined, or dreamed up….take your pick. For instance, on the train, or 747, the “sleepers” were unable to communicate with the kid or the stewardess who set the ball in motion….they could only provide the last ‘kick’ based on elapsed time….so it is not like the assistants could press another button, not was this ever shown, that would send the dreamers one level deeper. The Dreamers made this determination at a moment’s notice and without warning at times (like going to limbo from the now fortress). Yet, like the weapons, the just always seemed to have a ‘dream machine’ handy when needed….even when it meant that Ariadne and Cobb were going into limbo…which was nothing they planned for in the original mission. Yet there it was…on demand (I wish my cable was like that!)
But in that same category was the compound of the drugs that the chemist had made up. Remember, they were only ‘truly’ administered to enter the dream state. He could not realistically and physically have the cocktails handy to administer for every level down from there. In this case, again, it had to be imagined. But, down one level, when they first abducted Fishcer, Cobb poured a spot of something on Fischer when they got back into the van, that knocked Fischer out again. Non-existent working drugs in a dream world when everyone’s subconscious is playing on everyone else’s? I might have bought that if Fischer saw it and subconsciously believes it to be a knock-out-drug, but he had a hood on….couldn’t see it coming.
The professor says, “Come back to reality Dom” and, “So you want me to let someone follow you into your fantasy?” Key part here…..remember that Cobb keeps speaking of guilt. The guilt Cobb eventually admits to is that he cannot fix the things that have already happened. This is classic foreshadowing of Cobb wanting his life back again, yet knowing it will never be the same…which can lead you right to the end of the movie. Not the same, but where he wants to be.
And I’ll throw another little twister in here….how did his kids know to call Cobb in the hotel room (which he apparently randomly selected, based on the conversation on the train…getting off in Kyoto and all…) and how did Arthur know to find him there?
The last scene is key and although I think Nolan is trying to keep us guessing with not seeing whether or not the totem falls, if you paid attention, you would already know that it is not Cobb’s totem….so whatever happened with it, whether he spun it and it fell, or Saito spun it indefinitely….it didn’t matter, because it belonged to neither of them and neither could translate its behavior.
The last scene is key because it is only one thing….it is where Cobb wants to be. In my analysis of this, he is merely in “a” dream…not necessarily a dream where his ‘job’ or secret-corporate/military/dream-stealing training has any play into it. Because if my calculations are right….the running time of this film is 148 minutes, making it 2 hours, 28 minutes. If Arthur’s calculations on time and exponential use of time were considered, then, 5 minutes in the reality = 1 hour in the dream state. So, we saw one of two things: A) The movie was actually only about 12.5 minutes long, or B) we watched Cobb dream a fantastic dream for about 12.5 minutes.
But, my best conclusion on this, looking at all aspects, is merely the fact that this is a movie that does not need to be torn apart (because, trust me, I did….to try to understand it, which is what brought me here) to be understood. My interpretation is that we began in a dream in this one…and we ended in one, with a lot of complexities to it in the middle. Kudos to Christoper Nolan for keeping us guessing on this.
I just watched incepton for the first time, And I believe it was reality. Because cobb’s father was never in any of the dreams, He created the dreams.
I only scanned through most of these post, most are great, but did I miss something here, and it is the most basic. The totem of Mal’s was the gyro. He was carrying it around and using it?! What was his totem? The most basic reason I think the whole movie was a dream and he can’t tell what is reality.
ignore my last comment, I didnt see the wedding ring comment as being his totem, and I certainly missed that clue, will have to watch the movie multiple times to try to pick up more.
still a very cool movie that come clever writers could come up with sequel to.
the dress designer for the movie stated that the children were wearing different clothes
You all realize that IF the final minute is REALITY and anything leading up to it is a DREAM, then all the mumbo-jumbo about limbo and totems is meaningless since the dreaming HAS NO RULES and the events in them have ZERO SIGNIFICANCE relating to what happens once he arrives home. The simple solution is, he fell asleep on a plane coming home from a business trip. By the way, all of you worrying about wether the kids aged or not, who can say he wasn’t really only gone a week, or even less?
The movie is all about the weird stuff that goes on in our dreams: how dreams draw tangentially on real occurrences and relationships and how remarkable it is that we all encounter some of the same weirdness in our dreams (falling, flying, not be sure if we’re awake or asleep, dreams that start “in the middle”, etc.)
I’m convinced he was an ordinary businessman, a widower; whose wife probably committed suicide, possibly by leaping off a building.
The wobbling top proves what the author’s intent was.
One thing almost everyone seems to have forgotten…. the totem isnt his at all anyways.. thus… the totem means nothing. it was designed by his wife and taken from his wife. Wich could have any affect on the movie itself. i’m sure anyone could agree with me on that one.. although someone is bound to argue xD. There is no right or wrong. the movie is an epic movie for a reason. There is no ending. you fill in the blanks how you want to. nobody is right nobody is wrong. theres an endless amount of data proving each point equally. Ultimately, they wanted us to question and think for ourselves and that’s what we are all doing. Congrats
just my opinion by the way
Inceptions ending was not a dream if u notice everytime he is in a dream he is wearing a ring becuz he is married to his wife in dreams but when he’s in reality the ring is off and at the end he was not wearing a ring
Reality
He could never see his kids faces in his dreams.
Including all the others
THIS IS THE REAL ANSWER…… THE VERY END IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS. IT IS NEITHER A DREAM OR REALITY. NOLAN WANTED YOU ALL TO DO THIS EXACT THING POST STUFF AND STUR UP A MYSTERY SO YOU WOULD BUY HIS MOVIES SO YOU COULD WATCH IT MORE THAN ONCE AND SO YOU WOULD GO OUT AND SEE HIS NEXT ONE. IT IS SUPPOSED TO LEAVE YOU HANGING THEREFORE NO ONE IS RIGHT.
I think it was a dream. He killed Mal in the end and moved on so she wouldn’t appear in his dreams anymore. Also, his children were in the dream, remember? He looked away not to see their faces. And just because his dad never shows up before doesn’t mean he can’t appear in a dream. Sure the top does wobble when he walks to his children, but when it shows it again it’s spinning perfectly straight again (what kind of top does that?) I have two theories. 1: when he goes to the place with the sleeping people you never see him spin his top except In absolute dream or the end, so he could have possibly never woken up. 2: when he’s talking to the Chinese dude in the end when he’s all old he just wakes up in the plane and doesn’t even go through all stages or has any sign of action to wake him up. Therefore I strongly think he is in dream.
I don’t think the ring theory is very accurate because he killed his wife and got her out of his memories. So he probably won’t wear his ring anymore.
Those were my exact thoughts, I agree with you 100%
Yes but he also killed his subconscious Mal, therefore in the dream world (which he accepted as his reality at the end) she is dead, giving him no reason to wear it in the dream, just as she is dead in reality and he had no reason to wear it whilst he was not dreaming. I also think he discarded the totem idea because he had accepted living in limbo forever and having no desire to come back to the real world, giving no reason to have the need to know if it is dream or reality.
The last part was reality because if have observed Cobb, the time that he called his children, that part is the turning point of it.
nobody looks at the fact that Cobb doesnt want to see his kid’s faces when Mal calls them to her in on scene because then he wont know whats reality and whats a dream. and the fact the dream is always cut short of Cobb’s kids you never get to hear them calling for their father because the dream is always cut off. near the end the scene of with the kids is played for a longer period of time thus making the viewer believe that it is reality when it could be a dream as well just that Cobb finally looked at the kids faces and accepted where ever he was (Limbo or Reality)
another idea of my own I like to bring up is that Fischer saw Cobb’s kids in the hotel lobby, but theres noway he can know they are Cobb’s children so I dont know if there is a possibility that he is still in Limbo or not.
as for Mal’s totem which is the top does anyone notice that the top keeps spinning when Mal is there and when it tips over she isn’t? So maybe that is why Cobb still carries the top and his totem remains hidden, which we all now believe its his wedding ring, which also doesnt make sense to me because how will the ring be loaded or tell you if he is dreaming or not?
Someone else pointed out that when Cobb is at the sink washing his face after testing out the potion the top doesn’t tip over it falls on the ground. Could this mean Saito is blackmailing Cobb? making Cobb do the inception but not able to wake up
theres alot of questions here but im still positive and accepting both sides. I just love to hear what other viewers think.
It was Saito’s inception. Cobb was in his dream
If it was a dream Mal would be there.
okay for those who believe the entire movie was a dream here is a idea..
if the entire movie was cobb’s dream, then he would know everything that happened. weather he or one of his perceptions made. such as the girl architect, and the levels she made. if it was his dream he wouldnt of had ask, in the snow dream, is someone had created a shortcut. he would have already known about it being his dream and his subconscious projections creating the world.
so the only way he would have had to ask if if he truly had no hand in creating said dream world.
this movie is a epic mind fuck, that is the best way i can describe it.
now weather the ending was a dream or reality. only the director can truly say and obviously he wanted debats like this, so he will never tell.
personaly i want to believe its reality, as for cobb he believes so too
The entire film was a dream.
Like every other dream layer, he is pursued in what we want to think is his reality. It wasn’t the “company” chasing him, it was Projections.
As for the totem, whether or not it was his, the main point about why not to show someone your totem was so that YOU could not be tricked by someone else. Everyone else protected theirs, like the dice, because if you knew what number it was weighted to fall on, you could fool him -and this was a story about people fooling each others in their dreams.
For all practical intents and purposes, the top was his totem. the fact that it was once moll’s just gave it its personal significance to him. And the top did not fall over at the end. In fact, the entire end sequence was dream like, and he knew it wasn’t real. its why he stared in shock at everyone after he awoke on the plane. Its why people, like Ariadne, were in odd places they shouldn’t have been, like behind the customs agent. Its why locations shifted so quickly, and you could see him reacting as though there had been no journey home, he was just suddenly there. He tested it with the top and knew it wasnt real, but accepted a false, happy reality.
How could it even have been possible for his kids to be sitting in the same spot in the yard as he’d left them? The dream with Saito didn’t even play out the same way the second time we see it, instead dialogue is switched, with cobb supplying saito’s lines from the first time we saw it. Its why he looked so shocked. It was only then that he realized it was all a dream, everything, even “reality,” but with nowhere else to go and having attained the goal he’d so long sought after, he just accepted it.
reality; the kids at the end wore different shoes than in the dream.
During the dream: daughter was wearing black shoes
after: daughter was wearing white shoes.
i saw the movie. its great…….
it says for cobb
A DREAM COME TRUE
i hope you all get it
A movie starts as a dream and ends up being reality?
the answer for this is in the title of the movie INCEPTION which means the beginning/initiation. so there’s no end of dreaming. always begin and initiate another story.
but the ending goes back to the part where they are planning the whole thing, cobb clearly stated that if he gets caught when they land, he’s going to jail for a very long time, like someone else posted, in dreams, you dont know how you get there, when he woke up, he knew how he got there, i believe that the whole movie was in fact a dream, but the ending was reality, the whole time he referenced….”going home,” well the end of the movie, he made it home. On the other hand, the one part that makes me believe that he IS in fact still dreaming in the end, is when he says in the movie that he is trying to change certain memories, to try and make them right, keeping that in mind, it makes perfect sense that the WHOLE movie was used just to change that 1 simple memory
The entire movie is a dream……an the end’s for sure ..its not hid totem
This may sound stupid, but if you noticed, in the dreams Cobb was in he wore a wedding ring and in reality he had taken it off to lessen the pain. (In his memories he has the ring on when/before his wife kills herself). The camera cut at the end was a metaphor to an actual dream in which you tend to wake up during the resolution of the dream. This is all true UNLESS the entire film was a dream and he never actually left Limbo. But i tend to think he did leave limbo (both times) and ended up in reality. The children, his father, everyone was real and the wife did die.
Cobb had to have a totem, right? So what reoccurring incongruence did he focus on in the movie? His Children’s faces, right. The only time he actually saw them was at the end of the movie. Thus, the children’s faces were Cobb’s totem. As for the logic, someone else can figure if it is reality or not – my brain hurts!
He definitely is no longer dreaming at the end of the movie..one thing people need to forget is the beginning due to it being continued at the end..the two are not different…they just give you a spoiler at the beginning to confuse you…You can not simply just go into other dreams…you have to be linked by the machine which is used in every scene in the movie other than when Leo goes into limbo..arrives on the beach like he said he did with his wife…the reason he was dropped into limbo is because he either died from his wounds or just killed himself to make it happen quicker…they do not show you but it is definite…and you know that they had to shoot themselves with the gun beside old saito due to the only way to leave limbo is to kill yourself…some people believe his wife in fact is trying to get him out of limbo but she could not due that without going into limbo herself and one who is in limbo does not know unless they have some sort of memory trigger, like a totem, or a saying that saito and cobb stated to one another…and his teammates on the plane not saying anything to him is used as evidence that they are of his subconscious, but in fact they cannot speak to each other because fischer is right there and they can’t let him realize they in fact tapped into his mind…and his kids not being older at the end means nothing…for all you know he wasn’t gone long and the reason he wanted to get back to them so bad was because he wasnt able to form a positive memory of his kids faces…as he said at one point in the movie, you cannot change a memory, because no two things can be the same…he in fact is just replacing that negative memory of not being able to see his childrens faces with a positive one…fact is that he completes inception and comes back to reality…he would not have the ability to give all the characters the ability to think and act on their own…mals personality is always negative in the movie because his last perceptions of her were when she was convinced she was still dreaming and he also is angry that in trying to save her, he not only killed her but was forced to leave his children…i know its all in a random order but i think you can figure it out
projections dont chase after the dreamer its the dreamers subconscious trying to protect itself against infiltrators…the reason that the top can still be a totem for him is because he doesnt know what reality is or not…which is why at the beginning he spins it and puts a gun to his head knowing that if it doesnt start to topple soon that he is in a dream world…he is at the cusp of losing his reality the entire movie, which is shown when he still couldnt even shoot mal in the 3rd stage of the dream
i absolutly loved this movie and have had put alot of thought into the ending and I found a solution. At least a solution that suits me and I believe it will be very suitable for others as well. Cobb had mention earlier in the movie when they were meeting the Chemist that that peticular kind of dreaming is the only way you can dream anymore. With that said, when Ariadne comes into Cobb’s dreams to see what Cobb dreams about all the time, we all find out that the only way Cobb can dream is he can only dream about his memories that he has locked Mal into. The only way he can dream is when he is with Mal because he is still together with her. In this case, at the end, this is NOT a memory that he is having because this NEVER TOOK PLACE BEFORE. (key point) In Cobb’s case, because it has never happened before, it cannot be a memory, in which it is not a dream. So it is reality.
The only thing that stands in my way of being 100% sure is that lets say he IS in a dream, the only way it can be a dream is if its someone else’s dream. But whose dream would it be? And why would someone else’s dream focus on Cobb and him reuniting with his children? This is why I believe it is reality.
Now I feel that he never woke up because in the begginning the top looking thing spun and stopped spinning but at tue end ofthe movie it kept spinning which shows the idea in the mind concept that the movie that was the whole idea of the movie when doom put the top thing in mal’s safe which is her brain it never stop spinning as well as when doom meets the asain guy at the end the totem falls but at the end of the movie the totem stills spins showing and stating that he was still in a dream because the totem still spins this movie is amazing and is totally something that blows your mind and only someone that us on a smart intellectual level can understand
This is realy a very nice movie,i just watch today..but its end making questions- Is it dreaming or real world? but what after the leonardo’s work finish? how he finish his work?
Chrostopher Nolan is a brilliant writer, but first and foremost he is a movie maker so a gimmick such as the question of reality or not would be to his advantage for bringing in the same numbers next time around. # 1 I feel as though a sequel is highly unlikely so I would’nt expect an answer in that form, which would be just as likel to leave a cliffhanger similar to the one that already exists. #2 The point of the movie seems to be to start just this sort of debate thus any answer right or wrong could be correct to the individual based upon which evidence you choose to accept ond which evidence for the counter argument you choose to ignore.#3 This once again is a movie, even well thought out movies have their quirks, so some of the inconsistencies contained within the movie could just as well be mistakes due to the enormous amount storyline , so just because something is said in the movie does not make it concrete it can be what you interpret it as. #4 Nolan will probably never say whether the ending was a dream or not this I was left up to the viewer for a reason. #5 The title says it all INCEPTION how many different thoughts were planted within the viewer from the beginning ? The answer is alot it could be a movie of double entendres so to speak each dream state revealing something more about the physics of thir endeavor as well as something in ourselves thus what you and what you interpret can be different for everyone. #6 Now to what I think #7 The movie is an anachronistic nightmare from the beginning and the physics of the “dreams” can be changed. As far as the controversy over the totem many have pointed to the fact that the totem was not Cobbs in the first place which has zero relevance once we find out that his wife is dead. If she no longer exists in the real world it is no longer hers and it would be something that he would know the physics of having adopted it as his own. The only concrete rule that I could find thoughout the entire movie was that the rules can be broken in effect there are no concrete rules and the admission by the supporting actors and actresses within the film in my opinion makes this fact clearly , the fact that even in others “dreams” within the film Cobb consistently breaks the rules is evidence of that fact. So the movies becomes in effect what is each viewers personal definition of reality ? To use the rules within the movie to decide whether or not he is awake at the end would be the equivalent of creating a concrete bridge between quantum mechanics and general relativity impossible based upon the known facts that we have at our disposal at present.
it is obviously real life at the end because in the dream they are fighting whilst floating and you can not float in real life so that solves that equation. but everyone is saying that he could never see his children in the dream,even though at one point he turns his head away from his wife calling the children, so who knows if it was reality at the end or not but i mostly agree that it was reality because of what i said at first
Yes but if it was reality how come the totom kept spinning as tho it does when it is a dream only in reality it stops spinning and it didnt stop
i believe that the end was a dream because when he was in reality he had his wedding ring on, and when he was in a dream he had it off. if you pay attention at the end you can see that he is not wearing it. i believe that his totem was the ring (not the gyro).
Wow! I have just had a three-level dream, that’s why I came to this site. The first scene was driving my new car along a muddy dirt road. A black car with rear plate blacked out backed up from a side street into my front bumper but I wasn’t upset, as the touch was small. I reversed on the road and took off in the opposite direction, the road being a rutted mud pit by this time. Coming against me was an old Pontiac, which suddenly swerved across my path, forcing me to T-bone it and wreck the front end of my car. We stopped facing the same direction; I wound down my window (his was already open) and shouted to him: “Do you have insurance?!” “No!” he said. Then I told him: “Hey, that’s OK, I’ll change the dream!”
At that point, my car was fixed and I went on my way. The next scene was where I was sitting on a stoop telling two old people about my dream and the fact that I had changed it.
Weird! But really unusual… It’s a first for me and I look forward to more. By the way, I am not a smoker of any sort and don’t do drugs.
Anyone want to comment?