Ten Years Later: in Case You Still Don't Understand *Inception*.

 Inception: what is going on?

 

Question One: what are Inception and Extraction?

 

Extraction:

 

The film Inception takes place in a fictional modern-day universe wherein the science of shared dreaming has been perfected, producing some morally dubious possibilities for certain agencies.

Extractors essentially make their living by doing to a human mind what hackers do to a personal computer. By connecting a sleeping subject to a mysterious and unexplained device via wires, they are able to enter into the subject’s dream. Such devices are often transported in briefcases for purposes of secrecy.

The extractor’s work requires him or her to delve into parts of the dreamer’s subconscious mind wherein the dreamer stores secrets of which even the dreamer may be unaware. Often, this is a risky enterprise, since the subconscious mind, in this fictional interpretation, has a built-in defence system akin to an immune response system.

 

Why the Dream Hates You:

 

Once the extractor has infiltrated the dreaming subject’s mind, he or she is liable to be detected as a threat. This is manifested most clearly as suspicion and aggression on the part of the dream characters, who might go so far as to unify against the extractor in an attempt to eliminate the invading agent. For this reason, extractors are valued not only for their know-how but also for their ability and willingness to function expediently and efficiently under stress. It is also implied that some dreamers have more developed subconscious defences than others do.

 

Inception:

 

In case all of that was not hard enough to wrap one’s head around, there is a theoretical variation to this practice called “inception”. Whereas an extractor functions as the sort of hacker who simply “extracts” sensitive information, the inceptor’s work is to “incept” information, meaning that the inceptor plants an idea WITHIN the Unconscious Mind of the Dreamer.

Given the dangerous and puzzling nature of this enterprise, it is usually marginalized as only theoretically possible, even theoretically impossible. Even seasoned extractors, such as the film’s supporting characters at the story’s inception, (pun intended) doubt that inception is possible.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio Does the Impossible:

 

Be that as it may, the leading hero, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, insists upon inception’s possibility. The reason for his conviction is explained near the film’s climax in the extended flashback recounting his life with his wife.

Both the protagonist and his wife partook in shared dreaming, using the technology to build a Virtual World together. The consequence of this was that his wife did not wish to leave the Dream World to return to “Reality”. In an attempt to cure her fixation upon their Shared Dream World, the protagonist incepted an idea in her mind. By spinning a top in a safe within her unconscious mind, he instilled within her the notion that the Dream World was not real. The top itself was her “totem”, an item meant to help her discern Reality (Waking Life) from Dream. So long as the top would not fall, she would question her own Reality, since the top is supposed never to fall in the Dream World.

Tragically, the result of the hero’s groundbreaking experiment worsened his wife’s condition. Unable to shake the persistent feeling that her world was not Real, she ended up concluding that her surroundings, in Reality the Waking World, were a falsehood, and she concluded that by committing suicide she would wake up.

 

Question Two: Who is Fischer?

 

The advantages to extraction in corporate warfare may be inferred. There is no theoretical limit to the breadth and depth of information which may be extracted from a corporate executive and used by his or her rivals. Keep in mind that this film was written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who explored similar power dynamics in The Dark Knight (also therein using Asian business moguls as the rival agents, for nebulous reasons we have yet to extract.)

That is all well and good. But simply IMAGINE how powerful one would be if one could PLANT an idea in the C.E.O.’s head as well!!

While the rival corporation’s business interests remain vague and nebulous, they are also secondary to the story’s themes. This is all we need to know: they want Fischer to dissolve his father’s company.

Fischer’s reasons for refusing to end his father’s legacy are explained fairly early on. Haunted by the thought that he had disappointed his father, Fischer is motivated to prove his father wrong, perhaps hoping subconsciously to make his father proud. It is this emotional motive which lies at the root of an entire Industry’s obstinance. In Christopher Nolan’s epic, even multinational corporations may bend to the will of one man’s father complex.

It is for the purposes of reversing this complex that the Inception Team is assembled. Spearheaded by the protagonist, this team’s task is to plant an idea in Fischer’s Subconscious Mind: that Fischer’s father wanted Fischer to individuate, to become “his own man”, and to leave his father’s legacy behind.

As the team navigates Fischer’s military-grade psychological defences, (an imaginatively satirical incarnation of the powerful man’s Caesarian insecurities,) attempting to instill within him a notion which even therapy fails to convey, the protagonist must come to the same conclusions about his own life. While Fischer is haunted by the psychological ghost of his father, the protagonist is haunted by the memory of his wife, who takes on superhuman power in his own dreams. Ultimately, both men must come to terms with their pasts and to put the past behind them; the protagonist’s ability to see through the illusion created by his grieving memory enables him to successfully incept Fischer.

 

Dreamers are Like Cakes:

 

We have almost universally had the experience of “false awakenings”: episodes in a Dream wherein we believed we had woken up, only to discover that, like many members of the millennial generation, we were not as awake as we believed we were.

The phenomenon of “false awakenings” of this kind is often explained by analogy to architecture (hence the parallels to architecture are predominant throughout Nolan’s narrative, as they are throughout most of his most successful films). In this interpretation of the Subconscious Mind’s Structure, Dreams have “layers”, and in waking up from one Dream one simply ascends by one level.

When the Inception Team first infiltrates Fischer’s Mind, they have to incept him yet AGAIN, entering into a Dream Within a Dream, so as to gain access to his Deeper Mind. It is only upon this Level that an Idea, once incepted, might be considered practically irretrievable. At the very least, it will satisfy their quota.

The dramatic impact of this trope cannot be overstated; as the would-be Inceptors dive deeply and more deeply into Fischer’s Unconscious Mind, defences become more developed and battles longer. This is in large part owing to temporal displacement.

 

Why It Takes So Long:

 

It is well-known that we tend to experience longer stretches of time in a Dream than it takes for us to dream that dream from the perspective of Waking Life; a few minutes of sleep in Reality may be experienced as years of Life to the Dreamer. (This theme is also explored in Richard Linklater’s Waking Life.)

In the case of Inception, especially the inception of Fischer, the deeper you go, the more happens. While only a few minutes pass on a higher level, as many as ten years pass deep down. In the time it takes for one van to finish its transit from a bridge to the underlying water body, the Inception Team fights an entire war and comes to psychotherapeutic terms with a widower’s grief and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

 

The Inceptor Comes Home:

 

The protagonist’s motivation for joining the Inception Team is as part of a deal with the business moguls. If he succeeds in his mission, he is permitted to return to his home country without being extradited for his illegal activities as a former extractor, thereby reconnecting with what little family he has remaining in the Real World: namely, his children.

 

This threshold is past without incident, but one snag continues to haunt viewers. The film’s closing scene shows the aforementioned top spinning, yet we don’t see it fall, though it appears ready to. This is commonly misinterpreted as a “cliffhanger” ending. Will the top fall? Did the hero return home? Is he still Dreaming?

 

Why the Top Doesn’t Matter:

 

Fixating upon the top is tantamount to the protagonist fixating upon his wife. Why? Guess.

 

You guessed it: the top was NEVER HIS TOTEM. It belonged to his wife, and, if he has truly moved on, then that top holds little meaning for him. Similarly, if WE have moved on WITH him, then we should be able to shrug it off as a red herring. However, Nolan’s genius is in this: that if we continue to identify the hero only by analogy to his wife, then we confuse the top for HIS totem, the crowning factor in whether or not HE returned to THEIR family.

 

So: what was the hero’s totem?

 

The prevailing theory is that it's his WEDDING RING. Though it is never alluded to verbally, viewers noticed that he only wears it while he is in a Dream.

 

When the film’s closing shot shows a close-up of his hand spinning the top, the top itself is a decoy. What is significant is not his wife’s totem, which he promptly abandons, but rather his ring or, more specifically, the lack thereof. The ring has vanished. Our Hero has come to terms with the fact that his wife is dead. He is free to live.

[({Dm.R.G.)}]