An analysis of the nature of reality and dreams in the film

3. • Actually, it didn’t bother me that much
that Inception didn’t win best picture.
• But the reason it didn’t win, I believe,
is because no one in the Academy truly
understood the movie—it went right
over their heads.
• So my attempt to explain why it should
have won is really an attempt to
explain the movie—to help you
understand what Inception was about,
what happened in it, and how
philosophy can help one understand it.

4. • Inception, and the act of incepting itself, is a metaphor
for film making. The role of each member of the
“dream team” parallels roles of a movie-making team.
– Cobb, who orchestrates everything, is the director.
– Ariadne, who designs the dreams, is the screenwriter.
– Saito, who bankrolls the whole thing, is the production
company.
– Arthur, who organizes and sets everything up, is the
producer.
– Eames, who pretends to be Peter Browning and the Sexy
Blonde, is the actor.
– Yusuf, who has the technical savvy to enable them to
produce the dreams, is the special effects expert.
– Robert Fischer, the mark, is the audience.

6. …that every part of the soundtrack is based on
a tempo-altered part of an Edith Piaf song.

7. • In fact, you may think
inception is impossible—that
you can’t implant ideas into
others’ minds—but that is
what movies do best.
– Inception implanted into you
the idea that reality may be a
dream.
• But these are not even close
to the most significant things
the Academy missed.

8. • On the surface, the movie is a great action film with
cool special effects and a fairly clever cliffhanger
ending.
• Unraveling the movie would seem to simply require
discovering the answer to this question: “Did the top
fall?”
– Although fun, this is not entirely novel—so it didn’t win.
• The first step in understanding why Inception should
have won best picture, and thus understanding the
movie itself, lies in discovering why the
answer to that question—“Did the
top fall?”—doesn’t really matter.
• Even if the top falls, Cobb could be still
dreaming—in fact, he probably is.

9. • You are never supposed to let
anyone else touch your totem
because they might figure out
how it works—how it is
weighted or how it is
supposed to behave in the
real world.
• If they do, the totem will not
be able to tell you whether or
not you are in their dream.

10. • Arthur’s totem is a loaded die. If Ariadne touched
Arthur’s die in the read world, she would know how
it is weighted and thus on which number it always
falls in the real world.
• Consequently, if she does touch it, Arthur’s totem
could never assure him that he is not in one of
Ariadne’s dreams—for she could dream that his die
falls just as she knows it does in the real world.
• This is why Arthur refuses to let Ariadne touch his
totem.

11. • This is also why Ariadne refuses to
let Cobb touch her totem when he
asks to see it. Recall, Cobb is pleased
when she refuses. “So, you’re
learning?”
• Most importantly, this is why a
totem can only tell you that you are,
as Arthur tells us, “not in someone
else’s dream.”
• Since you know how it behaves in
the real world, it can behave that
way in your dream. So, even if the
top did fall at the end of the movie,
Cobb could still be in his own dream.
Why? Because he could dream that
it fell; he knows how it works!

12. • The problem gets worse: Cobb is
not the only one who knows how his totem works.
• When Ariadne calls totems an “elegant solution for
keeping track of reality” and asks Cobb if it was his
idea, he replies, “No . . . it was Mal’s actually . . .
this one was hers. She would spin it in the dream
[and] it would never topple. Just spin and spin.”
• He told Ariadne how it works! It can no longer tell
him whether he is in one of her dreams (or one of
the Fischer inception dreams that she designed).

13. • Worse yet, as that same line reveals, the top was
once Mal’s—so she knows how it works too.
• Sure, Cobb thinks she is dead, but he only thinks
that because she threw herself from a window—a
window in a world that Cobb couldn’t prove was
real.
• Mal might have been right; they could have still
been dreaming.
• So, even if the top did fall at the end of the movie,
Cobb could still be in Ariadne’s or Mal’s dream.

14. • Think about how the other totems work.
• Only Arthur knows on what number his die will
rest in the real world.
• Only Ariadne knows how her metal bishop is
weighted, in the real world.
• Only Eames knows how “Mombasa” is
misspelled on his poker chip in the real world.
So if he sees it spelled correctly he knows that
he is in someone else’s dream.
– (Actually, I know how it is misspelled; the chip
was on display at Comic-Con. “Mombasa” has
an extra “s”—“Mombassa”.)
• Totems work because only their owner knows
how they actually behave in the real world, and
other dreamers will assume that they behave
as such objects usually do in the real world—
dice are random, metal bishops are solid, and
real 100 shilling poker chips from the Mombasa
District Casino don’t have an extra “s”.

15. • How do tops behave in the real world?
– If Cobb spun a top in your dream, how would you assume it would
behave? Wouldn’t it fall? Shouldn’t he expect it to fall?
• Its behavior should be unique in the real world, but ordinary in a
dream—like Arthur’s die, Ariadne’s bishop, and Eames’ poker chip.
• Instead, its behavior in the real world is ordinary (it falls) and in a
dream it’s unique (it spins continuously).
• The top falling tells us nothing. If it is going to be reliable as a
dream detector, no one can know how Cobb’s totem works in the
real world. Yet everyone knows that tops fall in the real world.
• So even if Cobb’s top falls at the end, he could still be in anyone’s
dream.

16. • This is not an “oversight” and not only is his totem unreliable,
but Cobb himself is unreliable as a narrator of the movie.
• As Arthur tells us, “…you’ve noticed how much time Cobb
spends doing thing he says never to do.”
• We see two versions of some events that he himself recounts.
– E.g., one version of him and Mal on the train tracks when they are
young and another when they are old.
• He admits to trying to change his memories.
• He tells us how stuff works, but we can’t be sure any of it is
accurate.

17. • What’s clever about the ending is not the final cut.
• What’s clever is the magic trick. Nolan misdirects us,
making us pay attention to the wrong thing—the top—
to try to find a clue about whether Cobb made it home.
• While you are watching the top, something happens
that reveals that Cobb is probably still dreaming.
• But to
understand
why, some
background
is needed.

18. • Subconscious elements work their way through
dreams.
• The train from Limbo appears in Yusuf’s kidnap dream.
• The random string of numbers Fischer arbitrarily gives
as the combination to his father’s safe is 528491.
– That is also the combination to both safes in Eames’ snow
fortress dream and the fake telephone number Eames gives
Fischer (as the sexy blonde) in Arthur’s hotel dream.
– The room numbers in the hotel are 528 and 491.
• Mal and Cobb’s anniversary suite number is 3502.
– The train is # 3502.
– The taxi they hail is # 2053.

25. • At both the beginning and ending of the film, we see
that Saito dreams of a mansion on the ocean—a house,
as it is described in the shooting script, “on a cliff”.
– In fact, this is where Saito spent at least 40 years in Limbo.
• When Cobb returns to his children at the end of the
film and asks them what they have been doing, they
say they are building “a house on the cliff”.
(Turn the captions on!)
• It seems that Cobb is
in Saito’s dream, and an
element of Saito’s
subconscious is peeking
through!

26. • When Ariadne and Fischer committed suicide in Limbo, they
just went one dream layer up—back to Eames’ snow fortress
dream.
• Wouldn’t Saito have done the same after killing himself in
Limbo—gone back up to Eames’ snow fortress dream—only
to find that dream level abandoned?
– The rest of the team was back to Yusuf’s kidnap dream before
Cobb and Saito had awoken.
• Might Saito have remade that dream level based on his own
expectations— finding himself in
the plane—and Cobb entered
it after he committed
suicide in Limbo? After
all, Saito would have
shot himself first.

27. • What is clever about the ending is not the fact that it is
a clever cliffhanger.
• It is clever because it tricked you into thinking that it
was a clever cliffhanger, when it isn’t a cliff hanger at
all! You should have already suspected that he was still
dreaming and realized that the top is a red herring!
• Nolan misdirected you! At first you were confused,
then you thought you had it figured out…but when you
start to think about it, everything you thought you had
figured out, you actually misunderstood!
• Are you convinced it was better than The King’s Speech
yet? We have only scratched the surface!

28. • If, when you exit Limbo, you just go “one layer up”—like Ariadne and Fischer—
where did Mal and Cobb go after they were struck by the train in Limbo?
• We see them awake on an apartment floor, hooked up to a PASIV device. But is that
reality?
• Cobb tells Ariadne that he and Mal slipped into Limbo while “exploring the concept
of a dream within a dream”. They were in a multilayered dream and he pushed
them too deep.
• Wouldn’t they have simply awoken from Limbo, one layer up—in the deepest layer
of the multileveled dream that led them to Limbo?
• If so, Mal was right. They were still dreaming. The real world was not really real at
all. The entire movie was a dream, from beginning to end!
• There are many clues that suggest exactly this.

29. • The chase scene in Mombasa,
for example, has many dream-
like qualities.
-The overhead shots establish that
Mombasa is a maze—just like one
of Ariadne’s designed dreams
• Agents (projections?)
inexplicably pop up around
every corner.
• The walls of buildings
literally close in around
Cobb—just like in dreams.

33. • Need more? Eames is a
dream forger, appearing as
others in dreams and
“magically” lifting Fischer’s
wallet in Arthur’s “Hotel
Dream” as the “sexy
blonde”.
– Watch closely; he can’t have
actually lifted it.
• Yet in the real world Eames
forges casino chips and also
magically lifts Fischer’s
passport (again, watch
closely).

36. • Consider where Mal sits as she threatens suicide: in
the window of another hotel room across from
their suite.
• If she had climbed out their window, she would be
on the same side of the building as Cobb.
• Her inexplicably being in the window of another
hotel room is exactly the kind of thing that happens
in a dream.

37. • When Cobb speaks to his father-in-law Miles
about Mal’s death and getting home to his
children, Miles specifically tells him to “Come
back to reality.”

38. • The song the dreamers use to herald the end of a
dream is Edith Piaf’s original recording of “Non, Je
Ne Regrette Rien” (No, I Regret Nothing.)
– When the song is done, the dream is over.
– That recording is 2 minutes and 28 seconds.
• Inception is, exactly, 2 hours and 28 minutes. (It’s
timed down to the second;
watch the counter on your Blu-ray
player!)
• Could it be, just like with shared
dreaming, when the movie is done,
the dream is over?

39. • Of course, there are two sides to every coin.
• There are also clues that suggest that the real
world is indeed real.
• Let’s look at the two most important ones.

40. • Cobb’s children, at the end of the film, are
older, wearing different clothes, and even
played by different actors.

41. • Cobb’s wedding ring could be his real totem.
– He never wears it in the real world (except in
flashbacks).
– This includes the end of the movie.

42. • The fact is, pointing to clues in the movie is never going
to settle the issue.
• The movie is ambiguous—Nolan has even admitted
that he intentionally made it so.
• Nothing will definitively prove whether or not the
entire movie, or even the ending, is a dream.
– The “dream clues” could merely indicate that Cobb is losing
his grip on reality.
– The “not a dream” clues could merely reflect Cobb’s
assumption that he is not dreaming.
• The answer to the question is, what philosophers
would call, “underdetermined”.

43. • Any scientific data can be accounted for by many possible
hypotheses.
• Scientists prefer the most “adequate” one—the one that is:
– Most fruitful (predicts correctly)
– Most simple (has fewest assumptions)
– Most wide scoping (explains the most)
– Most conservative (does not contradict current knowledge)

44. • Philosophers, when presented with ambiguous
statements and arguments, employ the principle
of charity.
– When it’s unclear what someone means, you choose
the most charitable interpretation—the
one that entails the speaker is not
an idiot or misinformed.
• Which interpretation of Inception
makes it a better movie?
The “Full dream” interpretation!

45. • There are a number of things that make Inception kind of a
bad movie if the real world is, in fact, real.
– All the characters in the real world (besides Cobb) are one
dimensional.
– The editing in the real world is kind of sloppy—quick jumps within
scenes without transitions.
– Having Saito swoop in, out of nowhere, in Mombasa to rescue
Cobb with the excuse “I have to protect my investment”—isn’t
that a bit cheesy?
• Yes, unless all of these things are subtle clues that Cobb is, in
fact, dreaming the entire movie.
– Might the characters be one dimensional because they are just
projections of Cobb’s subconscious?
– Is the editing sloppy because Cobb is jumping from place to place
and time to time in the real world—just like we know he does
when he is dreaming?
– And yes, Saito’s line is cheesy—but as a subtle clue that Cobb is, in
fact, dreaming, it’s brilliant!

46. • Some might object by arguing that the “all dream”
interpretation makes Inception a worse movie.
– After all, why care about a movie if nothing in it really happened?
• But there’s the rub—it’s a movie! Nothing in it really
happened anyway. It’s fiction.
– Why would anyone care less
about fictional dream events
than fictional “real” events?
• Besides, as a dream,
Inception can be a
metaphorical story about a
disturbed mind or even a
demonstration of how our own minds are disturbed.
Might that be more interesting?

47. • Of course you might think that the movie is all a
dream only if director Christopher Nolan wanted it to
be all a dream.
• But do “authorial intentions”
dictate meaning?
• Can Inception only be “rightly
interpreted” in a way that coheres
with the author’s intentions?
• Or might a work of art belong to
everyone once it is “released to
the public”?

48. • In conclusion, either the Academy didn’t
understand Inception or they didn’t interpret it
charitably.
• If they had done either, they would have realized
that it was better than a movie about a stuttering
English monarch.

49. • Even though it didn’t win best
picture, Inception still wins Plato’s
Academy Award for Philosophical
depth.
• (The award looks like Rodin's “The
Thinker”.)
• Why? Because of the plethora of
philosophical questions that it raises,
all of which are covered in my book:
• Inception and Philosophy: Because
It’s Never Just a Dream (Wiley-
Blackwell)

50. • If we can’t tell whether Cobb is dreaming, can we tell whether
we are dreaming…right now?
• How do we deal with the angst that arises when we realize
that we can’t know for sure?
• Perhaps we can just have faith that we are not dreaming, but
when (if ever) are leaps of faith rational?
• Can you be held morally responsible for what you do in a
dream?
• Are real paradoxes—like real Penrose steps—possible?
• Is inception really possible? (Isn’t that what, for example,
movies and advertisements do?)
• What is time and can it really slow down in dreams?
• Would you really want to live in Limbo (utopia)?
• And many more…