Blogpost 1: Inception: A Lucid Dreaming Movie?

Inception, it is a science fiction film that is written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The movie revolves around a thief named Dom Cobb who commits espionage or obtaining information that is considered a secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. He does this by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He was offered to regain his old life & reunite with his family as a payment for a task that seemed to be impossible: 'Inception', the implantation of the idea of someone else into a target's subconscious. So, instead of stealing information, he will be doing the opposite, planting one.

After watching this movie, I can say that lucid dreaming had a very big part in it. Lucid dreaming is when you can consciously control your dreams or when you are aware that you are dreaming. I've experienced lucid dreaming several times before but it wasn't as amazing as the dreams you see in this movie and of course, I'm not a talented lucid dreamer like Dom Cobb. Although the words 'lucid dreaming' were not mentioned even once, if you've seen this movie, I'm sure you'll agree with me that there is no doubt that the intention of this movie is to put viewers into the world of subconscious reality.

I've always wondered why the words "lucid dreaming" were never mentioned in the movie and I found this article entitled "Lucid Dreaming Myths in Inception" by Rebecca Turner in the site "World of Lucid Dreaming", and the author said it is because there are a number lucid dreaming myths in Inception. Christopher Nolan chose never to use nor mention the term 'lucid dreaming' in the movie so that he can create his own dream mythology that is centered around the act of consciously entering other people's dreams and stealing/planting ideas or secrets.

In the article I've found, three biggest myths in Inception were mentioned. The first one is if you die in a dream, you wake up. In the movie, death in a dream sends the mind back into reality instantly but in reality, there are dreamers who experience physical death in dreams and yet continue to exist in other forms. Based on the article, in dreams, death is not the end. It just often leads to a new beginning. Yes, you can wake up from surprise when you die in a dream, but the two are not fundamentally linked. It was also mentioned there that if you really want to wake yourself up from a lucid dream or even a short moment of consciousness during a bad dream or nightmare, just blink hard and shout 'Wake up' while thinking about your body in bed.

                    
The second myth about Inception is sharing your dreams with other people. In the movie, to start a shared dream, Dom Cobb and his fellow dreamers need to hook themselves up to the fictional machine or device called PASIV (Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous). There are IV lines that allows multiple dreamers to share or network their dream states while the target individual acting as the hub. Of course, no such device exists in the real world. Though there are many people who claim to experience mutual dreaming, science is yet to observe any objective evidence that supports this.

The third big myth in Inception is there's such a place as a dream limbo. In the movie, the characters who die in a dream within a dream will fail to find their way back to reality and become lost in the depths of dream limbo. Dom Cobb & her wife, Mal, lost touch with their conscious selves & spent many years in their empty limbo where they accepted it as reality, never realizing they could simply wake up. One more thing, they also need the PASIV device to be able to do this. So, this is definitely a myth because nobody has ever perceived a lucid dream that lasted for years when it happened.

According to the author of the article, Rebecca Turner: "Nonetheless, the central theme of being able to consciously create and navigate the dream world is impossible to ignore - this is lucid dreaming in its essence."

After reading the quote, I can say that I totally agree with her. Even though the director chose to allow himself to be very flexible in the movie by not using the term 'lucid dreaming', there is no doubt that it is still considered as a lucid dreaming movie. There may be a lot of myths in this movie right now but who knows? What if a PASIV device may actually be invented in the future? What if dream sharing may actually be possible through it? Just thinking about it really excites me. I think this movie really gave the viewers an inception, a starting point of new possibilities, ideas and thoughts.