Inception

[K9]

This movie was incredibly enjoyable to watch, it also reinforced by faith in Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an actor with stupid amounts of potential.

[Ard]

Man, late to the party, finally saw the movie, and more or less agree with everyone.

One thing on the totems that I picked up and didn't really see mentioned in the thread:

I just hope this isn't Nolan's high water mark.  He just keeps getting better and better.

[tazelbain]

[LK]

This movie for me dispelled all notions of Gordon-Lewitt as that kid from 3rd Rock. I bet that is a massive compliment to him.

[Samwise]

He hasn't been the kid from 3rd Rock since Brick IMO.  He was damn good in that.

[Murgos]

I just want to add my recommendation to all the rest.  Easily the best movie since No Country for Old Men in my opinion.

[Ghambit]

The totem is a reality check, not a "who's in what dream check."  If it's someone ELSES totem than yah, it's conceivable it wouldnt help you, since your subconscious really isnt intimately linked with the object.


I'm enjoying this thread btw.  Especially the ethical parts of tech.-assisted dreaming.  It's something I've grappled with lately in deciding on a few projects I've thought to start, since obviously it's pointless developing systems that'll quite obvious turn illegal.  I can assure you there are no current regulations against certain aspects of it, but there WOULD be if ever developed as in the movie.  The key is making the tech. as "lightweight" as possible, allowing the mind to do most of the work.  The govt. cant regulate your mind - yet.

[KallDrexx]

The totem is a reality check, not a "who's in what dream check."  If it's someone ELSES totem than yah, it's conceivable it wouldnt help you, since your subconscious really isnt intimately linked with the object.

I thought that was the whole point of "you can't show other people your totems".  Because of the dreamer knew how your totem worked, their subconscious could make it work that way in the dream and thus you wouldn't be able to know if you were in a dream or not.  However, the totem wouldn't work too well in your own dream because your subconscious knows how the totem works and could cause it to react how it should.   

[sickrubik]

The totem is a reality check, not a "who's in what dream check."  If it's someone ELSES totem than yah, it's conceivable it wouldnt help you, since your subconscious really isnt intimately linked with the object.

I thought that was the whole point of "you can't show other people your totems".  Because of the dreamer knew how your totem worked, their subconscious could make it work that way in the dream and thus you wouldn't be able to know if you were in a dream or not.  However, the totem wouldn't work too well in your own dream because your subconscious knows how the totem works and could cause it to react how it should.   

The rule was to not let anyone TOUCH or HOLD the totem. They were pretty free (at least Cobb and Ariadne and Arhur) with showing their totems.

[KallDrexx]

The totem is a reality check, not a "who's in what dream check."  If it's someone ELSES totem than yah, it's conceivable it wouldnt help you, since your subconscious really isnt intimately linked with the object.

I thought that was the whole point of "you can't show other people your totems".  Because of the dreamer knew how your totem worked, their subconscious could make it work that way in the dream and thus you wouldn't be able to know if you were in a dream or not.  However, the totem wouldn't work too well in your own dream because your subconscious knows how the totem works and could cause it to react how it should.   

The rule was to not let anyone TOUCH or HOLD the totem. They were pretty free (at least Cobb and Ariadne and Arhur) with showing their totems.

But I understood the reason they couldn't touch it was because they would understand the details of the totem and be able to replicate it in their dreams.

[sickrubik]

The focus was on the weight, and how it acted, which you can't get by simply seeing something. They go to a lot of trouble telling the audience specifically about weight issues. Arthur's weighted die. Only HE knows how much it weighs and how it rolls, feels. Some with Ariadne and her chess piece.

[KallDrexx]

The focus was on the weight, and how it acted, which you can't get by simply seeing something. They go to a lot of trouble telling the audience specifically about weight issues. Arthur's weighted die. Only HE knows how much it weighs and how it rolls, feels. Some with Ariadne and her chess piece.

Right but my point is that if I subconsciously knew the weight of Arthur's die, I could recreate it in my dream (even if I don't mean to) and he would have no idea if he was in a dream or in reality.  To me, that seemed to be the reason you weren't supposed to let anyone play with another person's totem.

[Samwise]

Cobb and Arthur's explanation of a totem as a sort of cryptographic "secret" completely falls apart with the spinning top totem that is proven to be "authentic" if it falls down.  I mean, who doesn't know that if you spin a top it will eventually fall down?

[sickrubik]

The focus was on the weight, and how it acted, which you can't get by simply seeing something. They go to a lot of trouble telling the audience specifically about weight issues. Arthur's weighted die. Only HE knows how much it weighs and how it rolls, feels. Some with Ariadne and her chess piece.

Right but my point is that if I subconsciously knew the weight of Arthur's die, I could recreate it in my dream (even if I don't mean to) and he would have no idea if he was in a dream or in reality.  To me, that seemed to be the reason you weren't supposed to let anyone play with another person's totem.

Right, play with. You said "show", originally. To me that is only visual to me, where you wouldn't know the weight of it. (part of this conversation is probably largely semantics.)

[KallDrexx]

Right, play with. You said "show", originally. To me that is only visual to me, where you wouldn't know the weight of it.

Ah yeah bad wording on my part :)

[Ghambit]

It is conceivable that a skilled enough dreamer COULD simulate a reality-check inside a dream, depending on how strong the check is.  A spinning top is tough to keep stable over a long period of time.  A weighted die is only effective if no one knows the number it should land on and how the die should move, but it's probably easier to manipulate than the top.  The chess piece I'd say is the easiest since the object is pretty uniform and easy enough to figure out how it should fall.

But again, it's long odds when you're up against someone who plays with their totem frequently throughout the day.  It'd be tough to fool them.  You'd have to replicate every subtle detail; look, feel, physics, etc.

I will say you can challenge YOURSELF to design totems and then try to recreate their behaviors as exact as possible once inside the dreamstate.  It's an interesting way to guage your progress.  For instance, build a chesspiece for real, play with it all day (for real), then initiate a WILD utilizing a different reality-check than the chesspiece (such as the mirror check, digital clock/time view, etc... all objects you'd have in your room).  Then try to make the chesspiece as exact as possible w/o kicking yourself out of the dream.  Once you master it, build something else.  Then try to capture all immediate objects near your sleep space.  Once you get good at that, move on to more original works and see how fooled you can make yourself.

The key here is doing exactly what a good architect does.  Create a world you cant tell the difference from.  The sole reason for this is to maintain dream stability, so you can play inside longer.  Then you can subtly manipulate w/o being kicked, therefore getting more accomplished (whatever that may be... porking Olivia Wilde on a white sand beach maybe??)  If you feel yourself losing control, shift your focus around to something else... then back again till you achieve desired results.  Over time you'll be able to focus on one object indefinitely.

[KallDrexx]

Everything I read mentions to just use a digital clock of some sort as that seems to be hard to keep consistent in a dream. 

Personally I just want to figure out how to remember dreams more often.  I seem to forget my dreams before I even think to write it out or go over the dream in my head, or I wake up with only the memory of the concept of the dream but no recollection of the dream itself.

I'm going to Kenya in October and they prescribed me Malarone for malaria which apparently has the side effect of giving you crazy vivid dreams, so I intend to use that to my full advantage

[Ghambit]

The key to dream recall is interrupting your normal sleep cycles.  Wake yourself at odd hours then go back to sleep and then wake yourself frequently thereafter, and so on.
If you're looking to recall dreams during a truly normal sleep cycle, then the best way is to get a lot of sun during the day (melatonin is key), get plenty of exercise and so on.  Have a journal on your nightstand and try not to move or think about anything else once you awaken.  Over time you'll get better at it.  And yah, there are supplements you can take that'll help.

But honestly though, the best way to affect dream recall is to simply take total control.

[Vision]

This is going to sound stupid, because it is, but I did it this morning after waking up at 8 and then going back to sleep. I did my check and remembered I was dreaming, and so I started to fly through that cool city scape from Inception....yeah the one Ariadne turns in on itself. I then decided to shatter all the windows and send broken glass flying everywhere (I dont know why), at which point I forgot I was lucid, sliced myself apart with the falling broken glass, and spent the rest of my dream extracting glass shards from my wounds while Leonardo DiCaprio lectures me on being a bitch.

I kid you not.

[Teleku]

Better start working on your totem.

[Samwise]

I had a dream a few nights ago in which I decided I was going to learn how to lucid dream.  So in my dream I went to sleep and into a dream that I knew was a dream, messed around a bit, woke up, and told people "hey cool it worked!"  Then I woke up from that dream and I was all  .

[Kitsune]

The oddest dream I had to date was one where the dream was in text, like online forum text rather than printed paper text.  I read the dream rather than directly experiencing it, which was just weird.  Anyone who says you can't read in a dream or that you don't dream in color are full of shit, as I have both explicitly read things while dreaming, and explicitly seen things in color.  If my brain is lazy it will skimp on details; I won't so much read a book word by word as look at the page and know what it says, but there have been dreams where the actual words on the paper were significant, and I read them without any difficulty.

And I've had times when I've gotten kicked, that 'feels like you're falling and wake up flailing like an idiot' thing.  I don't really care for that, as it always comes with a burst of terror in that moment of ohshitI'mfalling.

[Ghambit]

If the only scene in your frame is text then I'd say that's normal.  But, reading text from a larger landscape is something else entirely.  Like, sitting in a park having a picnic while reading a paper.  It's likely the words on the paper will be gibberish and only come into focus when everything else is not.  Then likely, when everything else returns it'll be a different scene.  You'll then have to reform the scene from memory...  which you may or may not have.

[Tannhauser]

I enjoyed it, but Memento, Batman and The Prestige were all better to me.  Enjoyed the ending, but I got a bit bored with the drawn out climax. 

[naum]

Inception soundtrack created entirely from Edith Piaf song

Forty-seven years after her death, Edith Piaf is soundtracking the biggest, darkest, most bombastic blockbuster of the summer. Composer Hans Zimmer has revealed that Inception’s entire soundtrack, from the booming trombone theme to the strains of rising dread, originates from one of the chanteuse’s most famous songs.

Anyone who has seen Christopher Nolan’s movie will recall Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, the song used to signal a “kick” to another reality. But Piaf’s famous ballad does not just permeate Inception as a sample – it’s in the soundtrack’s DNA.

“Just for the game of it,” Zimmer told the New York Times this week, “all the music in the score is subdivisions and multiplications of the tempo of the Edith Piaf track.” The clearest example is Inception’s theme, which an enterprising YouTuber has already deciphered, speeding up the booming trombones to reveal Piaf’s Gallic melancholy. “I was surprised how long it took them to figure it out,” Zimmer said. “[It] wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”

[K9]

It's a good song.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The song also perfectly fits the movie. It's stuff like this that brilliant film making is all about, using one song as an entire soundtrack for a single dream. Seriously.

[AcidCat]

Finally saw the movie tonight, but I don't think I saw the same movie that most people apparently saw. I thought it was an awful mess. I felt like I was in that goddamn van, just falling, forever, enduring a lot of action but nothing really happening. Oh, hey, more people shooting at each other .... again. Yes, well this score is awfully subtle, I guess this stuff is exciting and important? The music sure sounds like this is some epic shit going down. Oh hey, more dream people to shoot at, now in the snow! These shootouts and fisticuffs had all the excitement and dramatic tension that you might find in some FPS level when you're replaying it for the tenth time. Why am I doing this? Just to pass the time I guess. Why do I care? Good question. This movie gave me no reason to care about any of its self-serious, overstuffed bullshit.

[Teleku]

Finally saw the movie tonight, but I don't think I saw the same movie that most people apparently saw.

This.  You monster.

[Velorath]

The song also perfectly fits the movie. It's stuff like this that brilliant film making is all about, using one song as an entire soundtrack for a single dream. Seriously.

It was also cool due to the fact that Marion Cotillard played Edith Piaf in "La vie en rose" a few years back (really good movie even/especially for people like me who didn't even know who Edith Piaf was before watching the movie).

[Raging Turtle]

Man, late to the party, finally saw the movie, and more or less agree with everyone.

One thing on the totems that I picked up and didn't really see mentioned in the thread:

I just hope this isn't Nolan's high water mark.  He just keeps getting better and better.

Fantastic movie.  I think it'll change film the way the first Matrix movie did.

[Evil Elvis]

[Malakili]

Enjoyed this a lot, even more than I thought I would.   As for my own opinion about it, I think the end was a little bit of a cop out.  While I get the point of it, I don't think it actually added much, if anything, to the movie, and it felt like a blatant attempt to make people go:


When there was already plenty of more subtle reasons to suspect that in the first place.

[Lakov_Sanite]

[pxib]

Oh, hey, more people shooting at each other .... again. [...] Oh hey, more dream people to shoot at, now in the snow! These shootouts and fisticuffs had all the excitement and dramatic tension that you might find in some FPS level when you're replaying it for the tenth time.

I agree with this completely. The gravity fight was at least something new, and (like the van chase) there was some degree of concern that the person involved would fail to protect his unconscious friends. By the time we get to the snow goons, who cares? I never got to the edge of my seat. This has been a problem with ever Nolan film I've seen, though. He doesn't do risk and tension very well.

I've loved them anyway.