Inception explained

(Read my previous blog for the movie review)

Nolan's laws of Inception:

First law:

Once an idea gets hold of your mind, it grows on by itself. The idea itself can be original or planted. The catch is, the idea should be simple enough not to attract attention from the planted mind, because if the mind realizes that it is not an original idea, it will fight/discard it.

Second law:

Dream time is slower than real time. Since multi-level dreams (dreams within dreams) are possible, the deeper the dream, the slower is its time and hence the longer it is.

Third law:

Dying in a dream causes one to wake up in the parent dream. However, dying in a dream cannot wake up a sedated dreamer; he gets lost in a "limbo"

A few definitions..

Limbo:

If a dream is deep enough, a few hours in real time can equate to decades in a dream. Such a long dream-state is called limbo.

A man waking up from such a dream would be physically young, but mentally very old. There are high chances of brain-death too.

(As the movie begins, a very aged Saito is rescued from limbo by Cobb, by convincing him to kill himself)

Projections:

When a dreamer enters a dream world, he fills it with his memories of objects and people. Memories of people are called projections. Projections always turn hostile if they recognize an intruder.

(Cobb's projection of his wife stabs the young architect, an intruder, in the dream)

Architect:

The one who creates the dream world. An architect always create huge, puzzling dream worlds to avoid encounters with the dreamer's projections.

Extractor:

The intruder who, along with the dreamer, enters the dream and solves the puzzle i.e. finds the hidden secret. Extractors should not to attract attention, or else they would be hunted down by projections. Their common trick is to act as one of the projections.

Forger:

One who can disguise himself in a dream as another person.

Cobb(Leonardo) tries to steal secrets from Saito's(Ken Watanabe) mind and fails. Saito however is impressed by Cobb's expertise and offers him a job to do inception on Fischer Jr.

Idea to be planted in Fischer Jr.'s mind : "My father wants me to break up the company"

But they should follow the First Law - one simple idea at a time.

First level dream :

Fischer Jr. is tricked into this dream on the the plane. In this dream, Cobb acts a kidnapper asking Fischer for his dad's locker key.

However Fischer Jr.'s mind is trained to fight extraction and hence Cobb and his team come under heavy attack.

Idea planted : Fischer's dad has hidden something in his locker.

Second level dream:

This dream within dream starts in the truck as they try to ecape in level-one. In this dream, Cobb acts approaches Fischer Jr. at a bar and convinces him that he is his protector against extractors. He wins his confidence by revealing to Fischer that they are in a dream meant to extract Fischer's secrets. Cobb also makes up a story that Fischer's godfather is behind this, by using the forger disguised as Fischer's godfather

Idea planted: Fischer's godfather does not want him to find out what is inside the locker.

Third level dream:

This dream within dream within dream starts in level-2 when Cobb convinces Fischer to enter his godfather's mind to find what is in the locker.

What Fischer does not realize is that he is actually entering the mind of the forger disguised as his godfather. Hence what Fischer finds in the dream - his dying father asking him not to follow his footsteps - is actually a lie.

Mal:

Cobb's wife who has spent over 50 years in limbo with Cobb, building and living in their dream world. She commits suicide when she wakes up in reality, believing that she would wake up in her dream world, which to her is the real one. She tries to force Cobb into following her by naming him the cause of her death.

Cobb's memories of her are of those trying to convince him to follow her to their dream world, hence in all of the dreams that Cobb enters, her projection always tries to sabotage the plan. This is also the reason why Cobb does not architect the dream world, because if he does, his wife too would know the solution to the puzzle.

Cobb, who is constantly plagued by guilt at having caused his wife's suicide, reveals that it is his inception on her that caused her to question her reality.

Totem keeps rotating in the end. It could mean any of these:

- the whole thing is a dream i.e. what we thought was a 3-level dream could actually be a 4-or-more-level dream.

- Nolan is winking at us or, the greedy producers want a sequel.

A more effective ending:

The only thing that Cobb believes absolutely is his totem. If his totem was somehow compromised, he would mistake himself to be in a dream and would have killed himself to wake-up - just like his wife did. This would have added a sense of irony and a degree of pathos to the story.