Inception

I've watched the show "Inception" twice, and recently bought the DVD so that I can relive the cinematic experience and Christopher Nolan's brilliance. For those who didn't catch the movie, and you should have, it's a show about planting thoughts (or in this case 1 thought) in people's minds. In the movie, Leonardo di Caprio's character was asked by Ken Watanabe's character to go into his competitor's son's mind to get him to break up the business empire his dying father will soon leave him.

To cut to the chase, the story involves putting the subject into a dream state where di Caprio's character and his accomplices can interact with the former in his/her dreams. In this case, there's a dream in a dream in a dream, i.e., 3 levels of dreams. So it's rather complicated, but if you're paying attention, you should've no problems following the plot. Of course, there are various theories on whether there's more than meets the eye from ardent fans.

One theory postulates that the whole thing was a dream. For instance, Ken's character interrupted di Caprio's in the toilet when he was spinning his totem, a top. He never tried again, so we don't know if he's awake or not. Second, we're told throughout the show that one cannot use another's totem. But di Caprio's character uses his dead wife's old totem, so does this mean it gives him a false sense of reality? Or, maybe all of them did wake up on the plane en route to the US, and the whole thing was di Caprio's character's dream on the flight?

Anyway, I think life can be likened to what happens in "Inception". There are people who choose to continue on a certain course of action because it makes sense, or if you like, it's the reality that they want or are comfortable in. Despite evidence to the contrary, they cannot see the follies of their ways, and they persist in their actions. Or, they think they're awake, or are attuned to reality, when they're in fact not. They cannot see that they need to kill themselves, as characters in the movie do to wake up, to regain true consciousness. But then again, what is true consciousness? Do we even know if what we experienced is true or not? If everything is in the mind, then we can talk ourselves into and out of anything. I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but I suppose what I'm saying is that who's to say what's real and what's not.