Reality In Inception

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec once said “You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.” Reality, defined as something happening right in that moment with eyewitnesses; however, what one sees may not be what is happening right in that moment. In the brain, reality and dreams are separated by a very delicate line. How delicate is this line and when does it become blurred? Inception allows the mind to explore that idea. Dominick Cobb “Dom” (Leonardo Di Caprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are “extractors” which are people who perform “corporate espionage” by entering dreams and manipulating a person’s mind to fix an idea within them. However, in order to enter someone’s dream they, must find an “architect” to design the dream for the targeted

Cobb’s terrible secret about his wife’s death threatens his conscious. Even though his expressions are perfectly calm, there are times the panic, that has been suppressed for so long, appears on his face when his dead wife shows up unexpectedly in his dreams. With a mental projection of Mal in his dreams, Cobb scrambles to grasp control of the dreams and reality -his wife does not exist in reality -he lives in. This contributes to the idea the Nolan presents: people seem calm on the outside; however, the hidden fears appear in the subconscious to destroy the hope and happiness. Another scene where the audience notices Cobb losing control on reality and falling into his trap world of dreams happens in the flashback of his wife, still alive, sitting right on the edge of the window sill with a longing, blank face staring down the unknown abyss. Mal, convinced that they are in “Limbo: a world of infinite subconsciousness” Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Therefore, they have to kill themselves to escape Limbo and join their children in the real world. Cobb filled with panic, attempts to plead with Mal that realistically there are two children waiting for Mal to come home -they are in reality. Nolan expresses the idea of the fear frozen inside Cobb. In that moment the audience can feel the fear rising to the barrier and struggling to

As Ariadne steps into Cobb’s hidden fears and dreams the realistic and light tone becomes a very somber and haunting tone. Even in Cobb’s dream, Nolan creates this elevator of memories symbolizing an emotional scale of outer happiness to hidden fears and secrets; beginning from Cobb’s two children having fun down to the very last level of the elevator, a flashback, where Cobb pleads with his wife that everything is real. As they go deeper down the elevator, the tone becomes guilty and uptight. Cobb’s last attempt to rekindle the fire he had broken down becomes a lost cause on Mal. The boundaries and encouragement to Mal to attempt to explore Limbo have finally been stretched too far. Mal, down to her very last moment on the window sill believed “You’re waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t be sure. But it doesn’t matter -because we’ll be together.” Nolan reveals Cobb’s hidden fear of being unable to convince Mal the difference between reality and dreamworld. The guilt strengthens in the recollection of that memory compared to where Cobb finally confesses to planting that idea of exploring Limbo and creating their own perfect world leading to Mal thinking that in order to return back to reality she had to kill herself. As Cobb says “An idea is like a virus. Resilient. Highly contagious.