My Take On Christopher Nolan’s Inception

I finally got around to seeing Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’, and it’s definitely one of those movies that makes you think. It is also right in line with a lot of the things we talk about when discussing the detrimental roadblocks that your mind creates for you. From a storytelling perspective the movie’s through-line can be interpreted by quote by psychologist Prescott Lecky.

“Our need for consistency is stronger than just about any other intrinsic need we have. People will behave in a manner that is consistent with their previously existing self-concept, even when this behavior is unrewarding to them otherwise. – Prescott Lecky

Note: If you haven’t seen the movie, reading beyond this point does have spoilers.

If you believe Lecky’s theory that self-consistency is a primary motivating force in human behavior, then “inception” is an attempt to plant an idea that is inconsistent with someone’s current self-concept or reality and made me look at the movie from this perspective:

Cobb and his wife Mal are attempting to explore deeper planes of dreaming, only Cobb becomes trapped when the kick that is intended to wake them only wakes Mal. Mal attempts to perform an inception to get him to see that he is not in reality, but, it doesn’t work and is further complicated by Cobb’s attempt to perform an inception on her where one wasn’t needed. The Mal we see through the movie is a combination of the real Mal and Cobb’s projections of her. Since Mal’s inception has failed and Cobb believes he gave Mal an inception that was so strong she killed herself, he thinks each time he sees her is a projection.

This scenario hinges on a statement made midway through the movie – “It’s not what you know, it’s what you believe”. The outcome of the spinning totem isn’t important, only whether or not Cobb believes he is experiencing reality. The totem is Cobb’s representation of a confused inception.

In Cobb’s dream, Saito hired Cobb and friends to plant an idea in Fischer’s mind. They succeed, and in the end Cobb returns to his kids in what he believes to be reality.” The outcome of the spinning totem didn’t determine this. Cobb is still dreaming but the slight falter indicates that the totem is going to stop spinning because he believes that he is home. This is consistent with the belief that he rid himself of the guilt about his wife. In fact we can’t be sure if Cobb and his wife every really had children at all.

A more complicated scenario is that Mal has been pulling him through all the lower level and knows that if he succeeds with the Saito mission and returns home in this reality he will be trapped forever.

Of course Cobb could be back in reality – but there are a lot of little things like the children being in the exact clothing and position he left them; and the tidy wrap-up, that can only be explained in a dream world. It also holds true that maybe Cobb was more comfortable with a “dream reality”" where his wife was dead than a more rewarding truth where she was alive.

The great thing about this movie is that it leave the door open for a lot of interpretations and questions.

P.S. Yes, this movie did remind me of Shutter Island only lots better and not as predictable.