Inception Explained

Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a movie that leaves viewers’ heads spinning. The story is fully presented, but the film moves so quickly that the meanings of various events and conversations are easily missed. So this essay will lend a helping hand by providing an extended explanation. And don’t worry: I’ll then give a careful interpretation of that wobbly totem seen in the ending shot.

The premise of Inception is that a new technology, initially invented by the military for training, exists that allows individuals to enter others’ dreams. This enables hired criminal “extractors” like Dom Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) and his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to try to access the valuable secrets of important individuals.

In the opening sequence, Cobb and Arthur attempt such an extraction. Their target is wealthy industrialist Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), and their plan involves a complex setup: a dream within a dream, meant to lure Saito into revealing his business secrets once he’s tricked into believing he has woken up. The plan fails, however, because Saito identifies a mistake in the dream design of the first dream level: the floor rug is composed of the wrong material.

Here are the rules of dream technology that we learn during this opening sequence and in later scenes. They aren’t dwelled upon, so it’s important to go over them:

• Each level of dream must be dreamt by one particular person, and the others “follow” that individual into his dream.
• Whoever is dreaming the dream that the group is currently in cannot follow the others into the next level; he must remain in his own dream level.
• Each dream must be “designed” beforehand in a way that feels consistent with the rules of reality. Otherwise, the subconscious projections of those who have followed the dreamer into the dream will hunt down the dreamer as a foreign invader.
• If anyone dies in a dream, he or she will wake up in the previous level (or in reality, if there are no previous levels).
• If anyone feels pain while sleeping, this pain will feel the same as any other pain, since pain is generated in the mind.
• A sleeping team member can be woken up by giving them a physical jolt—a “kick”. The team member administering the kick can alert the sleeper that a kick is imminent by playing music in his partner’s headphones, which that partner will hear while still dreaming.
• Time is perceived differently in different dream levels: each minute is perceived in the next dream level as about 20 minutes. This effect compounds for every level, such that one minute in reality translates to 400 minutes (~7 hours) in the second dream level and 8,000 minutes (~133 hours) in the third.

It’s revealed that Saito was previously aware that an attempt might be made on his secrets. He had welcomed this attempted mission, since it would serve as an “audition” of Cobb and Arthur for a future project that he would bankroll: the planting of an idea in the mind of competing tycoon Ross Fischer (Cillian Murphy) that would lead Fischer to break up his dying father’s empire. Saito is suitably impressed by Dom and Arthur, so he recruits them for the job—but admonishes them to choose a better team, as their previous dream designer (or “architect”) blew the mission by using insufficient detail on the apartment rug.

In return for the future success of this “inception” mission, Saito offers not only a large sum of money, but also the chance for Cobb to “return home.” As we later learn, Cobb has been a fugitive for years ever since an extremely unfortunate sequence of events: his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) became wrongly convinced that she was living in a dream world, leading her to commit suicide to “wake up.” In addition, she framed Cobb for murder so that he’d be motivated to kill himself and join her in the supposed real world.

We also later learn that, tragically, Mal’s mistaken views were the result of Cobb successfully incepting in her mind the idea that her world wasn’t real. At the time of the inception, this was true: they had been existing in a “Limbo” of unconstructed dream space. But the idea unexpectedly affected her even after waking up.

We see in the opening sequence and its aftermath that not only has Mal’s suicide ripped apart Cobb’s family and legal standing, but it has also severely impaired his ability to complete dream extraction. This is because his ongoing guilt results in Mal herself appearing as a subconscious dream projection and sabotaging Cobb’s missions. Cobb can therefore no longer be the architect of dream levels, as his subconscious (Mal) will then know the layouts and thwart the missions.

These revelations are imparted to new architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), and in one remarkable scene involving a very creepy elevator, Ariadne learns that Cobb is regularly reliving painful memories by dreaming, so that he can feel as though his wife is still alive. We’ll come back later to this important point.

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Back to the plan. Cobb recruits Eames (Tom Hardy), an expert “forger;” and Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a chemist who creates sedation that enables them three levels of dreaming.

The three levels that Ariadne designs for the mission are as follows:

1. A city level, dreamt by Yusuf.
2. A hotel level, dreamt by Arthur.
3. A hospital on a wintry mountain, dreamt by Eames.

The team decides that the most effective implanted idea that will lead Fischer to break up his father’s empire is that his father always wanted him to be his own man, not simply an imitation of his dad. They decide on this strategy based on Eames’ desire to whittle the situation down to a simple essence, not a complicated business decision, and on Cobb’s desire that the idea be based on positive rather than negative emotion.

The plan to incept this idea is that Eames will use his “forgery” talents to impersonate Peter Browning, Fischer’s godfather and his dad’s right hand man. In this guise, he’ll be able to suggest new truths about Fischer’s dad’s plans for his son, which the team will then emphasize in later levels. If all goes well, Fischer’s subconscious will begin to increasingly reflect these new truths, so that eventually Fischer will “convince himself” of the idea about his dad (this way, he won’t be able to trace the idea to its outside source, in which case the inception would fail).

But things start off terribly. In the first level the team is immediately attacked by Fischer’s militarized subconscious, a result of prior dream defense training that didn’t show up in Arthur’s background research. Cobb is livid at this unexpected development, since he alone has conferred with Yusuf and understands that because of the unusually heavy sedation required to achieve three dream levels, dying in these dreams will not result in waking up, but rather descending into Limbo, which, as mentioned before, Cobb inhabited with Mal when she was alive.

Worse still, Saito has been shot in the melee and appears to be quickly dying. If and when he descends into Limbo, there’s no telling how long he’ll perceive himself to be there, and whether his mind will be able to hold up for a potentially enormous period of existence.

Once this grim reality sets in, Cobb explains to the team that the only way for all of them to avoid being killed by Fischer’s subconscious in level 1 and descending into Limbo is to complete the mission as fast as possible—much faster than they had planned for. That’s because if the inception takes hold, Fischer’s subconscious will cease its attacks.

Thus, Eames must conduct a rushed impersonation of Browning, during which he witnesses Fischer’s resentment of his father’s perceived coldness, and his feeling that his father was “disappointed” in him. Eames as Browning tells Fischer of a legal will that would break up the Fischer empire, which his father supposedly meant as his “most precious gift” to his son. Fischer doesn’t understand why in the world his father would do this, but he appears to believe Eames’ lie. Next, Cobb and Arthur force Fischer into naming a random 6-digit code to open a safe, which will be important later.

Pressed for time, they then climb into a van and enter the second dream level. Yusuf stays back to drive (remember, the first level is his dream), evading Fischer’s armed subconscious. It’s clear, though, that he won’t be able to hold out for long. Luckily, the multiplied time in successive dream worlds affords the team some flexibility.

In the second level, the team is almost completely improvising, their meticulous plan in shambles. Cobb insists on a ploy he calls “Mr. Charles,” in which he poses as a dream security officer and alerts Fischer that he’s dreaming. This is risky because Fischer’s subconscious projections will then hunt down the dreamer (in this level’s case, Arthur)—but Cobb is able to convince Fischer that he is a friend, not a foe, keeping Fischer’s subconscious at bay.

Carrying on the mission, Cobb and Arthur ingeniously convince Fischer that Browning staged the kidnapping of Fischer and himself in level 1 (which Fischer at this point believes is the real world) in a traitorous attempt to get access to, and destroy, the will that would break up his business empire. Just as the team had hoped, Fischer’s subconscious projection of Browning then admits to the crime—evidence that Fischer is buying it.

The projection of Browning frames this supposed will as Fischer’s dad’s “last insult”: a “challenge” for his son to build something for himself. Fischer still claims he wouldn’t enact such a self-defeating strategy (“Why would I?”), but the mere fact that his own subconscious is suggesting this possibility is encouraging to the team. Plus, Fischer is visibly emotional about the prospect of his father having previously unknown plans for him.

The team then tells Fischer (lying of course) that they need to enter Browning’s dream world to find out what he knows about Fischer’s dad’s plans, and they all hurriedly enter level three, the skiing/hospital level, dreamt by Eames. Arthur stays behind, as level 2 is his dream.

The problem that arises now is that Yusuf, driving the van in level 1, has run out of time faster than they’d wanted. He plays the cue music, which Arthur hears on the second level and the rest of the team hears on the third, signaling that he’s about to provide the kick by driving through the guardrail. But they’re not ready.

Arthur, who’s been busy single-handedly battling armed guards in whirling hallways, can’t provide a kick in time to bring the rest of them back to level 2 (to thereby receive Yusuf’s kick from level 1); and anyway, the team in level 3 needs much more time to get Fischer to his dad in the hospital and complete the inception. They therefore miss the kick as Yusuf drives through the rail. They know, however, that there will very shortly be a second kick: the van hitting the water.

At this point, two important things happen. The first is that because the van in level 1 is now airborne, level 2 loses gravity, making it extremely difficult for Arthur to provide a kick to bring the team back. The second is that Cobb orders Ariadne to lead the team on level 3 to a direct pathway through the labyrinth to save time. Such a measure, of course, is what Cobb was trying to avoid by having Ariadne design the levels. After all, with his own dangerous subconscious knowing the solution to the maze, the mission is in jeopardy.

But the too-early kick on level 1 has forced his hand. He knows that if Arthur kicks them back to level 2 before the job is done on level 3, they’ve failed. And if Arthur can’t kick them back to level 2 before the van hits the water, they’re all done for.

In a James Bond-esque sequence, Cobb and Ariadne then split from Eames, Saito (who’s still dying from the gun shot on level 1), and Fischer, with the five of them assaulting the armed hospital. When Eames and Saito successfully escort Fischer to the hospital, however, the worst-case scenario occurs: Mal drops from the ceiling and kills Fischer, sending him into Limbo.

It looks like they’ve failed the mission, but Ariadne has a plan to salvage it. This part gets complicated, so stay with me. Ariadne insists that if she and Cobb follow Fischer’s mind into Limbo, gaining the additional time afforded to a deeper dream level, they’ll be able to find Fischer, enabling this sequence to take place:

1. When Eames on level 3 hears Arthur’s music begin, signaling that a kick will soon bring them back to level 2, he defibrillates Fischer.
2. Ariadne and Cobb sense the defibrillation in Limbo and ensure that Fischer rides that as his kick back to level 3.
3. Fischer achieves catharsis with his father in level 3, completing the inception.
4. Eames blows up the hospital in level 3, providing a kick for Ariadne and Cobb to return to level 3.
5. Arthur’s kick occurs in level 2, bringing everyone in level 3 back to level 2.
6. Yusuf’s van hits the water in level 1, bringing everyone back to level 1.

The one hitch is Saito’s health. It’s been a foregone conclusion that he’s not going to survive the mission, and Cobb knows Saito’s going to be dead before they get Fischer out of Limbo. So when Ariadne rides Eames’ kick (blowing up the hospital) back to level 3, Cobb, after finally confronting Mal, stays in Limbo to find Saito, who, due to the unpredictable nature of time in Limbo, has become an old man living alone, having forgotten that he is not living in the real world. This serves as the introductory scene of the movie.

Let’s go back to Fischer. Here’s a summary of how the inception succeeds:

1. In level 1, Eames (impersonating Browning) tells Fischer that his father had a hidden last will and testament to break up his empire. After that, the team extracts a random 6-digit number from Fischer.
2. In level 2, the team convinces Fischer that Browning orchestrated the kidnapping in level 1 so that he could gain access to the supposed will and destroy it. Fischer’s subconscious projection of Browning admits to this crime, and frames the will as an “insult,” a “taunt,” and a “challenge” for Fischer to build a better company than his father could. Importantly, in this level the 6-digit code that Fischer randomly named is fed back to him twice: it’s the phone number written by the girl (Eames in disguise) in the lobby, and the hotel room that they use.
3. In the third level, Fischer meets his dying father and projects what was told to him by his own subconscious projection of Browning in the previous level: that his father wanted his son to break up his empire. But he imagines it not as a taunt, as the projected Browning characterized it in level 2, but rather as a highly emotional bonding moment that reveals that his father harbored untold fatherly love for him, and that if his dad was indeed “disappointed” with him, it was only because he “tried” too hard to emulate him. Crucially, the 6-digit code that Fischer himself generated in level 1, and then which was emphasized in various moments in level 2, is the code to the bedside safe—so that he feels as though he alone knows the code, creating a false sense of father-son closeness.

As you might have noticed, Fischer’s subconscious plays along very well with the team’s goals. This is probably because Fischer already had a deep longing for belated connection with his father. In level 1, Yusuf finds in Fischer’s wallet a sentimental picture of him as a kid with a pinwheel; later, Fischer projects this pinwheel as in the safe with the will, readily linking the will with a positive father-son moment from long ago.

Thus, in trying to convince Fischer that his dad wanted him to “be his own man,” they’re unknowingly giving him exactly what he’s always wanted: an explanation for his father’s frosty demeanor that allows for the notion that his dad truly loved him. A lucky break for the team. (Cobb: “The bigger the issues, the bigger the catharsis.”)

Once the team is safely out of the sinking van in level 1, Fischer confirms to Eames/Browning that he now believes that his dad wanted him to go his own way and that he’ll run the business empire accordingly. It’s also worth noting, here, that based on the mission timeline (they’re on a 10 hour flight), they still need to wait around in level 1 for a whole week before waking up—no challenge now, since Fischer’s subconscious will no longer be attacking them. Understandably, this isn’t shown to us.

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So that’s the plot explained. But there’s still that spinning totem to talk about, and this requires a thematic analysis of the history between Cobb and Mal. So stay with me for one more section. This is the interesting part.

Recall Cobb’s confrontation with Mal in Limbo. He emotionally overcomes her pleading with him to stay, but not before she makes a hefty argument: that the entire exposition of the movie seems kind of like a dream:

Mal: No creeping doubts? Not feeling persecuted, Dom? Chased around the globe by anonymous corporations and police forces, the way the projections persecute the dreamer? Admit it: you don’t believe in one reality anymore. So choose. Choose to be here. Choose me.

Of course, Cobb is actually talking to his own subconscious here; this argument is being made by his own mind. This makes sense, since on a number of occasions Cobb has indeed shown that he cannot reliably distinguish between reality and dream—especially when he fails to shoot the projection of Mal before she kills Fischer in level 3, instead wondering aloud at the critical moment whether she might be real. He also frequently rushes to his totem after waking up from dreams, demonstrating a lack of confidence in reality.

Why does he have this problem? It seems to be the result of something I mentioned earlier: that Cobb has taken to intentionally dreaming actual memories of Mal in an effort to keep her “alive.” Ariadne swiftly exposes this when Cobb warns her not to use real places for her dream designs lest she lose her grip on reality: “Is that what happened to you?”

The really interesting thing about this, which I believe is lost on just about every viewer, is that the idea that Cobb planted in Mal’s mind—that this world isn’t real—has now begun to possess him as well.

Consider an overlooked line toward the climax, when Cobb and Ariadne are searching for Mal in Limbo.

Cobb: Listen, there’s something you should know about me. About inception.… An idea is like a virus: resilient, highly contagious. The smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can redefine and destroy you.

Here, as we know, he’s starting to explain to Ariadne that it was his incepting of his wife’s mind that ultimately led her to commit suicide. But less obvious is that Cobb is undeniably stating that he, too, has now been affected and destroyed by that same idea. Why else would he note that ideas are “highly contagious” and compare them to viruses?

And we can see exactly how this contagious “virus” has spread to Cobb: after Mal’s suicide, his subconscious dream projection of her continues to argue the idea that was planted in her mind (because in real life, this is in fact what she would have been arguing) and, perversely, begins to succeed in convincing Cobb of that very idea (!).

After all, it’s implied that Cobb’s grasp on reality is progressively weakening—that “it’s getting worse.” With more time listening to Mal in dreams, he’d likely become completely detached from reality. Accidentally, he’s almost incepted himself! Recall that in an early scene right after the failed extraction on Saito, Cobb is harrowingly brandying about a gun in his apartment. He seems to be considering suicide: going Mal’s route. He must be legitimately weighing the notion that “this world isn’t real”: not only has he been infected by the “virus” that he himself created, but it’s on the verge of killing him, as it did Mal.

Now we come to the final scene, where Cobb, after the success of the mission, reunites with his family and spins his totem, which teeters before a cut to black. Is Cobb dreaming this happy ending?

Well, all the evidence suggests that he isn’t. For one, only in this scene does he see the faces of his two children, in my opinion a clear indication that the dreaming is over. Also, Cobb only dons his wedding ring in dreams, and in this scene he’s not wearing it.

Maybe most importantly, though: there really just isn’t any good reason to think that Cobb is dreaming at this point. The mission timeline checks out, Saito clears Cobb for entry as he promised—nothing is noticeably off. Why would Cobb dream such a moment, anyway? He’s shown that he prefers to dream actual memories in which he wishes he had acted differently, not potential happy scenarios.

Nevertheless, Mal’s words hang over us: No creeping doubts?

The ending shot, then, is a test: Have we been infected? Have we, too, succumbed to the resilient, contagious idea that this world isn’t real? Despite all evidence, have we been persuaded by what started as a strategy to get Mal out of Limbo and grew into a destructive, dangerous virus of an idea?

I know that when I saw this movie in theaters, the audience’s reaction indicated that a large portion was indeed persuaded. Ideas, it seems, are indeed powerful: as Cobb says, the smallest seed of an idea can grow.

And perhaps I’m not so immune either: after rewatching Inception to write this piece, I couldn’t help—and I’m sure many can relate—but look around the room once or twice and wonder:

Is this really real?

 

— Jim Andersen

For more on the work of Christopher Nolan, see my explanation of Tenet.