Counting Sheep with Cobb (Inception and the Eternal Mystery of Dreams)
Undisclosed secret of mine- I’ve graduated from high school numerous times! Hundreds of times!! Often at my current age instead of at 18. The catch though- all instances except one occurred during the witching hours. My eyes were shut the entire time I danced at the prom and received my diploma. Yes, that’s right- they were all recurring dreams. During these senior year repeats I failed hundreds of exams while standing naked before a class with a mouth full of crumbling teeth. Embarrassed, I ran out through the hallways and got stuck in place while an unspecific monster chased after me. Then I died. Then I flew. Then I lost loves ones, repeatedly. Then I encountered a demonic witch in small, dingy attic. Then I met up with Chris Rock, Joe Biden, Dua Lipa, and the cast of Hamilton at my grandmother’s bayside cottage, revisiting old crushes and reliving the death(s) of two beloved family cats, all while paddling through crocodile-filled waters and bridging a portal between our world and Westeros. Dreams are crazy. Dreams are wild. Aren’t they?! And—for lack of better words—dreams are completely random!!! Or so we think!!
Let’s revisit an old Blockbuster from the early 2010s- Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending science-fiction/action thriller, Inception. In Inception, Leonardo Dicaprio stars as Dom Cobb, an “extractor” who engages in corporate espionage. This isn’t your average corporate espionage though. Cobb and his team- including Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eams (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao), and Ariadne (Elliot Page)- infiltrate their targets’ subconscious minds using experimental, dream-sharing technology. Usually they “steal” ideas from people. In the case of their newest mission, though, the goal is different. Mr. Saito (Ken Wantanabe) hires Cobb and his team to take down his competitor, Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite), by implanting a thought in the mind of his competitor’s son, Robert (Cillian Murphy). This method of “inception” has never been done before. If Cobb and his team complete the mission, though, Mr. Saito promises to clear Cobb of his criminal status so he can return home to his children. The team meets Robert, they all board a plane, the team puts Robert to sleep, and the mission begins.
The mission’s “architecture” includes a three-layered dream in which synchronized music “kicks” the infiltrators and awakes them from all three levels simultaneously. However, during their first foray, subconscious projections inside Robert’s mind attacks the team, and it is revealed that, while “dying” in a dream would usually wake someone up, Yusuf’s sedatives prevent that. If any of the infiltrators die, they will disappear into “Limbo,” an infinite, subconscious state. To make matters worse, Cobb is tortured by projections of Mal (Marion Cotillard), his now-deceased wife who committed “suicide” to escape what she believed was a dream.
Inception includes plenty of bullet-filled action sequences through crowded streets and alongside snowy mountains. It also features a very compelling, gravity-defying hallway scene inspired by the film “Royal Wedding”. Thematically speaking, though, a few philosophical scenes really stick out. Cobb introduces Ariadne to a “workshop” dreamworld set in a simulacrum of Paris, France. Cobb explains the metaphysics of dreaming: “Imagine you’re designing a building. You consciously create each aspect. Sometimes it almost feels like it’s creating itself…In a dream our mind continuously does this- it creates and perceives our world simultaneously. Our mind does this so well we don’t even know it’s happening.” “You create the world of the dream. We bring the subject into that dream, and they fill it with their subconscious,” he continues, and then punctuates his conversation with one of the film’s most experientially relatable quotes: “Dreams feel real when we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was strange.”
Cobb reminds Ariadne that people usually forget the beginnings of their dreams, and he then asks her how they both ended up where they are now (at an outdoor Parisian café). Suddenly, as he speaks, Ariadne flashes a bewildered expression. The ground shakes, her coffee cup rattles, and everything- newsstands, flower displays, boxes of fruit- all explode into the air. The two then walk along a boulevard as the city inverts in upon itself.
The “City of Lights” inverts in upon itself during one of Inception‘s most visually stunning scenes. Courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: The other deeply philosophical scene is the ending. Cobb finally arrives home. He is reunited with his father-in-law (Michael Caine), a college professor, and his children. The camera zooms in on a spinning top before cutting to black. Inception is famous for the idea it created of a “totem”. In the film, a “totem” is any small, tangible reminder a dreamer can use to anchor themselves to the objective, waking world. Cobb’s “totem” is a spinning top that spins endlessly in the dream world but comes to rest in the real world. Therefore, the powerful, cliff-hanging question remains—at the end of the film, was Cobb in the real world or the dream world? Inception, as you can tell, certainly takes a lot of inspiration from other famous, philosophically charged films, including (but not limited to) The Matrix, eXistenz, and Total Recall.
16th-century French philosopher Rene Descartes is probably the most famous person in history to ask: “what is reality?” His conclusion (at least for human beings): “I think. Therefore I am. (Cogito ergo sum/je pense donc je suis).” It’s a helpful philosophy, especially in situations of extreme stress, to hold onto something “actually real.” Psychologists frequently encourage their clients to engage in “grounding” when they experience panic attacks. Our minds jump out of our skin during highly threatening situations (or experiences that feel that way), and so a person can retain a sense of calm by “grounding”, or identifying specific smells, sights, sounds, and sensations. This is not too dissimilar from meditation.
There’s also another major theme/motif Inception re-introduces its audience to– multi-layered dreams. We’ve all experienced them. You have a dream. Maybe it’s scary or funny or sad or exciting. Then you “awaken” from it. Except you don’t really awaken from it. You get out of “bed” and suddenly the “bed” falls through the floor into an infinite black tunnel, or the “room” you’re in disappears and suddenly you’re floating through open blue skies. Then you really do wake up! Anyone who’s ever seen the Nightmare on Elm Street films know(s) the franchise frequently employs this haunting idea to great effect!
The fact that Inception is a visual, cinematic story is also significant. Christopher Nolan has explained that in addition to be a science-fiction heist thriller, Inception is also a metaphor for filmmaking. Movies themselves are very similar to dreams. They aren’t scripted ahead of time, and they don’t involve pre-planned activities like lighting, acting, editing, or set production. But they are visual, they frequently flit from “scene” to “scene,” and they usually contain an overarching narrative (one that dreamers often feel compelled to investigate or explain).
What are dreams after all? There are many different interpretations. Ancient people used to believe they were divine messages or prophecies. Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud believed they were manifestations of the subconscious. Carl Jung believed dreams were correlated to collective cultural archetypes. William Shakespeare memorably associated dreaming with death in the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet (“…for in that sleep of death what dreams may come?”). The broad consensus is that dreams are “threat simulators” and playgrounds for “wish fulfilment.” “Training grounds,” if you will. Our ancient ancestors spent long days running from lions, dodging crocodiles, and avoiding steep cliffs, only to revisit each of those experiences every time they fell asleep! Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit. But that is—generally speaking– the gist of it. It’s no coincidence that people who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often experience recurring nightmares. Somniphobes fear falling asleep. Not because Freddy Krueger is real but because they fear sleepwalking or having nightmares. Even if nightmares aren’t “real” (in the traditional sense), the experiences they produce are. On the other hand, dreams also have an upside.
Dreams present potential realities that people can bring into fruition. There is a reason the most famous speech in American history is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. King may have certainly had his dream about racial/social equality for his children and future generations while he was sleeping, but he also likely had it when he was awake. Can you dream while you’re awake? Yes. That is of course what daydreaming is. The only difference is that, unlike its nocturnal counterpoint, you cannot give your daydreams your full attention. To paraphrase a modern intellectual, “the waking world sacrifices completion for coherence. The dream world sacrifices coherence for completion.” Also, it’s worth noting- King’s “I Have a Dream” wasn’t entirely scripted. His good friend Mahalia Jackson joined the crowd of 200,000+ at the Lincoln Memorial that sweltering August day in 1963. She encouraged him to “tell them about ‘the Dream,’” and he did so. His speech was visceral, visual, poetic, and spontaneous. It occurred off-the-cuff, or “from the heart,” as the old expression goes. This reminds us that the quality of dreams (whether they emerge while we’re asleep or not) transpire at the deepest, rawest level of human experience, emotion, and perception!!
What occurs when we dream? As a precursor, our conscious experiences are determined by different brain wavelengths. At a frequency of 30 Hz or higher (Gamma waves), we are awake and can concentrate and learn.3 Beta waves (13-30 Hz) occur when we are awake but not in “focus mode,” Alpha waves (8-12.99 Hz) occur when we are relaxed or sleepy, Theta waves (4-7.99 Hz) occur during light sleep, and Delta waves (1-3.99 Hz) occur during deep sleep mode.3 There are two primary states of sleep- Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and non-REM.1 When we close our eyes and drift off, we enter four stages.1 During the first stage (which usually lasts less than 10 minutes) our brain waves, heart rate, breathing, and eye movements all slow down, and our muscles relax with random twitches.1 During the second stage (which usually lasts about 25 minutes), our body temperature drops, our eye movements stop, and our brain produces bursts of activity known as “spindles.”1 During the third stage (which usually lasts about 15 minutes), functions slow to their lowest levels, the body repairs itself and rebuilds tissue, bone, and muscle.1 And finally, during the fourth stage (usually 90 minutes into sleep), eye movements, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing speed up, muscles go stiff (except in sleepwalking cases), and the brain goes into dream mode.1 REM returns.
The “pons” (located in the brain stem, slightly above the spinal cord at the nape) releases acetylcholine, which travels to the forebrain and triggers cholinergic activation (which in turn produces the “meaningless” images that make up our dreams).4 A chemical stimulation, though, of the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways (which run from the ventral tegmental area in the forebrain up through the lateral hypothalamus and terminate at the amygdala, anterior cingulate gyrus and frontal cortex) can affect dopamine levels and alter the frequency and vividness of dreams without affecting REM sleep.4 As far as dream lengths are concerned, they can vary, but usually last from a few seconds to 20-30 minutes.2
Dreams have long since fascinated human beings. We really didn’t know much about them at first. Then, as the hard sciences poured through, we came to understand far more about our neural circuitry. But, as Australian philosopher David Chalmers argues, consciousness is still a very “hard problem,” especially when it comes to dreaming. It’s a near-unbreakable mystery! “What is it like to be….?” is the old question that drives the science and philosophy of consciousness. Dreams take it one step further, though. These mental conjuring(s) that stir up when we sleep seem to defy empirical explanation. We can explore the neuroscience of dreams, but the “first-person perspective” is much different. Dreams occur for most of us nearly every night of our lives. Sometimes we remember them. Sometimes we don’t. They weave together extremely disparate thoughts and memories, and they seem to occur against our will. To paraphrase Cobb, “it’s like [they] create themselves!” Christopher Nolan’s fun, evocative, and action-packed science-fiction thriller helped us meaningfully explored this very ancient topic!! What is the answer to “why we dream”? I’ll guess we’ll have to sleep on it!
SOURCES
[1] Stages of Sleep: REM and Non-REM Sleep Cycles (webmd.com), [2] How Long Are Dreams? | Sleep Foundation, [3] Alpha Waves and Sleep | Sleep Foundation, [4] Solms, M. (2000). Dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 843-850.
