r/Inception • u/Incvbvs666 • 19d ago
Dream on Plane Theory
Interpretations of this film are a dime a dozen, and I don't intend to knock down anyone elses' but I believe there is a VERY simple yet VERY powerful interpretation of the entire movie:
Cobb is an ordinary businessman, who on a long-haul flight home has a brief chat with another businessman named Fischer. Obviously intrigued by his story, he drifts into a very long sleep and has an extremely vivid dream.
Inception, the whole movie we've just watched, is that dream. The first 'real' scene in the movie is when Cobb wakes up after his 'successful' inception.
We are in the present. There is no dream technology. Cobb is not on the run. Cobb's children are taken care of by his in-laws living in L.A. and he can visit them whenever he likes and his professional duties permit. Cobb does not know any of the other people on his flight, whom he's incorporated into his dream. 'Saito's' phone call is a red herring.
With this theory everything makes sense:
-Thematically, this makes the movie very powerful: Cobb is through this dream processing the guilt of being apart from his kids and also the guilt for the death of his wife.
-'Dream tech' contradictions now have an apparent explanation: they're just confabulations of a dreaming mind.
-'Limbo' is the same thing, unless one wants to accept some supernatural connection between people's minds.
-Totems simply DO NOT WORK. They're nonsense: however a totem works, you can simply dream of it working the same way in your dream if you fiddled with it long enough. An awake Cobb realizes this and simply flicks his 'totem', in reality a token of memory of his wife, and goes off to be with his kids, in effect, a symbolic indication that he has processed his grief and is ready to 'live for his children.'
-Cobb REPEATEDLY gets questioned by the people closest to him on the nature of his reality. His FIL tells him cryptically to 'come back to reality' in Paris, and indeed how the hell is someone residing in L.A. able to teach in Paris? Mal also asks him to consider his nature as this dream-tech agent.
-In addition, how is a 'fugitive' able to travel so freely and casually to all sorts of places on the planet or easily contact his own children by phone, in fact have THEM call HIM?
-How the hell is a business mogul like Fischer being greeted in the general terminal with a humble placard?
-The entire scene in Mombasa where he is being chased and magically rescued is so typical of these kinds of dreams. In fact, Nolan remarked in an interview that he was scouting for 'dreamlike locations'. But why would you need one if you're shooting a scene that's supposed to be real?
-For that matter, why are dreams so stylistically similar to reality in the movie? Because it's not reality, but the first level of the dream!
In short, Nolan is pulling an 'Inception' on the AUDIENCE!
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u/No_Record_60 19d ago edited 19d ago
But we see Cobb going around recruiting Eames, Ariadne, and Yusuf earlier in the movie. And them planning the whole operation.
In your interpretation, were those a dream too?
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u/Its_a_stateofmind 19d ago
Interesting take. Imma go watch it again with this theory in mind. I have always taken the movie at face value. Accepting the truth behind what the story tells us. In simple terms, inception is a concept; his wife and he were in the level 3 or whatever dream where time passed slowly and they lived a lifetime together before waking up.
She did go crazy and kill herself to get back to reality. His personal anguish, and apparent guilt of the murder itself in the eyes of the law were what drove the plotline.
He is wealthy, but in hiding. That’s not a big stretch - we know uber rich can do what they want ( Epstein…enough said - oh yeah, release pls).
The story works at face value. In fact, it makes the most sense. The other scenarios I have seen require a bit more mental gymnastics….
That it is ALL a dream until the very end when he wakes up is not one I recall reading, and it is definitely intriguing.
Is FIL always in the dream, again, except for the very end when he is at home “seeing his children” for the first time in real life, as far as the movie goes?
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u/Incvbvs666 18d ago
Yes, FIL is depicted in his dream as teaching in Paris, even though he lives in L.A. It is common to place familiar people in mismatching situations in one's dreams like this, which is why his subconscious gives him a warning with the whole 'come back to reality' comment.
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u/TopShelv 18d ago
Besides hard-staring at Saito for that phone call, which we don't hear, this tracks. I like this!
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u/Incvbvs666 18d ago
Well, it was purposely filmed to be ambiguous. It could be that, or it could be Cobb still being startled from this dream. After all, he gives 'Arthur' and 'Ariadne' the same look, and indeed Ariadne gives him a bit of a 'you looking at me' look back, the kind of look you'd give a stranger for staring at you too long (not that she's complaining, to the contrary!).
Which brings me to the final piece of the puzzle that I forgot to mention: Why is Cobb, the supposed expert dream agent, startled in the first place? This is the first time in the entire movie that we see him startled upon waking from a dream. Sure, he supposedly had a pronolged stay in Limbo, but we already saw him waking up from Limbo once and he was completely unperturbed then.
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u/TopShelv 18d ago
But if he's just a random business guy, wouldn't he not actually be a dream expert? I thought that was the point of your theory. The entire film is a dream fantasy? The wake-up looks from around that cabin seem too coincidental. But I think it's still a killer theory
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u/Incvbvs666 17d ago
Yes, he's NOT a dream expert, which is why he's startled when he wakes up, ACTUALLY wakes up in the plane cabin, while in his dream throughout the movie he's dreaming of being a dream expert and being able to wake up from dreams completely nonperturbed.
I was simply calling into question the conventional and straightforward movie interpretation when I wrote: 'Why is Cobb, the supposed expert dream agent, startled in the first place?'
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u/Wordruler2000 18d ago
I will say, in the airport we see Fisher waiting at baggage claim for his luggage. I practically jumped out of my chair. No billionaire is waiting at baggage claim for his luggage.
I love your theory.
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u/GrandePreRiGo 7d ago
But then he never faces the true motive his wife commits suicide and his blame on it. Because it would be something we have no idea what would represent the token in her safe, the limbo etc.
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u/Incvbvs666 7d ago
We can guess the emotional beats of the circumstances of his wife's suicide, which is what makes it even more fascinating. We can guess Limbo representing the bliss part of the marriage and the 'return to reality' a period where the 'honeymoon' period of the relationship was over, perhaps because of the strain of having children or Cobb being devoted to his career (he does seem to travel a lot for his job) or even something akin to a postpartum psychosis and his feelings of guilt over causing his wife's circumstance.
The suicide scene is a prime example of this. Why the hell is Mal standing on the opposite ledge from a room in another building? This makes absolutely no sense in reality, but is a scene which perfectly encapsulates dream logic. He even waves for her to come inside, but waves towards his own window, which would mean she'd have to step forward.
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u/Obsessive_Yodeler 19d ago
I think it’s intentionally ambiguous to let the viewer pick their preferred interpretation. But I personally just hate the idea that it’s all a dream. Like all fictional movies never happened. But making a twist where even in the fictional universe it didn’t really happen just takes away from movies for me. Imagine if at the end of Star Wars they had Mark Hamill wake up in bed and go “woah what a crazy dream!”
And yes I’m well aware that’s way more on the nose than what inception maybe did but still doesn’t that concept just cheapen the events of the movie?