This post contains spoilers about Inception the movie. If you haven’t watched it and don’t wish to get spoiled, hold off on this post until you do.
After hearing a lot of positive comments about Inception and avoiding reviews/spoilers/potential spoilers the past few weeks, I finally watched it earlier this week with a friend. The film is impressive for all the reasons everyone has been talking about. Beyond the clever plot, engaging story and special effects, there are also important personal development lessons that we can take away from the film.
Before going into that, let me share my quick review of the movie. The review is not related to the eight personal development lessons, so if you want to get right to the 8 lessons, scroll to the next section of this article. Otherwise, continue reading :D.
What is “Inception”?
Synopsis from Yahoo Movies:
Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief: stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.
Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible – inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse; their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move.
My synopsis: Cobb (the main lead portrayed by Leonardo Dicaprio) is a professional thief, hired to extract secrets from people’s minds. He’s now hired by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a highly powerful businessman, to do the opposite – to plant an idea in someone’s mind (a competitor) so his empire will not be threatened. The movie shows how Cobb engages his team, creates a plan to pull it off and executes it. While he’s working to manipulate others’ subconsciousness, he deals with subconscious issues of his own.
My Thoughts on Inception
First things first. Inception is definitely an impressive movie on many fronts. What I feel are the strong points about the movie are probably what many people have been raving about.
Firstly, the story is engaging, the plot is clever, script is very meticulously written and the acting has depth and the movie is extremely well directed.
On the acting, it’s interesting to see how Leonardo Dicaprio has matured so much from his teen heartthrob status a decade ago; Cillian Murphy playing Fischer did amazing and Tom Hardy was funny as Eames (the guy who kept making sarcastic quips at Arthur).
On the post production front, pacing is right for a movie of that length, production quality is top notch and the special effects are nothing short of amazing. In the second half, I felt myself genuinely caring for the characters and wanting them to get out of the dream world and limbo alive. The amount of attention and detail that Nolan went into making this film is nothing short of astounding.
That being said, I felt somewhat dissatisfied/empty after watching the movie. It was like the movie was impeccable in itself, yet it seemed like something was missing. At first I couldn’t quite put a finger to it, but afterward I realized the answer. I have no qualms with the movie within its premise. What I have qualms with is the premise that Nolan chose. By premise, I’m referring to the dream rules they came to.
If you recall any one of your dreams, you might notice that they can get really out of the world. In our dreams, almost everything defies logic, random oddities are norm (while carrying their own symbolism), things are fluid and constructs blend into one another (ala Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). My dreams usually have a ‘hazy’, fog-like quality to them too. It seemed Christopher Nolan took a more systematic, real-world approach to the dream world when there is so much more he could have played around with. Because of that, the dream world in the film felt very restrictive, rooted and structured (from the rules, right down to the architecture itself) and came across more like a real world than a dream world. Save for structural paradoxes and defiance of the law of physics, there wasn’t really anything different. By not harnessing the full boundaries of the dream context, it somewhat defeated the purpose of having a dream world context.
That being said, this movie is a masterpiece in itself. Don’t take the above as a complain the film is bad – it isn’t. I really like Inception and might watch it again to catch the details I missed the first time. A top film and a must watch if you haven’t. It’s the type of film that gets better with repeat viewings.
By the way, I know there are tons of interpretations of the movie ending. For me, Cobb was in the real world in the end (i.e. the top topples over) since it’s obvious the top was wobbling at the end. I did find it queer how his kids had the same exact clothing in the end scene and didn’t look any older (though it was never mentioned how long he was away). A review I read pointed out that Cobb always had his wedding band during the dream scenes but not during the reality scenes. Since he didn’t have his wedding band at the last scene, it likely means he was in the real world.
8 Personal Development Lessons From Inception
While watching Inception, I couldn’t help but notice the many personal development lessons in the film. Many of the situations that Cobb and other characters experience in the movie mirror what we face in personal growth.
Here are the 8 biggest lessons we can learn from the show:
1. Everything in life starts off as an idea
As I mentioned earlier, the premise of the film is this: Saito, a highly powerful businessman, wants Fischer, the son of a terminally ill corporate rival, to break up his father’s empire so Saito’s own business empire would not be threatened. He hires Cobb and his gang to do an inception – to plant the idea in Fischer’s mind.
As benign as it sounds, it is from the planting of this idea in Fischer’s mind that will set in motion the steps that will eventually lead to the break up of his dad’s massive empire in reality. Cobb himself said that once the idea is planted in a person’s mind, it’ll change the person’s reality – forever. There is no stopping it after that.
How does this relate to personal development? If we think about our goals and dreams, they all have to start off as ideas in our minds. It’s not possible for anything in the physical world to exist without ever having been created mentally. Look around at everything in your reality. Your computer. Your table lamp. Your spectacles (if you wear them). Your clothes. Your room. Your house. All of them began at some point in time as a seed, an idea, in someone’s mind – whether it’s the architect, the designer, the engineer etc.
What this means is you should be pay less attention to what’s possible and what’s not possible (physical reality) and focus more on thinking about what you want (mental reality). Because once you discover what inspires you, that truly drives you, you’ll take the actions necessary to bring it to life. To create your success in the physical world, you have to first have to be clear about how it looks like mentally.
I’ve written about this before in Know Your WHAT, then Devise Your HOW. WHAT refers to what we want – our goals, our dreams, our vision. HOW refers to how to achieve those goals. Many people get intimidated by the HOW and stop themselves from thinking about their WHAT. The correct order is to first dream up your biggest dreams and ideas in your minds (your WHAT), then identify how you can bring them to life (your HOW). It’s only by first knowing what you want that you will be able to bring them to live.
Are you preventing yourself from dreaming big? Are you holding back from having grand ideas and goals because you’re scared you can’t achieve them? Don’t do that because you’re just limiting yourself. As long as you set your mind and heart to what you’re doing, you will succeed. To quote Esther and Jerry Hicks from the book Ask And It Is Given, “If you have the ability to imagine it, or even to think about it, this Universe has the ability and the resources to deliver it fully unto you.”
The kind of seeds you plant in your mind is absolutely important. Expose yourself to best of the best materials, top books, articles on this blog, conscious/driven people, because the things you’re in contact with will affect the kind of seeds planted in your mind. If you expose yourself to junk entertainment and negative people, you’re going to get lousy seeds that grow into weeds in your life. If you surround yourself with the absolute best, you’ll generate top ideas.
How to get started in creating ideas: 25 Brainstorming Techniques
2. Our subconsciousness has unlimited resources. Learn to tap into it.
In Inception, we see a fraction of the unlimited power of the subconsciousness. The dreamer is able to conjure up anything he/she wants in his/her reality, such as exploding fruits on the street, a whole city folding upon itself in real time (literally), a mirrored city, and many more. Couple this with the first point (it all starts with an idea), and that basically means there is nothing impossible in this world, as long as we set our heart and mind to it. All of us have the power to achieve anything we want because we have the same access to the unlimited resources of our subconsciousness
3. Avoidance is not a solution
Or in other words – “Don’t bury unresolved issues”. Cob tried to bury his deepest regrets and guilt in his subconsciousness. He created a prison to dump them in and locked them away, without intending to address them (or at least he was trying to block them away as long as he could). However, the more he tried to push them away, the more the inner issues came back to taunt him. Throughout the film, you can see these issues surfacing in different ways – at first it was sporadic, then later on it became more frequent, and in the most unexpected situations. They were also self-sabotaging. For example: Mal tried to jeopardize his assignments; there was the part where the train suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the first level inception dream sequence; the kids’ illusions kept appearing and distracting Cobb. It was only when Cobb addressed these issues in the end that he finally got control of the situation.
What does this mean? If you have certain problems or unhappiness, don’t bury them. This includes feelings of frustration, disappointment, sadness and pain, fear, negativity, and so on. It also includes disagreements with your partner, family, friends, colleagues, and so on. Hiding from such problems won’t solve them. At first it may seem it’s ok, but after a while they’ll resurface – at first sporadically, but then more and more regularly. The further we run and the more we try to prevent these don’t exist, the more the issues will tear through our subconsciousness to stop us. In fact, they often appear at least expected times and freeze us in our tracks.
Avoidance is never a solution to anything. The best way to deal with our issues is to deal with them straight on. That’s what it means to live life in liberation.
How to stop avoiding:
- What Are You Running Away From? (Dealing With Escapism)
- Create Real Change In Life: Address Root Cause vs. Effects
4. Everything you experience has a root cause
Cob’s issues were not created out of thin air. They originated from somewhere – the one point where he planted the seed in Mal’s mind that the world was an illusion. And when Mal later passed on, he lived in regret because he couldn’t fulfill his promise to her that they would be together forever.
On that same note, every problem we face has its own root cause. For example, if you’re procrastinating on your goals, there’s a reason why you’re procrastinating. The problem isn’t procrastination, something which many people misdiagnose. The problem isn’t lack of discipline either. The problem is something underneath; a root cause to be uncovered and addressed. This is the same for many other things we face in life. Emotions such as unhappiness, lack of satisfaction, resistance, anger, fear, apprehension, etc all have their root causes. Situations such as lack of results, having unsatisfying relationships, poor health, unfulfilling career, etc have their root causes too. Pushing away these will not help you to make progress in them. You have to understand what the root cause if you truly want to move forward. (see next point)
5. Once you uncover and address the root cause, the issue will be addressed
In continuation with point #4, if you want to address the issue, you have to address the root cause. For Cobb, ignoring/avoiding the problem didn’t solve anything (see point #3). Fighting the manifestations of his regret didn’t solve anything either – it just made things worse as he swirled in more regret. The problem or manifestations of the problem simply came back each time, in different ways. It was only when he uncovered and acknowledged the root cause (that he was the indirect cause of Mal’s death, and hence broke the promise that they’d live together forever) that he was able to address his guilt (they did live old together in limbo and he fulfilled his promise. He was merely living in the past and he had to move on and be with his kids).
Relating this to personal development – If you’re facing a problem, trying to tackle the problem itself will only solve it temporarily. For example, forcing yourself not to procrastinate addresses your procrastination within that one-off incident, but it does not solve the real issue of why you even procrastinate to begin with. Forcing yourself to go to work in a passionless job will help you to last another day, or week, but it does not solve the original problem that you’re working in a place you don’t like. The issue (or manifestations of the issue) will keep coming again and again, in different forms, until you get to the core and tackle the root cause. This is the same problem why people are looped in patterns of behaviors in their life and don’t break out of it even though they try to – it’s because they are addressing the effects and not the real issues that arose to the patterns. Once you truly understand what the root cause is, the issue will automatically dissipate.
How to address this: Create Real Change In Life: Address Root Cause vs. Effects
6. When you resist others, you cause them pain you don’t know
This stood out strongly to me in the movie, especially in the second half in the warehouse scene with Fischer and Eames (pretending to be his godfather). From the conversation and later on in the ending scene, you could tell Fischer loved his father a lot. All his life he did his best to follow in his footsteps so he could be accepted by his dad, but his dad never reciprocated it.
Instead all his dad ever did was to resist his son. He never as much talked to Fischer, and when he did it was some snide or sarcastic comment. This created a lot of pain in Fischer’s heart. He never told anyone about this and kept it inside of him. While on the surface he was a highly successful businessman, with great wealth and power, inside he longed for love and acceptance.
Is there anyone you are / have been resisting in your life? Your mom? Your dad? Your brother(s)? Your sister(s)? Past relationship partners? Your guardians? Children if you have any? Other people whom you used to be close to but aren’t now? Why are you resisting him/her/them? Every time we resist someone, especially someone close to us, we cause them pain that we are not aware of. The person may seem okay on the outside, but he/she is actually hurt on the inside. At the end of the day, when our resistance to others around us is really just causing hurt and anguish to the ones we love the most.
So stop resisting people around you. Start with small acts of kindness. I’ve to admit that I took my parents for granted many times in the past and never did much to express my love to them. Lately I’ve been kinder to them, talking to them more often and showing more concern. While these are just small changes on my part, they convey my love to my parents and I know they feel it. :) At the same time, they also treat me in the same manner with love and concern.
7. Positive motivators are stronger than negative motivators
When Cobb and gang were discussing how to get Fischer to break up his father’s empire, they toyed with a few ideas. For Fischer to make a drastic decision like that, there had to be a huge motivator or call to action. They went ahead with the positive motivator (Fischer should break up his empire because his father wanted him to create his own path) because it had more power over the negative motivators (e.g. Fischer should break up his empire to spite his father).
Similarly in life, there are always two key groups of motivators. One is fear. The second is love. Fear, or negative motivators, refer to feelings of trepidation or anxiety that drive us into action. For example, doing something in fear of punishment/losing out/competition/being lesser than others. While these can drive us to take action, it’s short-lived. We only act when such feelings are stirred. In the long-run, it creates wear and tear in our system. It also creates inner weariness, as we’re just acting out of fear/pride/scorn.
On the other hand, love/inspiration, or positive motivators, are the true north drivers that will spur us endlessly, day after day, in joy and happiness. Focus on doing what you love and happiness will ensue. If you’re truly pursuing something you love, your love for it will drive you to places which you can’t even imagine. I started pursuing my passion since 2008 and my love for growing and helping others grow has drove me to create Personal Excellence, me starting my training school The School of Personal Excellence, and many more. If it’s not for my passion for my work and my passion for all of you, I would never ever done any of this. Today I really love life and I can’t wait to see what lies next as I continue walking down this path with all of you.
How to get started:
- Meaning of Life: How to Discover Your Real Purpose (7-part series)
- How To Know What You Want To Do In Life
- How To Pursue Your Passion (series)
8. You’re not alone in your problems
Even though Cobb appeared fine on the outside, was able to communicate fine with everyone and was great at his job, he was battling with many inner demons on the inside. Every night, he would hook himself up with the “dream machine” so he could spend time with Mal – in his mind. Nobody knew that except for Ariadne, and that was because she was in Cobb’s dreams and saw what he was going through inside. And rather than run away, Ariadne stuck all the way to help Cobb through his problems.
Sometimes you might feel you’re overwhelmed with problems and you feel you’re the only person in this world dealing with them. However, it’s not like that at all. Everyone, everyone you see around you, has his/her own problems and challenges to deal with. So don’t think you’re by yourself in what you’re going through. If you’re facing this problem, there are at least tens of thousands of people out there who is undergoing the same thing too. You’re not alone. We’re all here for one another. Remember no matter what happens, I’ll always be here at this blog until the day I die, writing articles every other day and working together with everyone of us to grow consciously and live our best life.
How About You?
How do you find the 8 lessons above? If you have watched Inception and taken away any lessons from it, then you may add them to the ones in this article and increase the benefits derived from them.
Check out these movies too: 13 Meaningful Movies With Important Life Lessons To Learn
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Hi Celes,
It’s quite amazing on the way decipher the dreams of the Inception mirror to life and personal development. The 8 points you mentioned is quite relevant to what I feel life is about.
I do have challenges of procasination and avoidance of situation last time, as I do not like to work on detailed stuff, even though it is important and avoid it until last minute.
It was until the point that I self realized of how much time I wasted, and what I could have achieved if I utilize that time itself, which I have change the habit for betterment and increase more efficiency, this I have done using 50 minutes , 3 times a daily thinking and planning tomorrow activities nite before :)
I do possess one negative motivator, which is powerful enough to drive me hard to do whatever it takes to get job done, it’s from life experience which I imagine situation that I was in that I do not want to go through again and its feedback mechanism.
Hope this creates 1 or 2 cents from my opinion and sharing my experience with everyone.
Cheers,
Elton
Hey Elton, thanks for sharing your experience :D. I think it’s great that you’re in tune with your motivators. The more we are, the more we are propelled to action. I look forward to seeing many more things unfold for both of us. :D
It’s crazy how you were not only able to figure out the movie, but you were also able to extract 8 lessons from inception. My mind is still reeling in limbo.
With that said, one thing that stuck with me was the perseverance that all the characters showed. They thoroughly prepared themselves, but when things got hairy, they never lost faith in each other and never let each other down.
I feel that this is a very admirable thing, especially in today’s society. Too often, people bow out early and leave other people scrambling to take up more responsibility than before. Perseverance and seeing things through until the end is not only something you do to make it easier for your teammates, but it is also something you do to prove to yourself that you can do it, despite good or bad.
Jon, that’s great that you pointed that out on the team. I found it really inspiring and heartwarming how the team members supported each other through every step of the way. Even when Saito was heavily injured, they helped him through rather than wasting him even though he was somewhat of a liability. Some might say it’s because he needs to be alive at the end to give them the reward or if he dies, they might get implicated since he last engaged them on this task, however in a situation like that where it’s about life or death, I doubt they were thinking about this. I really like each of them put their lives in each others hands, literally. It speaks of the volume of implicit trust in one another.
Amazing!! Brilliant! I haven’t watched the movie yet but following your blog is the best thing that I’ve done in a really long time. Always pushing me to improve myself. :roll: 8) Thank you!!
Hey Mildred, thanks and welcome to the blog! :D Check out the movie if you get the chance – it’s really good (I think the comments here by others and the whole blog post speak for that!)
Oooh, I want to see the movie now:) I like number 3. We can’t just bury our heads in the sand – it’s best to tackle problems, solve or resolve them so we can move on with a better frame of mind. Off to tweet and stumble this, thank you!
Thanks Annabel, really appreciate it! :D
Truly amazing and inspiring! who said watching movies are bad :) I have learned a lot of things in my life from watching movies. Every movie i watch i try to get lessons from them and try to apply them. But in this movies i could not look for much as there was so much going on and could not keep track things. Its really amazing how you could see all these thing and translate them into inspiring lessons. Thanks for this wonderful post , i enjoyed reading it ;) Celes i must say that you are truly gifted. Keep writing and inspiring us. I am really glad i came across your blog. Thanks
Thanks Kavin :D Glad you enjoy the post and the blog. Look forward to connecting with you more here :D
Nolan has said in a number of interviews that he intentionally constructed the story so that the dreams would be essentially linear and lifelike. You have to remember, the team “constructs” the dream so that the dreamer does NOT REALIZE he or she is dreaming. This is why the Architect is so critical to the success of the mission. If things become too crazy, the mission is blown.
I understand that Nolan *could* have made the sequences more abstract and surreal, but I quite enjoyed the approach he took. It allowed the narrative, which is already fairly complex, to translate to the audience. A “weirder” approach could’ve been a major additional distraction. Great review, great blog! Thank you so much.
I have only read the headlines but looks good. I am going to see the movie this weekend, hopefully. So I’ll read this post on seeing the movie rather. :wink:
That’s great Kirsten. Let us know how you find the movie after you watch it :D
*POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT*
I have an idea (pun unintended) which may reduce your dissatisfaction:
In dreams, our logical faculties are usually reduced, hence we are not aware that we are dreaming, and unlike Inception where they check their totem to tell if they’re in a dream, most people do not train themselves to consciously check a totem. Hence we do not know that we are dreaming most of the time. Usually we know that we are/were dreaming just when the dream is about to end or after the dream itself. Some people who want to control their dreams (lucid dreaming) to fly etc.. train themselves to look at a watch or clock.
As a result, dreams can defy logic but we usually do not know that they defy logic while we are in the dream itself. I believe Nolan’s approach of showing dreams that abide most physical rules is so that while watching we do not feel that it is a dream, or rather, so that we as viewers feel the dreams that we are watching on screen is reality. In fact, while we are so immersed in the action of the screen, it is easy to lose track that that is a depiction of a dream, and believe that it is a depiction of real life. This could be because Nolan wants us to feel that those dreams are reality, just like the people in the dreams who are unaware believe that it is reality too. The key point is for us not to feel that something defies logic, and not so much for us to feel that something does not defy logic (this statement may not be logical anyway). Probably this is why physical illogicality in the movie is mostly restricted just to gravity when the dreamers are falling (in a dream or real life).
One important lesson that I learned from the movie is how to let go of attachments. From my point of view, one of the key scenes in the movie is the one in which Cobb frees himself from his feeling of guilt. That is a really intense moment … when you let go of an idea, although you care for it a lot and invested a lot in it. He loved his wife very much, lived a long life with her, but some day it has to end … Anything you put passion in has to go some day and free you from it.
You have to look everything in perspective and no matter how involved you are in something … you must not identify with it completely. It’s hard to put this in words … because I have to turn something illogical (love, feelings) into something logical.
And yes, when I saw the movie, I expected to see something more free of form and illogical as in “Imaginarium of Dr. Parnasius” not bound into so many rules … but I guess that my mind liked that because I didn’t notice how fast 2 hours passed.
In short, the movie is excellent and I intend to see it again.
Valentin, I love what you said. You’re spot on about that scene (I really like it too :D) and letting go of attachments – Cobb was attached to his wife and it was only when he let go that he found release. As to the attachment itself and why it was lingering, it was due to his unresolved grievance (linking to the root cause on #4). Only when he made the revelation that the subsequent realization/decision to let go sink in.
After drinking a cup of great coffee, I was blown away that you wrote a lessons learned or WTTA (what to take away) from the amazing movie, Inception. My sense is that the movie was amazing in that it worked to capture the complexity of the inner world more realistically than any other movie that’s every been made (no, didn’t see the Spanish version).
But three points above really struck home: the power of the Unconscious, Avoidance is NOT a Solution and Everything Has a Root Cause
Your points are dead on and very helpful. I’d just slightly modify the emphasis a tiny bit. People are complex beings and only a portion of what appears — especially to others — is conscious. Multiple deep but very similar typesof themes — to ALL people, all cultures — are the roots that you refer to. And these roots or archetypes (look up Jung and archetype) live with positive and negative implications throughout our lives. You can start getting a view of these elements, but it helps to have a guide, coach, etc. to assist seeing what’s unknowable to you….”you know what you know, and you don’t know what what you don’t know.” Find your “shadow” and you’re view of the world will change.
I’m SO impressed with Celestine — she took on something very much at the heart of what’s true about people — and NAILED it!
omg Celestine…how come you always never fail to impress me,
and now you even shocked me so much by extracting a lot of the “hidden moral messages” from the movie, (‘hidden’, because not everybody could see that easily, especially not up to EIGHT points!!) and described ’em in so much details & depth & full of relevancy to my (our) everyday life!
and should I mention that Inception is currently on the first rank of my favorite movies ever?? (just look at my FB profile! I’ve watched it like 3 times already, and still want to go watch it again! lol), so even bigger kudos for you to talk about this movie in a very passionate manner! :D
and did you notice that the soundtrack (music) by Hans Zimmer is soo super good & intense as well?? ;)
hey Niki, thanks for commenting and great to know u found the lessons helpful! :D I like Inception a lot too, might be watching it again to catch the finer details :D
Man… it needs a lot of editing.
For one, the children have different clothes and they are cast in the tittles and in Imdb as being different actors portraying children of different ages…
At this point someone shoud say “touche” and send me an emai. :-) :) :) :) :) :)
The clothes have been debated quite a lot in numerous Inception reviews. The conclusion was that while the clothes may be different, they look visually the same. (the shoes are different though) Also, the kids very clearly look like the same kids imo. The ones of different ages probably refer to the kids on the phone with Cobb at the beginning of the film. Regardless of whether the clothes/kids are the same, it’s quite apparent the scene at the end was intended to look the same as the scene etched in Cobb’s memory.
That said, this post is on the personal development lessons from the film, so let’s focus on the takeaways and lessons learned from the film :D
I was confused after the movie as I have hard time to relate to things in the movie in a way to get something out of it. Your post gave me much needed solace for two reasons. First, now I learn a new way to connect to events shows in movie like this. Second, I learned some valuable lesson of life. Thanks for writing it, Celes.
As much I admire your effort to write such a long and useful article, I believe it would have been shortened to get the point across more effectively. Sometimes, most important messages are lost when the post gets bigger. It could be my personal preference.
Anyway, kudo to your effort for writing what you thought to be the best. Looking forward to your next one.
GREAT insights!! Similar to your first lesson, I learned that even a tiny idea can change empires. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of what we put into our heads – good ideas/thoughts will lead to more good ideas/thoughts.
Lesson number 2 is something I really believe in, number 8 not so much. Usually I NEED to solve my problems on my own!
I’ve only started reading your blog recently but I am blown away how you manage to create such insightful posts. This post especially-the list is a good concise summary of what to take from the movie.
I do have a question though regarding avoidance and root cause. Sometimes our behaviour in life stems from something we did a long time ago, and obviously you need to address the issue directly to move forward, but some things have been ingrained in our psyche for so long that we no longer are able to remember how it started. (Though in some cases, I guess even if it wasn’t that long ago, our minds might not be able to consciously think of the connection from the root cause to the problem)
Just food for thought. =)
I hope to meet you in person some day. I love your work on the blog here. Keep up the good work on infecting minds with positive thoughts!
wow…it’s a great explanation and the great things we can get from watching inception.I never thought that inception really did taught us many of that useful stuff. :-)
Very nice, detailed review/personal take on the movie and helpful advice. I agree with a lot of which you said in not keeping things in and striving for more. Not trying to nitpick, but it is just very distracting to me and possibly others when you have spelling errors or usage errors such as “subconciousness”. I know I’m nagging but it’s just that spell check and proofreading are very helpful tools to make you seem more professional. Overall, a great insight.
Thanks Nick :D Was there any spelling error with the word “subconsciousness”? I just looked through the article with search and didn’t find any “subconciousness” in the article. Feel free to point out any mistakes and I’ll be happy to change them. An error-free post is important to me – in fact firefox has a built-in spell checker which alerts me with the red squiggles if there’s a spelling error. That being said, there are times when a mistake or two still slips by so let me know any mistakes you see.
I’m not dissenting into you’re wonderfully written article here, just thought you might or might not have heard of “lucid dreaming” which is exactly what you said couldn’t be from a dream, adding structure and such which sounds kinda like what they were doing in a way in the movie.
Other than that, splendid article!
heres some more information on lucid dreaming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream
Hi Celes,
This is a wonderful post. I haven’t watch Inception yet but I think I will go catch it around these days. It is also nice to see you pick up personal development ideas from the movie itself. Thanks for the share.
Cheers,
Vincent
This Inception movie did one major headjob on me! I thoroughly enjoyed it though. Need to go see it again, and again, and again :-)
This is a great post, thanks for taking the time to write it out. I saw the movie last night and found it full of great advice.
I’m not sure if you noticed but the french song that was use to wake them up was “Non, je ne regrette rien” which translates to “No, I regret nothing” which actually happened in the end.
“We’re all here for one another”.
that’s my take away.
it feels good to build each other up
rather then tear each other down.
you’ve done a great job in here.
now i want to see the movie :)
“It seemed Christopher Nolan took a more systematic, real-world approach to the dream world when there is so much more he could have played around with.”
If you recall, the “projections” of the subconscious that filled the dream noticed when thing seemed off and then began to attack, ending the dream. So the dreams had to be kept real world, or extraction/inception would not work.
Also those with a subconscious trained to defend extraction would notice the difference as well.
Hi Celes
This was a brilliant film that I am going to watch it a second time. As you say it is a film that will get better with multiple viewings :)
I think the lessons you have shown us here Celes are very insightful and structured in a very logical manner. Everything certainly does start with an idea and progresses or regresses from there.
Unlike you, I felt that Cobbs at the end was still in a dream. :) I thought that the whole concept of the film was to illustrate the concept of dreaming and reality and can we tell the difference. The fact that each of us have different opinions kinda add weight to that theory whether or not it was real or not :-D
My view may change after the second viewing who knows. :)
Thanks for sharing a very powerful post,
Have a great day
Now the question is, how do we train our subconscience to protect itself from ‘negative intruders’ / have it like fischer’s ? :?:
I’m pretty sure Cobbs was not in a dream at the end, because he died when he was in limbo (shooting the Japanese guy means that even if he had not shot himself, someone else would have shot him). That means, no matter what (with the exception of a sedated state, which his friends had removed him from), he had to wake up in real life. Death in dream –> real life (unless sedated).
Hi Celestine – great article as always. Well done for producing thought provoking content!
I think the point that resonates most is that positive motivators are so much more effective then negative ones. Acting out of love, generosity and compassion always beats acting out of fear or to remove hurt. It makes people WANT to do things rather than HAVE to which is always nice!
I wrote something similar (but not as detailed!) on my recent blog too! – http://www.learningjunkies.com/?p=62 – It’s my thoughts on how we can use lessons in Inception to help spread ideas.
Hello from England (la!)
Good gracious! I didn’t possibly think that you have so much to learn from this movie. Sometimes it’s the little details that matter the most, I suppose. Thank you for teaching something new to me today!
And yes, Inception is a great movie.
hello,
i really loved what i read up here…i’ve always believed in the fact that we can control our way of living by the way we think….but is it possible to control the life of the people surrounding us….i don’t mean manipulation or anything of the sort…i meant influencing others to start thinking the way we do…
thanks a lot
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