the speculative fiction of inception

I certainly enjoyed parts of the movie that veered into speculative fiction. Like where the team decides to do a three-layered dream set, with the third layer being the crucial point where the idea will be planted. Multi-layered dreams, or the ability to produce a ‘dream within a dream’ ..carries the notion that “it’s all in the mind” to an extreme. It is common for people to have dreams where they fall asleep again and begin another dream. However, to induce this chemically inside a dream, by another lucid dreamer who is sharing your dream-space, requires a leap of faith into the powers of the mind acting alone ..without any outer-world compounds. It’s like saying that, not only are dream-state environments mentally fabricated ..but the chemical properties of drugs can be manufactured in the chemist’s dreaming mind ..and produce the desired effects in the recipient’s dreaming mind. Intriguing and entertaining as this may sound ..it was the part of the movie where I had to suspend disbelief. Which is what movies are all about anyway. They did a good job. 

Subconscious entities: DiCaprio’s character warns Page’s architect-character that, if she designs a dream-state that bears too close a resemblance to actual memory ..it will bring out the ‘undesirable side of the subconscious’. In other words, the ‘people entities’ that exist there will get vicious in order to remain hidden in the subconscious. I certainly find this a plausible notion ..perhaps it’s what protects me from experiencing the content of my own subconscious. I don’t know enough to really say. I thought it was a pretty cool idea though. 

Virtual safe: DiCaprio’s character explains how a person’s ‘secrets’ are always stored in a virtual ‘safe’ created by the mind of the dreamer. The objective of extraction is to find the safe in order to lift the secrets. So they lead the dreamer to the safe where the idea was planted. Good metaphor for the way information is stored in the brain ..perhaps the best way we can describe it to ourselves. Since it’s unknowable, it’s as good an explanation as any, I’d say.
Depth of consciousness: there’s an implicit assumption that the number of dream-layers we create ..the deeper down the subconscious mind we go. As intuitive as this might sound ..there’s really no empirical evidence for it. But, since it is also a mystery ..it’s as good a theory as any. Certainly a plausible way for dreams to go.

the metaphysics of inception

The ability to enter or share other people’s dream-space is something I’ve read about in philosophy books. When the movie characters collaborate in a dream ..they have left the domain of science and entered the realm of metaphysics. There is, however, consensus among mystics regarding this sort of thing. An expert on the Kabbalah (the mystical branch of Judaism) once explained it to me like this:

“Imagine you’re dreaming that you’re walking down the street and you suddenly become aware you’re in a dream walking down the street (in other words, you’re having a lucid dream) ..so you walk into a bar and order a beer. Someone sits next to and asks what you are doing in his dream .. and you ask “What are you doing in my dream ..?” Now you know you are sharing a dream-space with another lucid dreamer and not just some other subconscious entity. This affords you some degree of freedom from the subconscious ..however, you still don’t know whose subconscious your experiencing. You tell him to get out of your dream and ‘poof’ ..he disappears. Now you have ownership of the dream and you are in a position to rid yourself of some unwanted experiences stored in the subconscious. One by one, you make the other people in the bar disappear until you’re the only one left. So, you turn-off the lights and the bar disappears ..putting you back out on the street. You’re tired of the space you’re in so you decide to quit participating in its construction. ‘Poof’ ..there goes the street, then ‘poof’ the town and the rest of the world. You’ve managed to pull the rug out from under yourself. When you look down, all you see is an abyss. Nothing left to hang on to. If you’re OK with that ..you’ve reached Nirvana. However, most people get a falling sensation and panic. At this point they either wake up or frantically begin re-populating the dream with instances of subconscious experience. This could either be heaven or this could be hell. Kinda’ depends on what’s in there ..or what Buddhists call karma.”

What the mystics call an abyss ..DiCaprio’s character calls ‘limbo’ “..a lower world of dreams which could mean eternity to a mind stuck in there.” He ought to know, he and his wife spent 50 years in a limbo-world of their own construction. The experience is what makes him a master of the multi-level .. shared ..lucid ..dream-space in the movie.

The speculative fiction of inception can be found here ~>[link]

the psychology of inception

‘Inception’ works on many levels. I’m not even sure I’d call it ‘science fiction’. It is equal parts science, metaphysics and speculative fiction. The premise is based on two known principles: ‘lucid dreaming’ and the ‘construction model’ of perception. Lucid dreaming is the realization that you’re in a dream while you’re having the dream. It is a well-documented experience and can be improved with training. In a lucid dream you can become the architect of your dream environment. That’s where you see the character played by Ellen Page building a virtual ‘Paris’ in her dream while walking down a Parisian street of her own making. The construction model of perception is also valid science. Everyday experience is not a literal transcript of the world but a construction process by the mind. What we think of as real-time consciousness is largely mental fabrication ..part of which comes from the senses .. part of which is supplied by information stored in memory. Neuroscience has detected about a 25-millisecond gap between an event and our experience of it. DiCaprio’s character accurately describes ‘ordinary consciousness’ and ‘dream states’. He draws a picture showing two semi-circles separated by a gap to help Page’s character understand. He explains how ordinary consciousness is largely a construction process populated by characters and events coming from the senses. He says the same holds true for dreams except the characters and events are populated by subconscious memory ..with no input from the senses. Just as there is a gap between sensory events and  awareness ..there is also a gap between subconscious events and awareness in a dream. Inception, he explains, is the process of “..slipping into that gap in order to plant an idea-virus.” An ‘idea virus’ is a real-world phenomenon ..it’s how fashions come and go. The manner in which they describe the way it works is valid psychology. An idea virus is more likely to take hold and influence behavior when someone thinks they took part creating it and feel emotionally vested in it. The success of a planted idea is indeed a function of its emotional value ..and they choose a pretty fundamental human value – parental approval. As children we generally equate approval with how well we model our parents. However, later in life we sometimes learn that their approval is contingent on how dissimilar we are from them ..and how independent we can be. Sort of like hearing them say “..be your own man.” That is the ‘idea’ they planted in the mind of their unsuspecting subject. A young Japanese man about to take over his dying father’s business empire. The purpose is so that he’ll break it up ..something his father had been unwilling to do.

The metaphysics of inception is here ~>[link]

Dreamwork

I remember the dream I had just before I woke up this morning, so I wrote it down ..remembering to take ownership of the different parts of the dream.

The dream: I’m laying on top of a low stone wall ..wearing a charcoal gray Hickey-Freeman suit and waiting for my interviewer to arrive. A fashionably dressed businesswoman, also in charcoal gray, comes out to get me. We walk through rooms full of tall, black high-tech equipment and into her glass office. I have my single-page resume and a head full of job stories ..when suddenly I recognize her as someone I used to work with; a handsomely-attractive business director. I ask myself whether I’m here for the job or the woman (a question I used to ask myself before work). It’s been so long she doesn’t recognize me and I’d kind of like to keep it that way ~Flash~ I’m outside on a residential street, playing frisbee with two former colleagues, while she leans patiently on a parked car, holding my resume and watches. One of my former colleagues shouts “Hey Bill, I got the pictures back from the ski trip last week!” and I look over to see if my cover’s been blown. She’s shaking her head in her hand.

Dreamwork: I am the stone wall ..older but perhaps more solid than before. I am the gray suit ..deceptively conservative. I am the interviewer ..patient and inquisitive, assured I’m going to hire myself ..(?) I am the frisbee ..outdoors and free. I’d be more comfortable on a beach but the street will do. I am the interviewer ..watching myself patiently while I play ..wondering just how serious I am about this whole job thing. I am the co-worker ..possibly trying to sabotage this whole job thing. I am the interviewer ..shaking my head and wondering if I’ll ever grow up.

A blurb about dreamwork can be found here ~>Fritz Perls

my suspicion

(warning: movie-spoiler for the film ‘Shutter Island’)

Rick commented to me, saying “..it’s easy to tell who the mental lightweight is” when referring to someone who ‘saw the movie’ vs. someone who also ‘read the book’. We were talking about ‘Slaughterhouse five’. I disagreed saying that watching a good movie is just as stimulating as reading a good book. Both require equal amounts of mental activity in order to make sense of the story. I even think people are more critical movie-watchers than book-readers. While watching movies, I find myself supplying information that the moviemakers leave out, in order to bridge scenes and re-construct narrative. What doesn’t fit or isn’t resolved to my satisfaction by the end of a movie ..I recognize as speculation and throw it out. If it’s critical to understanding the story ..I blame the moviemakers for leaving it out ..and have fun trashing the film with friends afterward. Not so much with books. I know when I’m talking to somebody about a book I’ve read, and they have a different interpretation ..it’s much harder to convince me that mine is wrong ..no matter how delusional I may be. We were also talking about the movie ‘Shutter Island’. The ending lends itself to competing interpretations. The main character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, could either be a policeman investigating a crime at a psychiatric hospital ..or a patient confined to the psychiatric hospital. I choose to believe he was a policeman only because the film showed him arriving on the island by boat. I also knew it required an awfully elaborate conspiracy theory, on my part, to support it. Rick thought he was a patient. When I asked why ..he described how events, which lead me to think he was a policeman, were actually simulated by doctors to bring him back to reality. It was easy for me to discard my elaborate theory in favor of his much simpler explanation. When I mentioned this to someone else, they confirmed that it was that way in the book as well. I still don’t know who the lightweight is ..but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s me.

Altered state

The outcome of legalizing marijuana in California won’t be what you might expect. It doesn’t signal the end of western civilization because laws don’t make that much difference. Most people I know take it or leave it for reasons of their own. I do expect to see a big drop in the price of marijuana. In anticipation, local governments are going to impose a usage tax instead of a sales tax for marijuana purchases. So, even though the price will go down to something like $38.00 an ounce ..we will be paying an additional $50.00 to $100.00 an ounce in fees. I expect this will result in a black market created to avoid paying these fees, which means there will be less money than anticipated for state revenue and we’ll be back to the days when we busted marijuana users for tax evasion. I can’t imagine Humboldt County pot farmers are too enthusiastic. At roughly $14 billion a year, marijuana is the largest cash crop in California. Legalization will definitely take a bite out of their profits. The biggest factor in the price structure is the risk of getting caught. However, in Humboldt they’ve already offset that risk with fees paid to local law enforcement agencies to look the other way. You can do that when you’re the biggest player in the local economy. They may be able to offset their losses by selling to other states. Interstate commerce will be lucrative since it will continue to be a federal offense. I hope there’s a way to create a legal supply chain from the ‘emerald triangle’. They produce the finest quality marijuana in the land ..no one else comes close. One factor that may defeat proposition 19, in addition to overblown fear ..is the loss expected by the legal establishment. Police officers, attorneys, courts and penal institutions are built around treating marijuana users as criminals. I can’t imagine defense attorneys sitting idly by while two thirds of their clientele are about to disappear. Confusing as it might sound, I do hope proposition 19 passes. It’s a step in the right direction. I’ve seen criminal penalties ruin more young lives than marijuana ever did.

Drop in the ocean

The broken BP rig is leaking about 8,820 tons of crude oil into the Gulf every day. It is sickening the ocean and killing marine life. Believe me, I grieve. However, what worries me even more is what we don’t see. A little over half that amount gets burned and released as auto emissions into the skies of Los Angeles every day. That’s somewhere in the vicinity of 4,740 tons of hydrocarbons a day. It is sickening the air we breathe and causing debilitating respiratory problems. Sustained exposure to hydrocarbons compromises the body’s defense system resulting in ailments such as chronic bronchitis and pneumonia. If you don’t believe me, check out an emergency room in L.A on a smoggy summer day. What is even more insidious is what crosses the mother’s placenta, and gets absorbed by the human fetus. Toxins related to hydrocarbons are known to impair prenatal development. This accounts for a higher incidence of developmental disorders such as autism, attention-deficit and dyslexia. Sometimes impairment doesn’t show up until later in life when it becomes visible as signs of depression or schizophrenia. I believe the human suffering caused by addiction to fossil fuel is immeasurable. It makes the Gulf oil spill seem like a drop in the ocean.

Learning theory

(Or other people’s journal)

In college I learned the value of keeping a journal, even if it mostly contains other peoples ideas. I made friends with a returning vet, Nelson ..who went on to become a successful Neuroscientist. He had stopped reading textbooks a long time ago ..but he kept a journal of ideas he heard both inside and outside the classroom. He wrote his own version of them ..paraphrasing what he thought they meant ..annotating where they were coming from .. and how they related to other ideas he had heard. He then drew his own conclusions ..which usually sounded far-fetched to me. He let me look at his journal. I saw fragmented sentences that crumbled into dashes and scribbles. There were diagrams with arrows pointing to other diagrams and more fragmented sentences that crumbled into dashes and scribbles. His own views were heavily circled and punctuated with bold exclamation marks. When he explained them to me ..it didn’t sound like we were talking about the same class. Those journals were all he used to study for the comprehensive exams we took each term. It worked. He wasn’t simply repeating what he had been taught ..he went deeper than that. He could describe the underlying connections that weren’t readily apparent in the lecture material. He could even go beyond the information presented and talk about the possibilities they suggested. Turns out that this was exactly what people in the profession were looking for. Even though the answers he gave were mostly interpretations he made, mildly tempered with feedback from others ..he aced every exam and went on to practice at Stanford.

Charlie

Charlie has always shifted back and forth between homelessness and rent and responsibilities. Like many, I suspect he gets tired of living one way ..and seeks refuge in another. He sorta’ fits my theory about the cyclical nature of human settlement. He’s a Vietnam vet ..went to college on the GI Bill ..worked as a landscape and irrigation foreman ..and head chef at a resort in Encinitas. He took medication for hyperactivity during childhood and suffers post-traumatic stress from the war. He gets easily bored if he stays in one place or job for too long. Last spring he found a grove of wild bamboo growing off the LA River near Boyle Heights. Using his landscape and irrigation skills, he fashioned a kind of oasis. “It’s a place of serenity ..” says another local transient. Since then, Charlie’s been supplementing his income by fixing broken toys he finds in the detritus of West LA ..then selling them at flea markets in East LA.

Raves

I don’t see much difference between the ‘raves’ I go to now, and the rock concerts I used to go to in the 60’s and 70’s. Both involve mind-bending music, mind-altering substances and people colliding on the dance floor. Moving through the crowds, I see people with pupils as big as frisbees and nerve impulses moving to the beat of the sound being pumped out of amplifiers ..or generated by their brains. Makes me wonder if there is something in the human psyche that is fulfilled by these events. Another parallel is the growth in the hallucinogen trade. Ecstasy started out fairly pure in the 1980’s but has become lucrative and heavily cut with amphetamine ..just like LSD was in the 70’s. In addition to higher profits, this has the effect of accelerating the heart rate, delivering the medication much faster and amplifying the effect. Since there’s a fine line between exhilaration and fear ..those added substances can easily push revelry into panic. This in turn causes the heart to pump faster and more erratic, which can result in wicked coronary events. Just like LSD, ecstasy started out legal, but became illegal over the course of concert events. This does not reduce their usage ..but it does reduce their quality, making them less safe to use. I remember watching people freaking-out and experiencing what looked like genuine terror at rock concerts. Now I prefer the high that comes from riding high-amplitude waves into exploding white water. But, hey ..that’s my prerogative.

Lindsay Lohan

I believe when tabloid media over-scrutinizes and characterizes normal adolescent behavior as a ‘downward spiral’ .. it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Especially when you’re a vulnerable teenager who still agonizes over such things as too many freckles. Partying, drinking, cocaine and DUI’s .. are actually typical of someone growing-up in the USA. It is way too soon to be writing her obituary. At least give her a chance to grow up before characterizing her as a burnout. Furthermore, if it’s as excessive as the media portrays, why isn’t someone reaching out to help this poor woman ..? In a random sample of the population, the first DUI can be bad luck .. the second generally signifies a drinking problem. She has two. But she’s not a typical example. The constant glare of paparazzi distorts the picture and you can’t tell if the problem is real or exaggerated. If it’s real, she needs help ..not character assassination. Last May, she was at Cannes promoting her new film project. She succeeded in securing the financial backing she needed. Ask Spike Lee, that’s no mean feat. To me, it sounds like she’s doing what needs to be done to rehabilitate her career. When she flew home late and missed her probation hearing (for the 2007 DUI’s) ..I believe the judge wanted to set an example. She ordered her to wear an ankle bracelet that monitors alcohol consumption. The bracelet sounded an alarm two weeks later from the MTV Movie Awards; so now Lindsay is facing jail time. Beneath the sensationalized tabloid news, Lindsay Lohan is an actress of enormous talent. Cutting her off at the knees would be an unconscionable act. It sounds like an insidious conspiracy to bring her down by tabloid-attack, public avarice and industry envy. Unlike jealousy, envy drives people to bring down others who possess talents they don’t. If you don’t believe me, read Ayn Rand .

Socialist Republic of California

I remember when I was going to school, I often heard conservatives from the generation before me refer to it as ‘the socialist state university of California’ ..and a typical exchange might go something like this:

“So Bill, what are you doing for your thesis ..?”
“Studying how people can be easily misinformed ..like deceptive advertising, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, so you can devise better methods of propaganda ..”
“No, so we can teach better methods of detecting it ..” 

Later, I would discover that they were going around saying:“Hey, did you know Bill is studying to be a propaganda minister .” At first, I took it as a joke ..and laughed  it off. Then one day I kind of got the gist of it when someone at work got real pissed and told me how unfair it was: “Even though I didn’t go to college, I have to pay so punks like you can.” And I thought, yeah .. it was part of a land-grant act to put aside state funds for higher education. Later I discovered some people actually believe universities teach communist principles. Why ..? Because, as the name implies, universities teach universal principles, paving the way for a one-world society. And here I thought they were teaching us how to communicate better with other societies. When I look at the wars we’ve been fighting, I realize how easily misinformed I have been.

Progression

“The natural progression
Is the coming of your age
But they cover it with shame
And turn it into rage.”

To the generation that came of age in the 1950’s, the term ‘progressive’ meant ‘socialism’. That’s because the socialist party in the 40’s and 50’s called itself the ‘progressive party’. I did not know that, which probably says something about my knowledge of history. To the generation that came of age in the 1970’s and 80’s (my generation) ..the term ‘progressive’ meant just what the dictionary says: a keen interest in new developments and fresh ideas ..with all the positive connotations I thought that implied. Since advances in science and technology were progressing at lightening speed, I thought being progressive was a healthy mental outlook. In college, I chose a field of study that allowed me to take courses in psychology, neuroscience and information science. I thought that showed signs of being forward-thinking and progressive. It wasn’t until later, when I joined a political discussion group, that I learned it was also what made me a ‘liberal’, and sometimes even a ‘socialist’, to the people of my father’s generation. I have no such political convictions. I like to consider myself an independent thinker who doesn’t lend himself to labels of a bygone era.