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]