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.
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.
6 comments:
I've experienced lucid dreaming, not so unusual, so it would seem, though rare for me. And I've had a dream within a dream, just once (not waking up and starting another dream, but part of the original dream). I once walked in shamanistic circles where my fellow walkers shared dreamspace... but we were not always aware of having been in one another's dreams. I've experienced some awesomeness in the dreamtime and it fascinates me to no end. In the dreamtime I learned that there is nothing to fear but fear itself... and I learned that we have control, when we do not fear. I rarely remember a dream, anymore, if I still dream at all. There is such a fine line between dreaming and reality... though some would say they are one and the same. I like reading your stuff because you always bring the scientific approach to explaining just about anything... which tends to shine the light on reality (whatever reality is). When you're involved in the spiritual, it's easy to lose touch with reality... or lose sight of the fine line. Mostly, I enjoy equating the scientific with the spiritual/ethereal... which is what reading you often does for me. It's like an aha! moment, because you just can't explain something, to another, sometimes, when it can't be proved.
Shimmerrings,
Thanks for sharing your experiences ..brings me a sense of wonder.
my first degree was in neuroscience and my senior thesis was on the neuro-basis of ordinary and extraordinary reality ..including dreams.
So I’m stoked when I see something that reminds me of it ..like when DiCaprio says “ordinary consciousness is largely a mental fabrication”. That’s a fact. However, I like to break it into thirds: one third comes from immediate experience, one third comes from past experience ..and where the other third comes from, science hasn’t a clue.
Your experiences are just as valid and reality-based as any observation made by science.
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Sorry, Bill. I deleted the last comments I made because they just had nothing to do with the subject matter... well, in my mind they all ran together, but I sometimes go on a tangent... didn't wanna hijack your post, here.
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