How To Understand Inception, In One Easy Chart

Neat graphic, but this is wrong. The first 3 dream levels were the Target’s (Fischer) dream. It wasn’t until they entered Limbo that they left his dreams. Every fight scene in the last 45 minutes of the movie bear this out, except the ones involving Mal. They were always fighting Fischer’s subconscious. It was only Yusuf, Arthur or Eames’s dream from the standpoint that they were tasked to stay behind and Kick everyone back up into that level of Fischer’s dream.

Looks pretty, tho.

Also, there was no “Cobb’s Dream”. After the 3rd dream at the snowy mountain, the chars who continued went straight into Limbo. Why Cobb & Ariadne would go into Limbo from using the dream machine at the 3rd level of dreams (instead of having to die at that level) is one of the plot holes in the movie. The things we saw in Limbo were remnants of the things he & Mal built when they lived there for 50 years, but it wasn’t “his” dream.

Sorry nerdy but your wrong. The graphic is correct and they only ventured into Fischers dream (snow fortress)because they stated in Arthurs dream (Mr.Charles) that they were going to use Fischer to break into his own subconscious.

At every dream level they were attacked by Fischer’s subconscious. He was dreaming at every level – this is the fundamental premise of the entire movie. The architect creates the world, and then the subject dreams it, populating it with THEIR subconscious. And then they gather the data from that.

The security men that attacked them in level 1 & all thru the van’s chase scene – Fischer’s subconscious, trained to deal with intruders.

The security men in the hotel – Fischer’s subconscious. Hence the scary nature of the Mr Charles gambit – they were making the trained mind of their target aware that he was dreaming, which would increase his vigilance against them. The beauty of it was they got his subconscious to doubt itself, and trust them instead.

The security men at the mountain hospital – again Fischer’s subconscious. The only way they would be facing FISCHER’S subconscious in each of these dreams is because it was HIS DREAM. They needed the 3 levels to obfuscate their own presence, and slowly turn Fischer on himself and make him susceptible to Inception.

I am correct. Fischer was the first person “under” in each of the 3 planned dream levels, and then they all joined him with the dream machine.

I disagree, as the movie stated that each subjects subconscious fills a dreamspace. This was the same reasoning why we continually saw Mal and Cobbs kids in the multiple levels of each subjects dream.

If your theory is correct, then all of the subjects wouldve awoken to the initial kick of the Van falling off the bridge during Fischers original dream. However, since the two sublevel kicks had not yet taken place on their respective subjects the Van falling didnt wake up Fischer from his initial dream.

@Nerdyengineer, No. There are three people involved with each dream – the architect (Ariadne in the first three cases, Cobb in the last) who creates it, the host (Yusuf in the first dream, Arthur in the second, Eames playing Browning in the third, and undefined in the fourth) and the target (Fischer in the first three cases, presumably Cobb in the fourth) who populates the dream, which is occuring in someone elses brain, with his subconcious projections and his secrets.

However, as far as I understand it, nobody can stop their own subconcious projections from also populating the dream to some extent. For the rest of the team, this results in the docile, non-violent projections that are seen throughout the film, and for Cobb it results in Mal appearing everywhere.

As such, this chart is correct and Wikipedia backs it up.

I love this movie in part for the arguments and crazy sounding conversations it starts. It’s very Lost in that way.

I have a question….Why in the kick of the van , they did not wake simultaneously in the plane ?

No. They lied to Fischer. He didn’t own any of the dreams, or he would have been responsible for the Snow World kick. He wasn’t, Eames was. Fischer was the mark, what they told him at the beginning of that section was a lie. They had agreed upon the lie, which is why they all said it with a straight face.

The person who lays down the dream must do the kick before the subconscious of others, who are filling the architecture, kills them. That’s why Yusuf, who’s Raining World is raining because he has to pee, has to drive the van against assassins. That’s why Arthur, who formed the Hotel World, has to fight the guards and perform the Elevator Kick. And why Eames, who forms Snow World and performs the Explosive Kick, has to fight off the guards.

The conceit is that the Dreamer forms the malleable world that he shares with, and is populated by, the minds of another person. They’re always trying to kill everyone else (who are hitching a ride) because Fischer is the subconscious Guest populating each world so that they can derive information out of him. Different Dreamers, same Guest, with everyone following along so they can lay down the next World and be the Dreamer.

GREAT GRAPHIC!

FOR A GREAT FILM!

and some more things that struggle my mind, concerning inception’s plot:

*) snow land dream: saito is dead, fisher as well, killed by mal. eames’ dealing with the subcon-army outside the bunker. left: cobb and ariadne. they make up the plan to go down one further level, where they can reach saito and fisher. BUT(!?) how do they all end up in one together-4th-level? as explained sooner in the film, as you get killed in a dream at that heavy state of anesthesia, you don’t wake up, you fall into limbo, some kind of ultimate ground of subconscious… so, saito, dead, should fall into his limbo, fisher as well, but in the film, all four, saito, fisher, ariadne and cobb get into cobb’s limbo… how does that work out???

*) as we are told, inside a dream, there are some kinds of influences caused by any level above the actual, which affect the right-now-level. as at the beginning of the film, cobb in saito’s seahouse as the deepest level, above the one in saito’s love nest, where cobb gets a slab to be woken up, just before getting the bath tub hit, which gives him a hit in the seahouse level… on love-nest-level, the assistant slabs him, on the level below an invicible force bounces him one meter or so…
ok. on their inception trip later on, on the first dream level, yusuf drives the van down the bridge, into the river. on the level below, in arthurs hotel dream, this free fall of the van causes the entire hotel dream to be without gravity. SO, shouldn’t from that level on, be any other without gravity as well???

Awesome guys, I actually think i understand some of the movie now.. But one question haunts me… Why cant Fischer recognize Saito, Cobb and the other guys as he wakes up in the plane?? Has he forgotten everything that has happened in the dream except the meeting with his father?
I dont get it

flotteraev: It’s a dream. That’s the point. Do you remember all of your dreams? The thing is he didn’t forget. But in your dreams it’s hard to notice details, like strangers. HE most likely remembers the dream but not the people he didn’t know in it. Instead he just recognizes the concept that he believes he thought of.

Regarding schaften’s question about the limbo, it is not Cobb’s limbo. It is a shared subconscious which is four levels down. Not personalized simply malleable. In regards to the gravity affecting the levels below the hotel level, in the van Arthur (who is dreaming the hotel level as he actually states in the movie) feels like he is falling. Therefore his dream (the hotel level) is “weightless”. But in the hotel (which is “weightless”) Eames does not feel like he is falling. He isn’t actually moving, simply floating. Therefore his dream (the mountain fortress) is fine gravity wise.

engsherif, the kick in the van is to wake them from the hotel world. Then they wake up when the people on the plane stop the sedative.

nerdy, you are right about one thing. There is no “Cobb’s dream”, but as samurai said; Yusuf, Arthur, and Eames each were the dreamers. Their dreams were built by Ariadne, and filled by Fischer. As proof take a look at this video:

At about 1:48 this is the dialogue (from inside the hotel dream):

Ariadne: What’s happening?
Arthur: The subconscious is looking for the dreamer… me.

Then he tricks her into kissing him, lol. But the point is that in the movie, Arthur says that he is the dreamer for the hotel world. I rest my case.

I have two quick questions about the movie.
1. When Cobb finally reaches Tsaito to bring him back from limbo why has Tsaito aged so much and Cobb has not aged at all?
2. It would appear at the end of the movie, even though the viewer never actually sees the top fall, that Cobb has reunited with his children in reality. My question is why the top spins for over twice as long as it does in every sequence of the movie where it is spun and falls in “reality”. I timed it.

1. Tsaito fell into the limbo before Cobb. Several minutes in a higher level dream can be hours/weeks and it grows exponentially the further you go down. Cobb and his wife got stuck in limbo for 50 years down there but it was only a few minutes hours in real time.
2. My answer would be plausibility. Caused an interesting debate at lunch today. It spun long enough for you to question whether he dreamed his wish to be with his children but the wobble which it hadn’t done in the other times it was viewed spinning in dream state and the fact he saw his children’s faces, and aged, suggested that he made it out and so did
Tsiato.

I want to think he made it out but then why did Tsiato pick up the gun right before they woke up back on the plane? because if he’d gotten shot down there, the chemist said they’d never get back….however, Tsiato and Cobb must have died down there to kick back like Mr and Mrs Cobb to get back from Limbo before….so someone help me with this here.

@lalalouttimes

Why did Saito pick up the gun right before they woke up? simply, “to take a leap of faith”. The gun is meaningless, its the fact that he realises that he is not reality and in fact in limbo and acknowledges it.

When cob performed inception on Mal, you have to think to yourself, how many years did it take for her to finally acknowledge that she was in limbo? Remember that Cob and Mal were exploring the concepts of dreams within dreams and probably had no real understanding of the concept of the kick, or even that they were in limbo. Which is why i think that their way of getting back to reality by laying on the tracks had to be such a powerfull and traumatic event. “Your waiting for a train”

One thing i think is important to remember in inception is that you really need to seperate the Mal that is Cob’s projection, and the Mal that you see in flashbacks when cob is explaining her to Ariadne. they are 2 entirely different people – “Your just a shade”
When you finally do seperate them both, the first scene in the movie with Mal saying “if i jumped would i die” really knocks that home, what a horrible thing to say…

man i love that movie……

@ engsherif
“I have a question….Why in the kick of the van , they did not wake simultaneously in the plane ?”

Because the Kick of the van was to pull them out of Arthur’s dream (Hotel Level). For them to be kicked out of the Yusef’s dream they would to have had a kick on the plane, which they didnt. So when they were kicked back to Yusef’s dream, and you see Fischer and uncle peter(Eames) escape the van and swim to the shore together.
Ariadne, Arthur, and Yusef stay under the water and breathe on tanks and escape to im assuming the other side of the bank and unseen from Fischer and uncle Peter(Eames), there was a reason for this deception.

Remember that the first layer of the dream (Yusef’s) is 1 week. As there was no kick arranged on the plane then they would have had to waited out Yusef’s dream what was left of that week, and woke when the timer on the dreamshade device reached 0 on the plane.

While this is going on Saito and Cob are in limbo, and because of this all the kicks have no effect on them. As they are trapped in unconstructed dreamspace, where the only subject matter is whoever shared the dream(limbo) before, which is populated by Cob and Mal’s 50 year stint (as explained by arthur).
Their only “kick” is as i explained in my previous post is to “take a leap of faith” and return to reality.

ill say it again, man i love that movie.