I remember reading something once when I was younger about the possibility of being able to control what happens in your dreams.  You were supposed to ask yourself throughout the day “Am I dreaming?”  Eventually this habit would cause your dreaming self to ask this same question, so that when you realized you were dreaming you would be able to influence the dream in your own way.  Basically your dream self could do all the things you would never do in the real world, creating a second reality in a way.  Back then I thought it was awesome because I would finally get the chance to kiss the boy I had a crush on… Talk about dreaming big, I know.  I eventually forgot about this until tonight when Inception showed me why leaving the dream world to the subconscious is probably a wiser choice.

The characters in Inception take this process one step further.  Instead of trying to manipulate the random dream they find themselves in once they fall asleep, the team led by Cobb actually create the dream from the ground up.  They then enter this “controlled” environment with their mark, or the person that they will then try to steal certain desired information and secrets from for their client. [Read more...]