If not, then Nolan was certainly inspired by the Cretan goddess Ariadne, the central character of a 3000-year-old Hellenistic myth about the labyrinth on Knossos and a journey taken by a Cobb-like character named Theseus. Like Cobb, who Ariadne, the Architect, helps to resolve his guilt and grief surrounding his wife’s death, Theseus with the magical thread of Ariadne is victorious in confronting a collective demon, the Minotaur. In the movie, Ariadne saved the day for Cobb creating the way out of limbo and helping him to clear his conscience. As an archetype of wisdom, Ariadne guides us all through the labyrinth of our dreams to illuminate what we keep hidden inside.
What can we learn about dreams and the dreaming mind from Inception? Well, dreams aren’t necessarily as violent or unpredictable as the movie suggests. But it’s true that dreams do help us bring to light deep conflicts housed with the labyrinth of the mind and soul.
Dreams reveal the inception of an idea. The notion set forth in Nolan’s film, that an idea can be implanted and can go viral in the subconscious, is true. But more than an idea, the virus is an emotionally charged energy that creates conflict for the subconscious. The inception of the idea may have begun generations before living in the subconscious throughout all time. In this case, it is a collective idea, such as the ingrained belief that women have less value than men. But most of the insidious ideas we hold take root early in childhood when the psyche is most impressionable. Dreams excavate these repressed emotions and attitudes and convey them through a metaphoric language that reveals the nature of the idea.
Can someone else invade your consciousness and implant an idea? Yes, but most of the time they do it unconsciously, wandering into your consciousness while you are in the dreamstate. We collaborate with many souls at night, sometimes to telepathically connect and often to give and receive healing. When we are burdened by someone else’s emotional baggage we may become so infused with their negative emotions that we try to resolve their issues as if they were our own. Then in a dream, the dreamer is dreaming the unconscious life of someone else—a confusing predicament that happens most often with couples.
Is lucid dreaming dangerous? In Inception, Cobb’s wife got so caught up in the world of dreams that she thought her reality was a dream, a fantasy that tragically ended her life. Lucid dreaming is not necessarily dangerous, but it can be counter productive.
Lucid dreaming is when the conscious mind awakens within a dream, realizes it is dreaming and uses the opportunity to redirect the dream in some way. The problem with the conscious mind interjecting its ideas on the subconscious is that it may wish to evade or escape what the subconscious needs to express, therefore missing the opportunity presented by the subconscious for true resolution. A creative intelligence far superior to the conscious mind resides in the subconscious, one that can create a final resolution to a problem that haunts it. The subconscious naturally tries to reconcile its conflicts and can do so without interference.
How many dream levels are there really?
There are a multitude of levels of meaning in each dream and each scene builds and adds more detail and meaning to the previous scene. But for simplicity’s sake, a three-world dream model helps us understand the three dimensions of the dreamscape.
The Lower World represents the “collective unconscious”, the legacy of imprinted symbols and archetypes that drive our consciousness and personalities.
The Middle World represents the “personal unconscious”. This level is driven by the ego and the multifaceted personality of the dreamer. Dreams from this level work out our daily problems and reveal our underlying attitudes, beliefs and feelings. They also reveal a great deal about our interpersonal relationships.
The third dream level is the Upper World. This level houses the supraconscious, the angelic higher intelligence of our oversoul. Our oversoul experiences angels, the light, God, and dimensions of a psychic nature that result in clairvoyant and precognitive dreams. When we have integrated these three worlds we are more able to overcome the conflicts plaguing us and creatively dream solutions.
Can the creative dreaming process really resolve an emotional conflict? In Inception, Cobb was plagued by the Shadow, his wife, Mal who was angry about her death. She represented Cobb’s guilt and anguish and the archetype of the Queen. This issue was an emotional and archetypal conflict plaguing Cobb’s dreaming life. The process of creative dreaming doesn’t necessarily resolve deep conflicts as it seems to have in Cobb’s dream. Instead, dreams reconcile a conflict meaning they create another view or perspective of the situation or a happily-ever-after scenario fulfilling the wish of the dreamer. Dreaming of being in a full embrace with an ex-boyfriend may seem like you have let bygones be bygones, but the truth is that only through forgiveness can you really let go and heal the past.
I had the thought after seeing Inception that dreamers might become more afraid of their dreams after viewing the movie. I hope that isn’t the case because dreams bring meaning to our lives and evolution to our souls.
