Christopher Nolan’s films, Memento and Inception, both approach the question of how humans experience time. What is known as the “pathologies of temporal experience”, is exemplified in Memento, where Leonard’s head injury breaks his main connection between the present and the past, also by causing him the inability to make new long-term memories. In the movie Inception, this same idea is presented to us but in a different form. Auxier describes it as “ a lasagna of ideas about time and dreams” (Auxier, 280) and begins with firstly explaining the idea of mementoes and totems. A “totem” is an object that the characters in this film keep with them in real life and in the dream world. It is identified as something unique, heavy and that only the owner is allowed to handle. Its purpose is to provide the dream-invaders a way of knowing whether they are in the dream world or in reality. If a totem is expected to fall, or operate in a certain way, then any change in this indicates that you are in a dream. Most importantly, Auxier says that this serves as “a point of connection between what you’re experiencing within yourself (beliefs, perceptions, assumptions) and the way the world really is.” (Auxier, 282) The idea of a “totem” allows for continuity of time in the narrative, it acts as a guide when discontinuities are found. Furthermore, both films attempt to explore the same problem, the continuity and discontinuity in our experience, and how discontinuity affects our ability to know the truth about the world we live in. Between the time passing and the way we experience it, lies a gap; however this is where memory comes into play. Memory is the way we see our world (through our past experiences) therefore we carry it around everywhere we go, and with every new experience, we use memory as a point of reference. Our past experiences are very active in our present ones, and unfortunately, as our memory accumulates, they overtake the present. When our short-term memory is failing, it refreshes our long-term memory to the point where it becomes our present perception. The clearer the distant past becomes to us, the more the awareness of the present diminishes (short-term memory); this is what primarily occurs in Alzheimer’s disease. This is known as a memory “trade-off’ in which Nolan used to construct how the dream-invaders design dreams. When being a dream architect, the main rule is to always generate mazes out of imagination, re-arranging elements that you have already seen, to create new possibilities. Using unaltered memory is dangerous because it is continuous with personal past experiences, and is how we interpret our present perceptions in dreams and in reality. In Inception, Cobb’s present is too overwhelmed with his past, which is why Ariadne is chosen to be the dream architect; since she has less memory accumulation; she is more connected with the present. The act of dreaming is not only remembering personal past, but also the collective past of loved ones, our species and of life itself. The reason why dreams can seem to continue our reality is because elements of our reality get mixed up in our dreams. Particularly music however has the ability to retain its form during sleep. In the film, the dream-invaders used music as a marker because it does not go through time-expansion; 10 seconds of a song remains the same throughout every dream level. A type of philosophy called “process philosophy” focuses on the nature of time. Alfred North Whitehead is known as a process philosopher, who specialized in understanding change. Change is one of the main elements in every process, as well as time. Since nothing is completely exempt from change, it is logical to understand its patterns and meanings. This process is done by comparing the things that change slowly to the things that change quickly. To understand change, it is accompanied by two concepts, “narrative” and “space”. “Narrative” is telling a story that we invent about what is happening, and then “space” is used by visualizing somewhere where that idea is going to be. We have the ability to imagine all this existing together at the same time. Taking the idea of a meal for instance, where the image of the plate is the virtual space and it is where it is filled with whichever ingredients we desire. This is making reference to the safe that is created in the dream world, where the characters could not resist in putting their secrets in. An empty space provides a chance to co-ordinate different ideas. The space we imagine is always more reliable than the story it co-ordinates because the narrative can be generalized. However, this is a philosophy and is based upon highly ordered possibilities, which are logical not just whimsical ideas.
The way we differentiate between coherent narratives and incoherent ones depend on the order of events, which is based on algebra. We use algebraic order in our own life processes, especially our thinking. Notably, within each level of dream space, time is equally dispersed, a geometrical progression of time expansions; and dilutes the effects of gravity. Specifically, five minutes becomes an hour, which becomes a week, which becomes a year, which becomes fifty years. This all together in one image creates geometry and the time-pattern is algebraic.
Finally, Nolan presents three major gaps in this narrative.
First kick: We are led to believe that “inception” is impossible when it is brought up on a conversation between Cobb, Saito and Arthur. The reason we’re given to explain why it is impossible is because ideas are contagious, and we can always trace the origin of an idea.
Second kick: The top is not Cobb’s totem, it belongs to Mal. He spins it as a way of mourning her, not to know whether or not he is dreaming. Cobb broke Mal’s trust, and handled her totem in real life. This planted doubt in Mal’s mind ever since, therefore she could no longer trust her totem to know guide her. Cobb wanted their dream to last forever so took away her ability to know the difference between the dream and reality. Not to mention he broke into her safe, therefore Mal’s trust was completely betrayed. Cobb spun the top and closed the safe, meaning he desired complete control over her.
Last kick: The meaning of the story, is that Cobb has finally learnt the importance of trust, which is what changes. This is shown in in his arrangement with Saito; Saito very well knows Cobb is not trustworthy. However, Cobb also chooses to take a leap of faith and trusts Saito. When Cobb goes further into the dream world to find Saito, Cobb asks him to take a leap of faith with him (which is what Saito asked Cobb before they attempted inception) and then they both wake up in the plane. Within that gap, Saito shot Cobb and then himself, and the gun is Cobb’s totem. He chose a gun because if his life ever came to the point where he did not know the difference between a dream and reality, then he would rather not live at all. Therefore his gun served not only as his totem to guide him, but also his way out. He trusted Saito enough to handle it, to send them both back to reality.
The top did tumble at the end, however that did matter because it was Mal’s to begin with. In the last scene, Cobb is seen going through security, without his gun. He left with gun on the plane, symbolically leaving his desire to commit suicide as well. Cobb walks away from the spinning top, not waiting until it falls or not because he is no longer dwelling on Mal. At the end, he was finally prepared to focus on his future with his children.
