How Chris Nolan Incepted Us With Inception & May Be Taking Over The World

Note: Inception spoilers lie ahead. Do not read if you haven't seen Inception. In fact, if you haven't seen Inception, please close the computer immediately and go see it. Good deal!

Okay. So. This just happened. It's 4:30 in the morning now and I started writing at 3:50.

The first thing I remember is being in a hotel room. High in a hotel room, cause it's just me, a hotel room, room service and a tv. Fun! Then all of the sudden, I hear the zzzzt sound of a hotel door being opened and it's someone who I love very much, but was not expecting to see behind the door and someone who I don't want to see when I'm blazed out of my mind. So I ask what Person A is doing there! Person A had to see me. I explain that I'm really tired. Person A suggests breakfast. I say I don't think that would work and note how odd all of this is and think, how funny if I was dreaming...

Cut to: I'm a library with Person B and Person C.

(Back ground: Person B is an old friend of mine who recently got involved in a theater company I work with. Person C is the artistic director of the theater company. Person B works in theater at a high school and Person C is in the process of finalizing a deal where the theater company teaches, in some cases, theater to kids - we had a meeting yesterday where this was brought up.)

Person B tells Person C that the kids talk about the program all the time and they just love it, etc. etc. I interject, "Wait, didn't we JUST have that meeting yesterday?" Person C replies "Quick turnaround."

So I start thinking...about how earlier I thought I might be dreaming...

I then say "Okay, this might sound totally weird, but I LITERALLY have no idea if I'm in a dream or not right now, it's totally fucked up." And look to them for answers, for them to tell me I'm ridiculous. Blank stares. I suddenly feel threatened and terrified.

I think think - "where's my totem. fuck fuck, where's my totem? I need to know if I'm dreaming. If I am, I need to wake up."

I try to look at my hands, I can't see them. Something is wrong. I reach into my pocket and realize I don't have a totem, so what else, what else. The pocket! What pocket am I reaching into? What am I wearing? What WAS I wearing earlier? I can't see it. I then decide that my shirt must be made of my mother's name and my pants must be made out of my dad's name. But then I realize none of this makes sense, I can't see what I'm wearing & there is no such thing as a shirt made out of Elizabeth* or pants made out of Arthur* - this is a fucking dream.

So I say think, okay, WAKE UP! Things get shaky, but it works! I'm suddenly in bed!

But wait, it may be cause it's dark, but it looks like my bedroom in my parents' house, not where I sleep now. I then look to the side of the bed and see what may or may not be a foreboding figure standing in front of me, holding a weapon. I scream at the top of my lungs AND FALL OUT OF BED, hitting my stand up lamp on the way down.

I instantly wake up in actual real life, terrified, on the verge of hyperventilating. I turn the light on, get my cat, and write all of this down.

I'm not sure where all of this falls on the scale of positive vs negative ways a movie affects your life, but Inception played a role in my dreams tonight in a way bigger then "I dreamt about Inception."

I understood after seeing this movie, on a subconscious level, that what it was telling me about dreams was true. That I could figure out if it was real or not, that I could wake myself up, that telling my dream-mates that I think I'm dreaming is dangerous and - interesting that screaming & falling on the last plane of dreaming before waking up is what actually woke me up? We all know the "kick" on the first plane in a dream within a dream is what actually wakes you up. Well, we think we know this cause we saw Inception. And now it just happened in my dream.

Chris Nolan, I don't know what kind of genius mastermind you are and I hope if you do take over the world, it's a benevolent dictatorship. Because you just made some shit up in a movie and I DECIDED IT WAS FACT WITHOUT EVER DECIDING IT WAS A FACT. Which also happens to be what occurs when someone is incepted in your movie. When Inception occurs. You incepted me with Inception. You incepted all of us. And now for better or for worse, I am finding it easier and easier to recognize when I'm dreaming (something similar, but not quite as intense, happened a week or so ago). At this stage, being conscious of the fact that I'm in my subconscious freaks me out to much to stay there, and I always wake up. But if this movie is somehow singlehandedly building our minds up enough to be able to fully participate in lucid dreaming, which, who knows, could lead to the film's technology existing in real life? Which could lead to actual physical Inception? Which you could totally do with an army of top notch lucid dreamers?! Well that's a whole other fucking movie right there, isn't it?! Except real if it was real! But IS IT REAL?!

WHAT'S HAPPENING?!

I also happen to be so sleepy and tired with a brain that has yet to recover from all of the 8 hours of drinking and 3 hours of sleeping that occurred yesterday, that it's no wonder I was high in my dream. My brain can't even function normally in my subconscious. That's how tired I am. But maybe it's also this complete inability to keep my eyes open that allowed for such a deep sleep so soon after I turned the lights off. Two levels in after a half hour, if that, of sleeping?

I must know go back into the land of the unknown (and by unknown I mean very well known) of my subconscious and hope things go more smoothly this time. Dating Joseph Gordon Levitt, Rupert Grint, James McAvoy or Aaron Tveit would definitely be acceptable subject matter.

See you on the other side.

*Not my parents' actual names, changed for purposes of this story.