Remaking "Inception": Part II

Dear Dreamers,

As we seek to remake Inception to be that movie lucid dreamers talk about for decades, we envision a heart to heart conversation with Christopher Nolan. In it, we convince him of the spiritual nature of lucid dreaming and urge him to make Cobb’s “extracting” actions either understandable or basically ethical.

We begin to outline a new spiritual awakening version of Inception with the pitch that Cobb realizes information exists independently of us all. It waits free for the taking. He even realizes that his own information exists “out there” in some meta-web of unconscious knowledge for those who understand. It’s not a heist; it’s a lucid realization.

In this way, Cobb’s journey supports his understanding that waking reality seems dream-like and a co-creation of his larger mind within the larger spiritual system that exists beyond and before Cobb. Yet, Cobb struggles with accepting this concept fully and advancing spiritually to a more profound state of realization, because he knows to do so means losing his wife and children. His spiritual gain means their loss – and he clings to their memory.

In our new version, it is this dilemma that tortures Cobb. How can he advance, while losing those he loves? He must make a choice. So he lucidly investigates time and space, and sees their fundamentally illusory nature. Then, he tells the team that he will seek the path of an “eternalist” – voluntarily creating mental worlds in which his wife and children live, in which he can hold onto their memory and his feelings.

In the new draft’s finale, Ariadne follows him into a shared lucid dream, as he beholds the illusory forms of his wife and children. Ariadne begs him to come back or be lost forever within lucid dreaming’s reality creating complexity. Cobb turns one final time, spins his reality checking top and looks at her. “What have I to lose?” Then as if answering his own question, he murmurs, “All experience seems dream-like.”

The top spins and spins, as he disappears out the door.

Lucid wishes,

Robert Waggoner