I am looking forward to this month’s discussion! The movie Inception has captured the attention of people all over the world. I recently spoke with a woman from Norway who said the movie is even popular in her country.
In the USA, the media has gotten people talking … interviews with CNN, The Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, three articles in the New York Times all appeared in the first week of the movie’s release. Since then, online blogs, articles on the web and in print, and more broadcast interviews are continuing to spread the word.
I have seen the movie twice and plan to see it again … and again. I want to study the film because it is a multi-dimensional experience. The film-makers have used visuals, sound, and dialogue to depict inner level “mind” experiences that stimulate people to examine their own dreams and intuitive happenings. It stimulates people to ask questions of themselves and others …
Some of the questions I’ve heard are what is reality, anyway? Is our waking life the “real” one, or is the physical life when we are asleep and is the dream life more “real”? What happens when our unresolved emotions enter the dream state? Can we enter each others’ dreams? How do we know when something is a group experience and when it is ours alone? Can people intentionally enter each others’ dreams?
Just last week I was with a group of School of Metaphysics teachers who stayed up until 3 am talking about the film with thoughts, questions, and opinions. I am eager to hear YOUR comments and questions, because I think this can be a rich discussion for all of us …
I look forward to hearing from you!
Laurel Clark, SOM President and Dean of Intuitive Research
Hi Laurel - thanks so much.
So...you don't hear sounds all that often? I have sight and sound all the time and also feel touch and the body rssponses to emotions - and fairly often the other physical senses.
Yes, I do notice sound and touch especially in my waking life since those are my primary way of making it around in terms of physical senses. I also notice things in my body, meaning that I know my signals in the body for various situations, and I do experience those int he dream time as well.
I have had so much fun with the maliability of the dream reality lately.
I appreciate your responses and this forum very much.
Ronda
Hello again, Ronda,
I must not have been clear ... yes, I do hear sounds very often. It's music that I don't hear all the time, but I have had dreams where music was very clear, either hearing songs or composing music. Other sounds are very common, and I've had intuitive dreams with clear messages that were spoken in words, such as hearing the name of the book title The Law of Attraction and Other Secrets of Visualization. I've also had healing messages that have come in the form of words that I've heard.
This also happens sometimes when I'm awake ... I had an experience of being concerned about someone who was coughing very horribly. I gave her my full attention and said, "are you okay?" and suddenly in my mind I heard the word, "elecampine." At the time I didn't know what that was, consciously. Then I looked it up and found out that it is an herb used for respiratory problems. So I told her about it!
So, the point of this is, I pay a lot of attention to sound when I am awake and tend to have very sensitive hearing, sometimes to the point that I get distracted by sounds, like people who talk loudly, or too many people talking at once (although concentration exercises helps this). so this attention to sound transfers to my dreams.
I would expect that the attention you pay to the senses when awake transfers to your dreams, too.
The malleability of dreams is fun, and gives us an inkling of what we can experience in our physical reality, too!
Dr. Laurel,
This isn't directly related to Inception, but how common is it to smell and taste in dreams?
I don't see better in dreams than I do in my waking life, but I often notice feelings (touch), bodily responses to emotions, tastes and smells as well as sights and sounds in dreams.
Thanks,
Ronda
n/a
Hi, Ronda,
We've been having some server challenges today, so I apologize for the delay in responding; I just now discovered these responses that came in awhile ago!
Regarding other senses in dreams, a lot of what people experience in dreams is directly related to what they give attention to while awake. That's why people who want to lucid dream practice paying more attention in the waking, physical state to their environment ... so that they then pay more attention to the dream environment.
So, I would assume that you pay more attention to taste, smell, and boidly responses in your waking state than people who depend on visual sight, which is why you would experience this more in dreams. I fairly regularly have sounds in my dreams ... just the other night I "heard" a song in my dreams and woke up with it running through my mind. I had a similar experience last week, with a group of people singing the Gayatri mantra, a piece of music, and then it kept playing in my mind while awake.
You're welcome!
Laurel
LOL Dr. Laurel,
Thanks for your comments. I am hosting a dream banquet in the Universal Mind. All with intentions of self growth and understanding are welcome to come meet there! Wahtever you desire or need for food is served.
:D
In the movie, the guns were there representing that the dreamer had learned, supposedly, to protect himself. I am sure you're right that hollywood thinks people need gun-type-action VS other sorts.
I do find that since I have been studying dreams and learning the Unviersal Languatge of Mind, ai M more conscious in the waking state. One time I was asking before sleep for guidance regarding my body and then dreamed of riding a bicycle. Since I'm blind and haven't driven a car, this made more sense in my personal context. And in the dream I knew it was about my body and even checked to make sure of the considition of the bike. It was in excellent working order. All throughout that dream I knew this was answering the question I had posted before sleep and I wrote down the various images.
I agree that while writing down the dreams and images is key, interpreting them to the best of my ability is what is most interesting and beneficial. I highly recommend DreamSchool to anyone wanting to be more awake and aware in all states of consciousness.
Ronda
Hi, Ronda,
Thanks for the invite! I'll try to make it! That reminds me of a really fun online dream conference hosted by the International Association for the Study of Dreams. It's called a PsiberDreaming Conference and Dr. Barbara, Hezekiah, and I are all giving presentations, along with several other presenters. It's very inexpensive; two weeks of online presentations and discussions.
One of the creative features is an "Outer Inn" (get the pun? It's "inn" like a hotel). The people who host it decorate a room in dreamy ways and people bring all kinds of dream foods and such ... anyway, your dream banquet reminds me of that.
If anyone here wants to check out the psiberdreaming conference, go to the International Assn. for the Study of Dreams website at www.asdreams.org.
Thank you for sharing your bicycle dream and its relevance to your life. It sounds like you are already making good headway in understanding your dreams!
All the best,
Laurel
Hi Dr. Laurel,
I saw the movie three weeks ago, and said I need to see this one again as soon as it ended. It isn't really fresh in my mind, but reading everyone's comments helps my recall . I enjoyed the movie and thought it had a "Metrix" feel to it in some ways. I will definitely see it again! I have been remembering my dreams almost everynight and recording them as well.
Hi, Pam,
It's good to hear from you! I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner; we've been having some difficulty with our server today so it took me awhile to know that you had submitted a comment.
I definitely encourage you to see the movie again, since there is so much in it. I'm looking forward to seeing it again. The second time I attended, I had a notebook and took notes, which helped me to remember some of the dialogue. There are so many ways the message is communicated ... in words that the characters speak, in visual images, in sounds and music, in the symbolism of the dreams, the names of the characters, and I'm sure there's much more, which is why I'd like to see it again!
Good for you for recording your dreams!
You might want to enter the extraordinary dreams on www.avatardreams.org.
Best wishes to you,
Laurel
Terrence said, "It would be nice for this kind of a concept to cause more a an elevated sense of connectedness between people. I, too, as Dr. Clark has stated am thankful for the exercises that are offered through being a student at the School of Metaphysics and I can see through the Hollywood of the movie."
Bryon said, " I am grateful for concentration exercises. I was able to follow the movie to the end and many people told me that they couldn't."
Hi, Terrence and Bryon,
What kind of movie do you think that students who practice concentration exercises could make? Maybe you and your students could make your own film as a school project!
Bryon, did you stay to the end of the movie, all the way past the last credits? If you did, did you follow the auditory "clues"?
I also had discussions with people who got confused because they thought the movie jumped around, when to my way of thinking it was clear what was being depicted. One of the benefits, and fun (!) of the SOM course of study is learning to be aware and awake in every level of consciousness ... learning to dream in all levels of mind and to "wake up" in dreams, even learning to incubate group dreaming experiences.
Do any of you have experiences like that?
Thank you for your participation in this forum!
Laurel
I am a Metaphysics student in Tulsa. We're having pasta night here in the Tulsa School of Metaphysics. Our visitor had a dream about being a lionness and going into a fancy restaurant with her boyfriend at the time who was a lion. People in the restaurant were a little nervous that the lions might go on a rampage and eat them, but the lions were happy just to have a rare steak.
Dawn
Dear Dawn,
Thanks for writing. This is an interesting dream because the dreamer is identifying with being a lion consciously and subconsciously. Animals in dream symbolize habits, so she identifies with her compulsive or instinctive nature. Food in a dream symbolizes knowledge. The dream is telling her that she learns or receives knowledge compulsively and is happy about that, although there is some awareness she has that she could be or should be learning more through reasoning, that the compulsions might consume her.
This might appear in her life in a thought process like, I just have to take this job because it feels right, or circumstances are making me have to move to a new city ... in other words, viewing something as "cause" other than the reasoning choices. One of the freedoms and benefits we have as human beings is our ability to reason and choose!
Dreams are enlightening because they aid us to see the ways we think and we can then respond and learn from their messages. This aids us to become more "awake" and aware in our daily lives. 
P.S. Hope the pasta is good!
Laurel
Something the movie brings up is the influence of the waking mind on the subconscious mind. An example is when the woman (Cobb's wife) suddenly walks into a room and begins shooting. It is obviously out of context with the intentions of the dream team and throws everything awry for a while.
This brings to mind the importance of disciplining the waking mind for the influence is far reaching. Yes, it does affect our inner mind and it affects other minds as well. I'm grateful for having studied concentration to first of all, have more awareness of the thoughts that I am producing and secondly to influence the inner mind in a positive way.
Dear kansascity,
Yes, the conscious mind definitely affects the subconscious mind. That's why it is so important to start with the conscious mind. Had Cobb's wife Mal respected the conscious mind, perhaps she would not have gotten lost in the subconscious mind, losing touch with physical waking reality.
Another thing that scene and others like it brought to mind for me was the importance of controlling your own mind. If we have unresolved mental or emotional "issues," we project them onto other people. It interferes with our ability to see other people as they are. An example is people who have unresolved issues with a former spouse, and then view all people of the opposite gender as having the same afflictions they believed the spouse to have ... when, in reality, it is their own stuff that they never resolved that they are projecting onto the other people.
Interesting that in the movie, the people were viewed as "projections" of the dreamer. When we have a clear mind, disciplined with concentration, and are willing to learn through experience to produce understanding, we can have clear and objective relationships with other people as well.
Looking forward to future conversation!
Laurel
I just posted this poll about Inception:
Did watching Inception give you different/unusual dreams? http://poll.fm/25fqq
(that's just a poll - nothing commercial)
Hello all!
I am a new DreamSchool Scholar (in training, first course) and am have been interested in dreams for ages.
This could be one of those "which came first, the chicken or the egg" things, because I can't say for certain whether Inception "caused"/activated it or whether I was about to get there anyway, but I have noticed that since seeing Inception, I am much more awake in the dreams I have and am much more adept at changing circumsances or manifesting things.
For example, in one dream I thought and commented that "things work differently here" as I made a delicious fully cooked meal appear "out of thin air," so to speak.
A couple nights ago while flying past some bushes I sprinkled them with flowers of various colors because I thought it would be fun and I knew I was awake in the dream.
I also notice accelerated manifestation in the waking world (notice I did not say the real world). I have more often thought that I would like to have something happen and it happens within the next day or 2.
I saw the movie once and would love to see it again, but I do wish there weren't so many guns.
I also think that how people respond to Inception will depend on your level of consciousness. THe friend I went with just thought it was a weird fantasy whereas I so much wished I had SOM folks around me to talk about it with.
Thanks for hosting this topic this month.
Loving the conversation - keep it coming!
Ronda
Dear Ronda,
It's great to hear from you! I definitely encourage you to see this movie more than once. I attended it the second time with a notebook and took notes so I could catch some of the details, and I'd like to see it again to study it some more 
In the Universal Language of Mind, death symbolizes a change. I don't know if the makers of this movie are familiar with this symbolism or not; if they are, then all the guns symbolize the dreamer's awareness that he needs to change. I also would have preferred fewer guns and explosions, but perhaps Hollywood thinks that's needed for people to pay attention.
Despite that, I do appreciate the many levels this film showed ... levels of consciousness, teaching about thought projection. And I agree that people respond to the movie according to their own consciousness. When people practice being more "awake" or lucid while awake, they have more "lucid" dreams, being aware of dreaming while in the dreamstate. I think that's what you were experiencing ... after seeing the movie, you paid more attention to your state of consciousness while in "physical waking reality" so in your "dreaming reality" you were more awake, aware and lucid.
As you learn more about how to interpret and understand your dream messages, you will then become more lucid or aware in physical reality, which will transfer to greater awareness in the dream reality, and on and on.
It's like that scene in the movie where Ariadne puts the mirrors opposite each other and she and Dom can see each other reflected on an on into infinity ... a great image for the relationship between awareness, self reflection, and greater awareness.
The delicious meal in your dream reminds me of the Star Trek TV show ... remember they had a computer and could order the food or drink they wanted, and it appeared in an instant? That's the speed of thought, and the more we learn to control our thoughts the more we can have instant manifestation, in the physical and in dreams!
The next time you make a great dream meal, why not invite some friends over for a group dream banquet?
Hope to hear more from you this evening!
Laurel
The movie Inception has provoked many questions, more than any other movie that I can remember. Most of the questions are about how the mind works. Even people who shun any metaphysical talk begin asking questions about dreams, and can something like this really happen.
In some ways, I think that an alien race that seeded this planet have also incepted this thought into Christopher Nolan’s mind to make this movie. It has definitely stirred the consciousness of those who have seen it on many levels. I have experienced and heard people talk about their dreams, and how they have changed from watching this movie.
I also know that when a channel is opened, there exists the possibility of projecting a thought to humanity, and especially those who have watched this movie that can aid in their spiritual development. It is like reaching out to shake someone’s hand. Once the hand is touched, there is a channel that is open for the exchange of energies to and from the individual. My thought to send humanity is one of Peace, one of loving and caring for each other, and for all of living things on this planet. May Peace prevail on Earth.
n/a
Dear Tad,
I appreciate your comments. Yes, I agree that thought exchange can be a positive and beneficial exchange of energies. We actually "incept" thoughts all the time; after all, what is advertising but intentionally projecting thoughts?
In my metaphysical studies and practice, I have discovered that we can project thoughts to humanity, whether or not a channel is opened. Studies have shown that radio broadcasts from decades ago still exist in space. That tells me that all thoughts are real and continue to express, so it makes sense to be reponsible for that and to that, and to purpose-fully create thoughts of peace, harmony and alignment with Universal Law, thoughts with the goodness for all concerned.
I even had a dream last night to that effect. I was intentionally seeking a dream to aid with global healing, and my dream was about personal responsibility ... basically, that each one of us is responsible for our own thoughts and therefore, when we can see a need it is up to us to respond in positive ways, with thought and action.
Peace be with you,
Laurel
n/a
I really enjoyed this film. It moved and felt much like many of the dreams I have. It seemed to captivate the crowd in a very natural way. It's not very often that a movie can make us question "reality" and this one seems to very easily. I believe "reality" is simply what is consistantly being fed into our conscious minds. If your input is constant television than your reality will mirror the programming you view. If this is validated by the majority of people around you than it is accepted and imprinted as "truth". The only way out of this illusion is the residual knowledge of the soul that is usually ignored.
Dear Robert,
We have been having challenges with our server here … I sent you a response and the system hung up, so I keep asking myself, “Is this a dream?” :)
So, I’ll try again.
Thank you for your comments. I agree with you that our own experience of “reality” is influenced by whatever we fill our minds with. In the School of Metaphysics course of study, we teach people how to have greater understanding of their own minds so that they can influence their own reality … going beyond what other people or media (which is, of course, governed by people) “feed” them.
Often times, when someone is highly sensitive, they are receptive to external influences, so it’s very valuable to learn to “know thyself,” to know what is your own thought and what is coming from someone else. I have found that daily practice of concentration and meditation is extremely valuable for this purpose, to be centered in the soul reality, as you suggest.
Also important is for us to all be aware of how much we influence others!
I have a question for you ... I'm wondering what you mean by "The residual knowledge of the soul". I'd be interested in hearing your response!
Thank you for contributing to this discussion,
Laurel
What I mean by "residual knowledge of the soul" is in my opinion the learning that has been accumulated in previous life times and is usually repressed or ignored by the typical egoic, conscious mind. Everything we need is deep within but this world of 10,000 things is quite distracting, so one has little choice but to meditate, concentrate and focus on the depths of the inner self in order to tap into the wealth of knowledge of the soul.
Hi, Robert,
I see you are offline so I don't know if you'll read this response, but hopefully you'll check in. Thanks for responding. This quote from you is very eloquent:
"Everything we need is deep within but this world of 10,000 things is quite distracting, so one has little choice but to meditate, concentrate and focus on the depths of the inner self in order to tap into the wealth of knowledge of the soul."
I absolutely agree, and believe that our world could become free of war and strife if everyone were to practice this daily!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Laurel
I have the same question: What is reality? For instance, the old man at the beginning of the movie, whose reality was "limbo" until someone came back to remind him. I believe he identified with the top from a "half-remembered dream". How do we know this forum isn't a dream?
Also, would the concept of a "totem" work to determine if we're dreaming? Couldn't one's subconscious make the top tumble? I've been interested in dreams for years, but this movie definitely presented a new angle on the dream world for me...almost as if a wake-up call (literally?)...
Dear Pete,
These are good questions. Some people practice lucid dreaming (which means being aware in a dream that you're dreaming) by doing "reality checks" while awake. In other words, they will look around and ask, "Is this a dream?" Or they will gaze at their hands, asking, "Is this a dream?" expecting that at some time they will see their hands in a dream and ask the same question, and then realize it's a dream!
I think that the totem would work however the dreamer envisioned it ... one of the interesting elements for me of this movie was the idea that there is an architect in dreams. We are always the architect of our own lives, awake and asleep, according to our thoughts and expectations. So if the dreamer conceives and believes the idea that if the top falls, he is awake, then that would transfer to the dream. If he believes something else, then that would be reflected in the dream, too.
Hmmm...
Are you a Dreamschool scholar? Or a School of Metaphysics student? Either or both of these options offer a step-by-step educational program so that you can learn how to understand your dreams, which definitely can awaken you to a deeper reality of yourself and your potential!
We'll be here until 10 pm tonight if you have more questions or comments. Thanks for writing!
Laurel Clark
n/a
Hi Dr. Laurel,
Thank you for responding. I have experienced a lucid dream or two and found them very exciting--just have not been able to do it with any consistency. This movie planted the idea that my everyday life is also a dream, which I hadn't really considered before.
I'm a former SOM student interested in joining Dreamschool. My problem was not really interpreting the dreams enough even when recording them regularly. I need to set aside time every day to do so. I really enjoy the school's teachings as a whole. Thank you and everyone at the school for all your work!
Hi, Pete,
Dreamschool is a great program and you can study at your own pace. It will give you lots of guidance to interpret your dreams and really receive the benefit they can offer you. I think that as you interpret them and discover the progress you can make in your awarenss of yourself, it will motivate you to do it more often ...
Where do you live? Are you in a city where we still have a school? If so, and if you'd like us to invite you to events going on locally, let us know. You might also be interested in the weekend retreats we have at the College of Metaphysics for short term in-depth study with a group of like-minded people. There's a Spiritual Focus Weekend going on this weekend on Divine Friendship and next month, the second weekend in September on Your Soul's Purpose. Let us know if you'd like to know more! The weekends are a great way to stay connected with these teachings.
Best wishes,
Laurel
Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion! Watch dreamschool.org for future entries to the Inception blog that is posted on our site.
If you live near a School of Metaphysics branch center, many of our schools are hosting discussions on Inception. Contact your local school to find out about the happenings near you.
We anticipate discussing other dream-related movies in future Real Time with a Teacher discussions ... so stay tuned!
I've appreciated sharing this time with you,
Laurel Clark