Inception is a fancy sci-fi thriller that lies somewhere between a James Bond film and The Matrix. We\’ve assembled a spoiler-free guide to the science of the movie, and all you should find out about dreams and the unconscious mind.

In Inception, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a dream snatcher. He\’s an industrial spy, who steals secrets when his victims are at their most defenceless: after they are asleep, and dreaming. But he has an excellent rarer ability, that of inception. He can plant a concept in someone\’s sleeping mind, and watch it grow and take root in point of fact. \” Probably the most resilient parasite is an concept,\” he says.

Is it possible to directly access someone\’s dreaming mind?

In the movie, the dream-snatchers use a drug called somnacin and a dream machine to upload a scenario into someone\’s sleeping mind. One or more of them then doze off themselves, connected to the machine, and enter the target\’s dream.

This fictional dream machine is termed a Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous (PASIV) Device.

A device does already exist that could effectively read someone\’s mind. A functional MRI scanner takes snapshots of brain activity, and then the software recreates images of what the subject was gazing.

The researchers say it has the capability be capable to record someone\’s dream – without the mess and danger (or the joys) of truly sharing that dream.

Using drugs like somnacin to access a sleeping mind is not really possible, but there are drugs that may drastically modulate our sleep. These include modafinal, that may promote continuous wakefulness, and new classes of sleeping pills which can deliver \” super sleep\” .

How can I control my dreams?

The easiest method to experience a lucid dream is to train yourself to ask, \” Am I dreaming?\” while you’re asleep. Keen video gamers, probably because they consider a single task for hours per day, are particularly good at lucid dreaming.

The dream team of Inception is extremely trained at this, that could be why they can perform complex tasks – which include reading – which most conventional lucid dreamers find difficult. Among the characters inside the movie have also militarised their dreamscapes, to give protection to themselves against the invasive dream snatchers.

Do dreams need to obey the laws of physics?

This is a fondly debated topic, and Inception has it both ways. Sometimes impossible things happen – in one dream Paris gets folded like a big sheet of paper – and optical illusions become \” real\” . The endless staircases created by M. C. Escher, as an instance, exist in Inception dreams attributable to a manipulation something like that occurring in 3D virtual environments.

However, the dreams follow some \” real life\” rules. As writer and producer Jeff Warren wrote about his own dream investigations:

Without sensory input, consciousness appears to behave in predictable ways. Informal laws could be deduced, as an illustration, the \” law of self-fulfilling expectations\” (what you are expecting to happen will happen), the \” law of narrative momentum\” (linger too long in one place and the dream world begins to fray.

In Inception, the dream world \” frays\” when external influences from the genuine world intrude.

What is the function of dreams?

Freud thought that dreams expressed our repressed desires. And so that they do, sometimes, but much modern research suggests that dreams help in information processing and memory storage.

Dreams occur in both rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM sleep. REM dreams are more story-like, with emotion and aggression, and non-REM dreams often involve friendly social interactions. People with depression often experience more REM sleep than non-depressed people.

How does subjective time pass in a dream?

In Inception, dream time runs much slower than real time, and there is a scaling effect, such that in the event you dream within a dream, time passes even more slowly. So 5 minutes of real time equals 1 hour of dream time, a 5-minute dream inside a dream equals one week of real time, etc.

This might be the cleverest section of the movie, but though intuitively pleasing, there is little evidence for it. Actually there is some evidence that in lucid dreams, a minimum of, the perception of time in the image of that after the dreamer is awake.

A more pressing question for researchers is what happens when our brain\’s time perception goes faulty. In reality, the semblance of time could be created by the brain itself, that is not less than as much of a head-scratcher as the plot of Inception.

New Scientist reports, explores and interprets the effects of human endeavour set inside the context of society and culture, providing comprehensive coverage of science and technology news. [Image Credits: Warner Bros.]

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This post is tagged: dreams, Inception:, Peering, Science, [Inception]