START Part 6 – The hypnotic structure of the start
Just as the actual hypnotic script discussed in Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this series uses a three-step structure to hypnotically produce a change, the structure of the movie Inception also takes three steps down and then three “kicks.” backward. to plant the post-hypnotic suggestion of breaking up his father’s company in Robert Fischer’s mind.
The film begins in conscious reality, or at least what seems like conscious reality. Robert Fischer is on a plane, and Cobb builds trust with him by returning his “lost” passport, before inducing the trance by drugging Robert and entering his dream.
First step down: a secret safe
Robert finds himself in what he thinks is Los Angeles, where he is taken hostage by Cobb’s team. Eames poses as family friend Peter Browning and convinces Robert that he has been tortured for the combination to Robert’s father’s secret safe, a combination known only to Robert. In the safe is his father’s last gift to Robert, a secret will that splits the company. Robert’s doubt about his father is so intense that even in a dream he cannot believe Browning’s story. Even on his deathbed, Robert’s father had only one word to share with him: “Disappointed.” Ultimately, the numbers must be randomly drawn from Robert’s subconscious before Robert can go back to sleep for the next step down…
Step Two Down: Browning’s Secret
At the hotel in Los Angeles, Robert meets Cobb, who tells him that he is dreaming and that he is there to protect him. Once again, using Eames’ impersonation skills, they trick Robert into suspecting Browning, who admits that he arranged the kidnapping in an effort to prevent Robert from accepting his father’s challenge to break up the company. This experience begins to unravel the story Robert has been telling himself about Browning and his father, and shifts their trust from one to the other. Desperate to understand, Robert walks into what he believes to be Browning’s dream. When Robert goes back to sleep in the hotel room, he finds…
Third Step Down: The Father’s Secret
Robert attempts to infiltrate the snow fortress that he believes holds the secrets of Browning’s mind. After Mal’s untimely appearance and a brief misadventure in Limbo, Cobb and Ariadne rescue him and return him to the inner chamber of the fortress. Inside, he finds himself alone with his father, on the sickbed where his father once expressed his devastating feelings for Robert in one painful word: “Disappointed.”
“…because I wasn’t you…” Robert tells his father sadly, sharing the story he has been telling himself about his father’s words.
“No, his father corrects him…disappointed that you tried.”
And at that moment, everything changes for Robert… and he is ready to open the safe.
post hypnotic suggestion
From the moment Robert’s story changes, so does every element of how his subconscious mind perceives his world. And that is why, when he opens the safe, what he finds is not only the will, but a symbol of his father’s love for him: the old photo pinwheel that Robert has always carried with him, his last memory of a loving relationship. with his father.
And with that pinwheel comes the healing that Robert so desperately needs.
Whether the story is true or not.
Three steps back from the start
As you saw in last week’s hypnotic script, in classical hypnosis, at this point, a hypnotist would return the client to each level of the dream, allowing them to see how the new story they have accepted will forever change those images, and build towards a Same. most powerful moment of healing, which anchors the greatest change that the person is seeking.
To some extent, Christopher Nolan also does this, for example by allowing the snow fortress (and with it, the secret once kept from Robert) to collapse. But for the most part, Nolan boils the three-step backup process down to a series of three “kicks”: Fischer and the team going down with the collapsing snow fortress, Arthur blowing up the weightless elevator in the hotel, and Yusuf crashing. the truck against the water.
But even though Robert the character doesn’t go through each of the three steps up again, as an audience we experience the entire journey, witnessing each step down from a new perspective as we climb back up. awareness…
From a character perspective, this makes a lot of sense. Because ultimately, Robert may not be the only one dreaming…
Cobb’s Origin
Just as Inception is built through a “dream within a dream” structure, it can also contain a beginning within a beginning.
Just as Robert is accepted to break up his father’s company, so is Cobb accepted to “take a leap of faith.” He is the one we truly care about, in whose transformation we are most deeply involved, and through whose dreamlike architecture we experience the story of Inception.
Stay tuned for next week’s article, where I’ll discuss Cobb’s journey in relation to hypnosis and Inception: “Is Robert Fischer the Only One Who Dreams?”
Happy Writing!
James
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