Inception’s seemingly stable dream hierarchy is undermined by its own totem object.

Evidence

This leads to another difference between Inception and its Philip K Dick-inspired 80s and 90s precursors such as Total Recall, Videodrome (1983) and Existenz (1999). There is very little of the ‘reality bleed’, the confusion of ontological hierarchy, that defined those films: throughout Inception, it is surprisingly easy for both the audience and the characters to remember where they are in the film’s ontological architecture. … But this apparently stable hierarchy might be violated by the object upon which much of the discussion of the film’s ending has centred: the thimble, the ‘totem’ that Cobb ostensibly uses to determine whether he is in waking reality or not. If it spins without falling, then he is in a dream. If it falls, then he is not. Many have noted the inadequacy of this supposed proof. At best, it can only establish that Cobb is not in his ‘own’ dream, for what is there to stop his dreaming mind simulating the properties of the real thimble? Besides, in the film’s chronology, the thimble – that ostensible token of the empirical actual – first of all appears as a virtual object, secreted by Mal inside a doll’s house in Limbo. And a totem, it should be remembered, is an object of faith (it’s worth noting in passing that there are many references to faith throughout the film). — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 528

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what a totem is within Inception’s logic — an object of faith, not empirical proof.
• XREF: connects to: A totem’s evidence test cannot distinguish dream from reality by construction. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 528

Broader Connections

• A totem’s evidence test cannot distinguish dream from reality by construction. #expands (0.90) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 528