what follows is my understanding of the chronology of subject's state of mind and his perceptions during the length of the story. From what is being presented in the movie, i see that the objective of Dicaprio's team was not actually met!! Why i think that way would hopefully be apparent towards the end. May be i am missing some point but please feel free to comment.
Objective of DiCaprio's team:
Implant a new idea/thought in the mind of Subject at Level 0.
That is- by the end of the process, the subject in Level 0 should be aware/know with authenticity, about a NEW important information 'xyz' previously unknown to him; and backed by a reason strong enough to believe it is true
Subject's/Victim's(Cillian Murphy) State of mind:
Level 0:
Traveling with bunch of guys in a plane.
Duration of journey is 10hrs.
Level1:
Doesn't know that he is dreaming.
He thinks it is real world.
Inception team is his enemy and is harmful to him.
His Godfather/Advisor(Tom Berenger)is a good man.
Level2:
Initially doesn't know that he is dreaming.
He thinks it is real world Later, Dicaprio convinces him that,
-this is a dream world, where his godfather is trying to extract info from him and Level 1 is the actual real world.
-and that subject's Godfather knows some very important info relating to Business empire, which need to be extracted from him.
Subject friends with DiCaprio's team.
Level3:
Knows he is dreaming. But still thinking that Level1 is real world, Level2 is Dream and now thinks he entered into Level3 which is the Dream of his Godfather(Berenger), to extract some valuable info.
Level 4:
Dead/Inanimate
Ms.Page gives him a kick so that he could wake up/go live and continue on with his work back in Level 3
Level 3:
Now he extracted valuable info from the subconciousness of Berenger.
Goes through some Father-child emotion and changes his future direction.
(From Dicaprio's perspective, New thought implanted into Subject's mind.(But notice new thought which is real with respect to only Level1 subject but not Level 0 subject ))
Level 2:
Knows he is dreaming.
Thinks he is Just one level from Real world which for him has been Level 1.
Thinks that with the help of his friends, he successfully extracted some valuable info(previously unknown to him) from his godfather's dream
Friends with DiCaprio's team
Equipped with New info he extracted from his god father's dream
Level 1:
Friends with DiCaprio team.
Thinks he is back to real world with the new thought carried from his Godfather's dream to Intermediate dream to real world.
Ready to implement the thought in this Level 1 real world. He is not aware of the existence of any Level 0.
Level 0:
No relationship with Dicaprio team.
Just Remembers about the new thought as a part of the dream(s) he had. But he comes to know that he Level 1 is just a dream but not real world .The new throught is not from a real world experience.
(This is the transition i would like to question. The movie doesn't show what the subject was thinking when he is back to this level 0. Everyone starts walking as if objective was achieved )
what's not convincing is:
The subject thinks that he just had a normal dream of his own, not shared by anyone else, and that all new thoughts were part of his own dream, But not part of some REALLY planned extraction from his Godfather(as in deeper levels) at Level 0, which means there is no authenticity associated with the new thought he now has at Level 0.
But for the Subject who lived in Level1, yes since it is real world to him he would have followed the thought that is being implanted into him. Because at L1, he was aware, that he had really shared dreams with others and came to know about some info from subconscious of other people.
But isn't the objective of Dicaprio team is to implant the idea with authenticity, into the mind of subject in Level 0 ? The subject would not follow the implanted idea in Level 0 because, he knows that the idea belongs to Level 1 which he consciously considers as his own dream, meaning DiCaprio team's objective is not met.
Am i missing something?
