Inception is the act of inserting an idea in a person’s mind which will bloom in a way making the

Subject think it was their idea. This is the whole point of the movie. Cobb states that there is a
safe house at every dream level, which gets populated with the innermost thoughts and secrets
of the Subject.

From a TOK perspective, it raises multiple questions rather than what is real and what is not. It
makes us inquirers question which ways of knowing can apply to both states, either within a
dream or in reality. The area of knowledge the movie under is Human Sciences as it deals with
the psychology of the human mind. The movie engages with the minds of Yusuf, Eames and
Arthur.

Sense Perception seems like a good, logical way to determine whether you are in a dream.
However, the problem is, even if you are not feeling something physically, your mind can make
you believe you are. Nevertheless, the way memory is depicted in the movie, along with its
real-life function, causes it to be regarded as an insufficient and misleading way of knowing,
especially in the state of determining reality. You would think if something weird or unrealistic
happens in your "reality", you can reasonably conclude you are dreaming. The problem is that
you can never stop thinking about what was unusual in your dream until you wake up. And if
this reality is a dream, you will never be able to conclude that, until you wake up, if you wake
up. The other ways of knowing, such as emotion, imagination, memory, and language, are so
vividly controlled by your dreams, that it is almost impossible while being in the dream state, to
separate them.

The question that is raised in terms of the Knowledge framework is if it is ethical to influence
someone's memory through outside sources? Is it even acceptable even if it's for the greater
good? In the movie, it is seen that the extractor partakes in inception to influence the subject's
thoughts and for him to go back to his children. Furthermore, the element of perspective plays
a major role as This movie visually depicts psychological concepts such as defence mechanisms
and projections as well as the levels of subconsciousness. It prompts the viewer to reflect on
how their subconscious might look visually. Firstly, Dom Cobb is accused of murdering his
beloved wife, Mal, by America and later it is a global manhunt. The world has the perspective
that Dom committed the crime and is on the run to avoid justice, but in his view (the truth) Mal
committed suicide because she believed she was dreaming and had to wake up. The dreams
themselves are a shade of reality. Secondly, when a dreamer enters them, they perceive them
as reality until they wake up and realize something was strange. In the case of Cobb's team,
they were experienced and knew none of it was real but to an ordinary person (like Fischer) the
dreams act as a blanket to reality, creating a forced perspective. Thirdly, Paradoxes are optical
illusions based on forced perspectives. For example, the Penrose steps, the infinite staircase,
which is used by Arthur on the second level to escape pursuers.

Multiple TOK Concepts are associated with this movie. Firstly, the TOK Concept that is seen is
“Truth and Certainty” as Cobb spins his totem every time after dreaming to check his reality and
this provides him with the absolute truth and certainty that he is. This also aligns with
“justification and Evidence” that if the totem never stops spinning, it shows proof that he is still
in the dream. Secondly, “Perspective” can also be seen and has been explained previously.

Dreams are personal knowledge - "generated" in one's mind while asleep - unless
communicated to others. Planting an idea into someone's memories is shared knowledge that
becomes personal knowledge.