Spurple wrote: Which is why I strongly disagree with these people's definitions of limbo.

They say Dom and Saito got out because the sedatives had worn off. But 10 hours of sedatives should have kept them in limbo for thousands, even millions of years. There is no way they would have remained sane after that long. Hell, Saito was upright making a phone call 20 seconds after waking up. Not likely if limbo was the "mind losing" experience they made it out to be.

I stand by me belief. Limbo is a state of mind. No matter what level you are on, if you lose sight of the fact that you are in a dream, you enter a "limbo" state. That's what happened to Mal and Saito.

I have the same questions you have in your first paragraph, but I don't think limbo is simply a state of mind. In any dream, you don't know you're dreaming (Fischer, for example, has no idea he's dreaming in level one). It doesn't mean you're in limbo just because you aren't aware of your state of consciousness.

Len wrote:So we've concluded that you can get into limbo without dying in a dream under heavy sedation (despite it being explained otherwise), and you can choose to leave limbo any time you want by dying.

Yes and Yes. Although, what do you mean by "despite it being explained otherwise"?

Cobb and Mal only touched on limbo (which is why they could get out of it so easily). Really, they were only one level deep; they couldn't have gone as far into limbo as Saito did, because they didn't have Yusuf's magical drug.

Dying, whether in limbo or not, will always take you to the level directly above. So Ariadne and Fischer go to Level 3. Cobb and Mal end up in their living room. And since by the time Cobb and Saito meet, the other dream levels have already collapsed and the sedative has worn off, the only place for them to go from limbo is...awake, or the plane.

I recall someone saying that there were 20 minutes left on the flight when they woke up, meaning that the sedative has already worn off. If Saito and Cobb killed themselves in limbo, then the only plausible way for them to wake up on the plane - working with the logic of the Inception world - is if the sedative wore off. Otherwise they'd just be sending themselves deeper into limbo.

Now for the whole "growing old together" thing, this is my theory. I don't think Cobb and Mal actually grew old (which is why they looked young on the train tracks). I think it was Cobb inceptioning Mal - essentially, himself - with the idea that they did grow old together, since this was the only way he could reconcile with his demons (in the form of Mal). The scene where we see them as old fogies is an imagined scenario he's planting in her/his head.

kyuen1 wrote:

Len wrote:So we've concluded that you can get into limbo without dying in a dream under heavy sedation (despite it being explained otherwise), and you can choose to leave limbo any time you want by dying.

Yes and Yes. Although, what do you mean by "despite it being explained otherwise"?

Cobb and Mal only touched on limbo (which is why they could get out of it so easily). Really, they were only one level deep; they couldn't have gone as far into limbo as Saito did, because they didn't have Yusuf's magical drug.

Dying, whether in limbo or not, will always take you to the level directly above. So Ariadne and Fischer go to Level 3. Cobb and Mal end up in their living room. And since by the time Cobb and Saito meet, the other dream levels have already collapsed and the sedative has worn off, the only place for them to go from limbo is...awake, or the plane.

I recall someone saying that there were 20 minutes left on the flight when they woke up, meaning that the sedative has already worn off. If Saito and Cobb killed themselves in limbo, then the only plausible way for them to wake up on the plane - working with the logic of the Inception world - is if the sedative wore off. Otherwise they'd just be sending themselves deeper into limbo.

Now for the whole "growing old together" thing, this is my theory. I don't think Cobb and Mal actually grew old (which is why they looked young on the train tracks). I think it was Cobb inceptioning Mal - essentially, himself - with the idea that they did grow old together, since this was the only way he could reconcile with his demons (in the form of Mal). The scene where we see them as old fogies is an imagined scenario he's planting in her/his head.

Let me try and sum this up. Dying in Limbo will take you back to the previous uncollapsed Level. In Mal and Cobb’s case since they were the only ones dreaming when they went to Limbo any Levels they were on had collapsed so they had to go back to their real bodies. Same thing happened with Saito and Cobb in that all the other Levels had collapsed since everybody was already awake and the equipment was put away so the two had to have woken up in their real bodies. The sedative at that point had worn off. We don’t know how long they were in Limbo but it did take a toll on them both in Limbo and their slight disorientation when they woke up.

The way to enter limbo was explained simply as dying when under heavy sedation. If, when having just entered limbo, you're lucid and sentient (not deep, as you suggest), why couldn't you just kill yourself right away to return to normal dream state? Your explanation seems to suggest Cobb and Ariadne had some special clarity but Mal and Saito did not.

Len wrote:The way to enter limbo was explained simply as dying when under heavy sedation. If, when having just entered limbo, you're lucid and sentient (not deep, as you suggest), why couldn't you just kill yourself right away to return to normal dream state? Your explanation seems to suggest Cobb and Ariadne had some special clarity but Mal and Saito did not.

It's possible. Ariadne and Fischer do this. Saito was dead on all the Levels so his only chance of going back is to his real body which is blocked by the sedatives. Cobb also could have gotten back to Level 3 but decided to stay and look for Saito. So shortly afterwards his body died in Level 3(also Level 1 from drowning) and so Cobb's only chance back is to his real body which is now blocked by the sedatives. So Cobb and Saito had to wait out the sedatives wearing off then they could kill themselves to get back. Cobb and Mal when they were together in Limbo could have killed themselves to get out but Mal it seems didn't want to leave(locked up her totem). Cobb mentions they were gods there and it seems Mal got somewhat addicted to that.

Jarmel wrote: It's possible. Ariadne and Fischer do this. Saito was dead on all the Levels so his only chance of going back is to his real body which is blocked by the sedatives. Cobb also could have gotten back to Level 3 but decided to stay and look for Saito. So shortly afterwards his body died in Level 3(also Level 1 from drowning) and so Cobb's only chance back is to his real body which is now blocked by the sedatives. So Cobb and Saito had to wait out the sedatives wearing off then they could kill themselves to get back. Cobb and Mal when they were together in Limbo could have killed themselves to get out but Mal it seems didn't want to leave(locked up her totem). Cobb mentions they were gods there and it seems Mal got somewhat addicted to that.

Fair enough, but it doesn't explain Fischer returning from limbo to level three where he was presumably shot dead. But I guess you can argue that Fischer wasn't dead

Len wrote:I have the same questions you have in your first paragraph, but I don't think limbo is simply a state of mind. In any dream, you don't know you're dreaming (Fischer, for example, has no idea he's dreaming in level one). It doesn't mean you're in limbo just because you aren't aware of your state of consciousness.

I have thought about that myself. And I think Fischer technically is in a form of limbo. But, because they are using his subconscious, they are only there for 8 or so days MAX, and they are all manipulating the hell out of him (putting Fischer's destiny in their hands), it isn't really the same kind of limbo as the other characters. It's like someone is holding his hand through limbo. But for Mal and for Saito, they were much deeper (ie, much longer) in the dream, and they only had Cobb to help them (which wasn't always easy).

Fair enough, but it doesn't explain Fischer returning from limbo to level three where he was presumably shot dead. But I guess you can argue that Fischer wasn't dead

That is the one thing I make no attempt at explaining. Because, however you view limbo, whether it's a level or a state of mind, I don't see how the Fischer thing works. You can be brought back to life by going down deeper...

Maybe that's why Saito and Dom didn't spend millenniums in the dream. Maybe killing themselves at the end revived their dead bodies on earlier levels?

When you go from Limbo back to Level 3 you start from scratch because Limbo is such a blank slate. That's why he's no longer wounded.

Okay, I am starting to work all of this out in my mind. First, my only problem with the movie was the whole Limbo situation at the end. I was under the assumption that you had to be killed in order to go to Limbo under heavy sedation. However, when Cobb is talking about this earlier in the film, he never says him and Mal killed themselves, only that they continued to go deeper and deeper into dreams. So technically, the fourth dream level Cobb and Ariande enter could have been limbo, and that's how they got there simply by going to sleep.

Second, I don't really understand how they find Fischer so easily and why it was so hard to find Saito. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Fischer died before C and A entered limbo and that Saito died after those three had entered limbo. I believe someone mentioned somewhere that Mal had kidnapped F, which could make sense, since Mal is able to manipulate not only the dreams, but the other people and their well being in any dream.

Third, I was having problems with how everyone was escaping limbo. I was stuck on the notion that if you died in Limbo, then you woke up in real life. This was due to watching the train scene where C and M escape Limbo by letting a train run over them. However, someone mentioned that since C and M were the only ones dreaming when they entered limbo in the first place, then all of their dream levels had collapsed, and the only logical place they could wake up would be in real life. So, if you die in a dream or limbo (presumably four levels down) you just go back to the previous logical level. Unless you are under heavy sedation. This also explains why F and A wake up in the third level instead of waking up in real life when they are falling off the building and why C and S wake up in the real life on the plane after they had presumably shot themselves to escape limbo.

Fourth, I don't know about Fischer being dead or not. But I can only assume that since he died on the third level, then both of his bodies on the first and second level were still okay. That explains why he was alive in limbo and why the defibrillator worked. Also, I read somewhere that the sedative could have created the need for two kicks and that is why the defibrillator and F falling off the building were both needed to wake him up.

Len wrote:The way to enter limbo was explained simply as dying when under heavy sedation. If, when having just entered limbo, you're lucid and sentient (not deep, as you suggest), why couldn't you just kill yourself right away to return to normal dream state? Your explanation seems to suggest Cobb and Ariadne had some special clarity but Mal and Saito did not.

simply put, you lost your sense of dream/reality if you die under heavy sedation/using memory to build your dream for a long enough period (this is what mentioned in the film)

Cobb and Ariadne was like voluntarily enter the state (how they did it wasn't mentioned in the film), so they can maintain their senses

at the end where Cobb met old Saito, both of them had lost their senses, and only after seeing the top spinning that Cobb remembered/realized about he's in fact, in a dream