Dreams and ideas

Just finished watching Inception, which is another example of how a certain Leonardo Di Caprio seems to be having the pick of the best scripts to get turned into movies nowadays.

In this one, we have LDC with a crew of people who can use shared dreaming to find things out about people. The object is to get their secrets or their ideas, by taking the subject down into a dreamscape and then manipulating that dreamscape. One of the core ideas is that the subject will put the secret in a safe place, so when that safe place is broken into the secret is exposed.

It's a very smart movie, very well shot, very well made and with decent acting too. I have a feeling that LDC is starting to get cast as LDC though, in the same way as people like Harrison Ford or Nicholas Cage tended to play their parts as Harrison Ford or Nicholas Cage, despite what was intended. Let's get a person to play the psycho ! Call in James Marsters.

(Just taken 10 minutes to think of a stereotyped actress but all I can think of is "sexy, slightly nutty action chick" - Angelina Jolie)

The central idea is a powerful one. It's about how infectious an idea can be. How a small seed can grow into something that will redefine you, change you. That one small observation, does it change how you perceive something ? Do you start to shiver because you're actually cold or because everyone around you is acting cold ? Some people at work at the moment are shivering in multiple layers, others are fine in sleeveless shirts. (True - of the two above, one has done marvellously at losing weight lately but the cost of looking great is that she feels the cold more. The other is a little bigger than me and I have plenty of insulation !)

Similar with dreams vs actual memory. Ever had a dream where it seemed so close to reality that it could almost be a memory ? I've had a few of those, although I've been free of the anxiety dreams lately. Those are the type that seem clearest to me, an example would be me visiting an unfamiliar* place, being there for 10-20 minutes and then going outside to find the car gone. Seems like loss of transport or mobility is what causes me the most anxiety at the moment.

*(unfamiliar but unconsciously built from true memory)

One thing that makes the dream vs reality thing pertinent for me was the formation of false memories after my first Nose Job (hit on head by cricket ball). There was a period of 6 months after that where my grip on what was True Memory and what was False Memory slipped a bit, such that they overlapped. Mental rehearsal of some tasks (to figure the best way to do them) was going a little too far to the point where the rehearsal became actual memory of me doing something I hadn't gotten round to yet. I'd remember doing a task I hadn't actually done.

I don't think I'd have believed that unless confronted with an incident directly related to it ... A document that I was point of contact for needed to be passed around. I was sure I'd done that, however when one of the recipients joined the project a year or so later, he swore he'd never been sent it. So I checked that out and could find no evidence that I'd sent it.

False memory becomes real memory (my marbles were shaken up by the ball more than I'd realised)

I still get occasional flashes of a cricket ball about 6 inches in front of my face, about to crash into my nose. Dunno if that's Real Memory or something from my imagination become real, although it's consistent with what I think happened.

Oh - we saw the lady on our project who had a serious car accident a few months ago. She looked great, bouncy and with heaps of energy. She was only back for today but it was great to see her back. We have an efficient Work-At-Home system, so she's been insisting on keeping busy. She can't remember the car accident, I told her that's probably a very good thing. Some memories aren't worth keeping around.

The brain is a very complicated piece of biology - how much of who we are is based on real stuff ? How many of our ideas came from within, how many came from others ? How many of our attitudes are due to inherited or taught prejudices, how many were earned through observation ?

I had one cricket match where I turned up (a little late) and then jumped straight into bowling. However, it then went Horribly Wrong, because I couldn't land the ball anywhere I wanted. Instead of starting wide and curving into the stumps, it started wide and got wider. I'd obviously been listening to the pro commentators because my usual inswing had turned into away swing. So that seed picked up from listening had grew in my mind to the point where an otherwise well drilled bowling action changed just enough to become something new. Took a few days to figure out what had happened too ...

I'm still kinda wondering if I changed at all due to the cricket ball on head incident, even to the point of wondering if it had a direct impact on my last major relationship breaking down. I don't believe it did, I reckon that was doomed from a while before then. I like to Fix Stuff but had run out of ideas on how to Fix and make better a person who was sinking deeper into depression, dragging me with her. Overlaid on that is a definite "you should not attempt to change the person you love." There are still lingering doubts though.

Doh - the rambling has taken over ...

Ideas - they're a powerful thing. But make sure they're your own and not implanted by someone else ! Value most the opinion you've formed yourself or be in danger of missing out on the experience.