9-8-2010
Film Review:
9-8-2010
I think ‘Inception’ could be one of the “best references” for us to learn Neurological Linguistic Patterns (NLP) and hypnosis theories. It helps me to understand the impact of our deepest internal world – the sub-consciousness effect on our life.
In the film, we can hear repetitively Erickson’s classic hypnosis trance scripts or typical hypnotic language; it vividly features the elements of NLP theories like chunking, reframing and spin patterns. By using these techniques, one can become more persuasive and empower others to expand awareness and “implant” new ideas and even change their beliefs and value systems, thus changing a person’s personality, emotions, behavior and results in life. This powerful effect is typified in Fischer and Mal’s cases in the film.
Although the audience was bombarded by INCEPTION”s overwhelmingly abundant information, actions and suspicions, its intensely creative plots, it was the most breathtaking film I have ever seen. I am impressed by the message of the film delivered without any confusion:
For some people, Dream is reality and reality is dream (like in Chinese: life is a dream.) So they treat their dream more seriously. Ironic!
The film reveals a fact that in our subconscious world, reality and fantasy, imagination and hallucination are the same thing. One cannot distinguish reality from dreams. To manipulate this phenomenon positively, one can hypnotize positive ideas into subconscious mind which is similar to a child with age around 7 or 8 in terms of thinking. This will affect one’s behavior and emotions profoundly and beneficially. Conversely, negative ideas can ruin a person’s life. An example is Mal, Cobb’s wife who jumps from a height to find her destiny, an idea implanted by her husband Cobb. Chilling and horrid!
We learn from NLP that the human thinking system is full of self perceptions and imagination, thus, it can be changed if perception and imagination are changed, and so can personality. This can be done through self hypnosis or external hypnosis, in which a human’s conscious and subconsciously mind are both active, except the critical faculty. In the film, the change takes place during deep dreams when the conscious mind is sleeping. I have to say that this is exaggerating, but the idea is in alignment with NLP.
This film challenges a viewer’s boundary to extremes again and again. While I don’t believe anyone can invade into one’s dream, I like the most honest and wildest imagination in the film. That’s the core fantasy of the movie.
Why do I say so? I was shocked to find that many scenes in the film coincidently appear in my recurring dreams - a bridge or a road or a mountain trail is break into two pieces or pieces out of blue, leaving me trapped or stuck in an unknown darkness or on the edge of a cliff; flying in a free gravity system and a magnificent city emerging from the ground or floating in the sky; a dream within a dream and within another dream …
I believe this is not only the case with me. The film has received exceptional high box-office globally, showing that dream scenes in INCEPTION may have become a collective memory in a human’s twisting dreaming world during sleep.
Beliefs and ideas are like a strong parasite. Once it is implanted into our subconscious mind, it will grow and eventually rule our conscious mind, determining our life and destiny. Thoughts become things. So be careful when you are absorbing any thoughts or ‘being invaded’ by ideas from any sources…
That is why critical thinking is crucial.
Here the director Christopher Nolan talks about his film:
The crucial breakthrough to completing his “Inception” script was considering what could happen if multiple people could share the same dream. “Once you remove the privacy,” Mr. Nolan said, “you’ve created an infinite number of alternative universes in which people can meaningfully interact, with validity, with weight, with dramatic consequences.”
“The potential of the human mind is infinite. It has to feel like you could go absolutely anywhere by the end of the film…”
Inception is a film that I want to see again for its constantly challenging audience’s boundary of imagination, for its ingenuousness and provoking element, and more…
DONNA
This was a profound comment. The movie Is phenomenal in its methods of helping one understand the many concepts and theories of NLP. It’s truly thought provoking how well put together the script was played out on the big screen. For those who have studied or stumbled upon NLP this movie has a way of explaining key concepts in a very detailed and neat package. Something even a beginner would understand.
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