Unlocking the Importance of Dreams: A Psychoanalytic Reading in
Inception
Dwi Setianingsih Rahardjo
Abstract
Using Freud’s Pychoanalytic criticism, this paper will examine the relation between dreams and unconscious in Inception. One of Freud’s famous saying
about dream is that they are the royal road of the unconscious. Based on this notion, several scenes at the movie will be analyzed to prove that unconscious thoughts, feelings, and memories are really projected in a dream. In the movie, the notion of unconscious is never introduced; instead they use the notion of
subconscious. However in this paper, distinction will be made between unconscious and subconscious, based on Freud’s theory of what unconscious is. After investigating the relation of dream and unconscious, this study comes
to a conclusion that dream is important because it sometimes affects our actions.
Keywords: Inception, Freud, Psychoanalysis, Dream, Unconscious, Subconscious
1. Introduction and Summary of the Text
In mid 2010, I was driven to a cinema by my sister to watch a movie entitled Inception. I was reluctant to see it because I did not like the lead actor and the synopsis was uninteresting; however, my sister forced me to see it and she succeeded. It turned out that the movie was out of my expectation and I liked it very much. It required the audience to think throughout the story about the new concept proposed by this movie – dreams within a dream – which was very innovative. I was amazed by the story even after I walked out from the cinema.
whether he is trapped in the unexpected fourth level of dream when he is searching for Saito. I debated over the ‘right’ ending with my sister and friends, and there was no agreement among us. This matter attracts me into making some research about the ending. During the quest, I found many interesting articles related to not only the story, but also the other things from the movie.
From one of the articles that I read, Christopher Nolan (the writer and also the director of the movie), had been working on the script for almost 10 years. He said in an interview, “About 10 years ago, I started thinking about fusing a film about dreaming with a heist-film structure (Taubin 32).” He first got the idea of writing about this dream-story from his lucid dream – dreams in which the dreamer has complete consciousness and awareness about the fact that one is dreaming and can therefore interfere or influence, even create the dream as he or she wishes (Holzinger 216). In other interview, Nolan said that he had lucid dreams one night and he attempted to manipulate the dream. However, this attempt was “frustratingly elusive,” a hint that such things are possible on a grander scale (Hurd).
The topic related to dream is always drawing attention and is interesting to be discussed further. Dream themed stories are produced from time to time. Movies such as Requiem for a Dream, Avatar, Vanilla Sky, and Inception are a few examples of box office movies that have dreams as its theme. There are also some classic children stories which explore wonderful worlds inside dreams, such as Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland; both remain popular until now. Why do these so-called children fairy tales and some unrealistic, extraordinary settings in the stories still exist nowadays? Because dream world is indeed an exciting world that one cannot stop looking into.
Sigmund Freud, who was the first to introduce the psychoanalysis theory, is often criticized and considered crazy. However, his theories are still popular and his name is still frequently used when talking about dreams. All of Freud’s work depends on the notion of the unconscious, which refers to the mind beyond consciousness that has a strong influence upon our actions. Therefore, this notion will be discussed in the paper and used to examine several scenes in Inception’s dream world in order to unfold the link between the dream world and the characters’ mind. Dream work and the unconscious are closely bound: dream interpretation in psychoanalysis is a tool assisting in the discovery of psychic contents within the unconscious mind. Freud, himself, termed dreams as the ‘royal road to the unconscious’.
combination of these three), that person will gain a good luck throughout the year. Those are a few examples from numerous superstitious beliefs about dreams that I believe exist in many countries.
The existence of those beliefs in the societies implies that dreams really are powerful and significant in people’s lives. Inception also suggests that dreams are influential; they are very powerful and can affect one’s behaviour through an idea one’s get from a dream. This writing is also made in order to convey a message that dream is indeed meaningful because it helps us to get a better understanding of ourselves and sometimes influences our actions.
2. Summary of the Text
The story starts with a business conversation conducted by several men. Two of them are selling their skills: stealing secret information inside one person’s head through their dreams when they are sleeping. It turns out that this meeting is a dream itself. The two men – Cobb (DiCaprio) and Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) get an order to steal information from Saito (Watanabe); therefore they try to trick Saito in a multilayered dream. Unfortunately, they failed in this mission because they could not get the whole information they needed. In the first dream, Saito is aware that he is in a dream and locks up some information from Cobb; he knows that Cobb is attempting to trick him. However, when Saito wakes up and has a quarrel with them, he then learns that he is still in a dream.
However, Cobb says that it is possible to plant an idea within someone’s mind; he does not want to do this though. Saito then tempts Cobb with a promise to remove Cobb’s charges and send him back to his country, to his home and his children, which results in Cobb’s approval.
Cobb assembles his team and finds the other three persons with their own specialties to work with. Ariadne (Page), as an architect, is in charge of designing the world within the three levels of the dreams. Eames (Hardy), a professional forger, has to transform himself into Peter Browning (Fischer’s right-hand man) in order to get information from Fischer. There is also Yusuf (Rao), the chemist who has to make his own special sedative in order for the team to be able to execute these almost-impossible three levels of dreams. So the team has 5 people to carry out the plan, but Saito insists on joining the team to make sure they do the job properly; so there are 6 people in total doing the infiltration.
The information has been collected; the preparation has been done; it is now the time to execute the plan. They are now in a flight together with Fischer and succeed in making him fall asleep. The flight goes for 10 hours, which gives them a week in the first dream level, six months in the second level, and 10 years in the third level. The time seems to be slower in the dream because the mind works more quickly. However, there are many unexpected problems that happen due to Mal’s interference (Mal is the projection of Cobb’s unconscious within the dreams) in order to fail the mission. Saito also gets shot in the dream and therefore they are now racing against the time to complete the mission and return safely into the reality.
3. Literature Review
disorders “by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious (unconscious is the part of the mind beyond consciousness that has a strong influence on our actions) elements in the mind” (Barry 97). A lot of people are cynical of his work, but many – especially literary scholars – also consider Freud as one of the significant figures of 20th century. Along with Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Albert Einstein, he reformed the conception of human life in the modern Western (Leitch 913). It’s influential because his theory affects the way people think about themselves, whether they are aware of it or not.
Psychoanalysis finds its way in many aspects of human life, such as in medical, social and cultural, also academic aspects (Whitehouse-Hart 1). Looking from the field of psychology, psychoanalysis is no longer considered valid. Psychologists regarded psychoanalysis as merely his subjective interpretations and there is no scientific data to support it (Davis). However, as stated above, literary scholars argued that Freud’s theories are very influential; it is still applied into a variety of disciplines – especially literary criticism. Thus, the use of psychoanalysis to examine literary works is not uncommon nowadays.
It is interesting to know that psychoanalysis was derived from literature and can be used to examine literature as well. Freud had long taken great pleasure in the arts, particularly literature – plays and novels, fine art and sculpture (Kaufman 367). I think his fondness of literature was the basis for early development of the psychoanalytic criticism. Walden and Poch (113-114) even suggested that Freud’s principles are closely related to literary works since he was an avid reader. His infamous work, The Interpretation of Dreams is especially related to literature. They suggested that his greatest influence for working this paper was the first novel that he read.
analyzed can also very differ. For example, Dumas (40) analyzed 1950s movies – Invaders from Mars, Robot Monster, and The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T – to find relation with uniformity of cinematic representation in 1950 that reflect the society’s concerns at that time. Psychoanalytic film analysis also has been applied to the study of horror movies which is popular since mid 1980s onwards. It seems like Hollywood took psychoanalysis seriously. Nathan G. Hale stated this in his journal – The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States – “The number of Hollywood movie stars, directors, and producers who were ‘in analysis’ was legion” (Paul 159).
One of the Hollywood directors that belong to the group is Christopher Nolan. Christopher Nolan, the director and scriptwriter of Inception, has made several works before that can also be discussed using psychoanalysis such as Memento, The Prestige, and the newest Batman trilogy. The central themes of his movies are usually concerning a traumatized hero, a dead woman, and a plot involving manipulation and dissimulation (Fisher 37). Similarly, Inception also has its main character deal with his trauma and unconscious throughout the movie.
Comments on the Freudian Unconscious conveyed the fundamental role of conflicts in the psychoanalysis; it distinguishes the psychoanalytic unconscious from the totality of unconscious brain processes that are the subject of investigation of neuroscience. Psychoanalysis deals with observing processes that are unconscious because of conflict.
Freud’s notion of unconscious in his native language (German) has caused some confusion and debates for some people. In German, the term ‘unconscious’ is supposed to be das Unbewusste. However, Freud used it interchangeably with das Unterbewusste which is similarly close with das Unbewusste but not identical, because the literal translation for das Unterbewusste is ‘subconscious’ (“Unconscious or Subconscious?”). After a while, he decided to use ‘unconscious’ to avoid confusion. However, the theory is expanded since then, and nowadays, many scholars used the term subconscious to address the memories which can be retrieved if attention is paid to them. The subconscious mind lies just below consciousness, and it can be accessed by raising a question. We can assume that the ‘storehouse’ is very big and there are many rooms inside. The subconscious are the doors that need certain keys to open the rooms and unleash those certain memories to the consciousness.
After the numerous studies on his patient, Freud realized that unconscious often expresses itself in the form of dreams. The unconscious, though repressed, can never be quelled entirely (Rivkin & Ryan 391). They emerge in dreams. Thus, Freud came up with his famous term dreams are royal roads to the unconscious. He then published a book entitled Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. This book suggests that there are hidden wishes or desires that manifest themselves at night in dreams. The feelings, memories, wishes, or desires which are repressed and stored in the unconscious are beyond our control.
they are awake; what they would consciously describe to someone else when recalling the dream. Freud suggested that the manifest content has no meaning at all because it is a “disguised representation of what’s underlying the dream – the latent content” (“Introduction to Sigmund Freud’s Theory on Dreams”). On the other hand, the latent content – or the dream-thoughts is the true meaning of the dream. It is the forbidden thoughts and the unconscious desires, or simply said, it is the repressed unconscious itself. These appear in the manifest content but will be disguised and unrecognisable. Manifest and latent content are tied together in some way. Freud calls the process of transformations which connect up the two levels (the latent content transformed into the manifest content) the dream-work (freud.org.uk). It means that the dream-work is the mechanism which takes the raw material of the latent and combines it together into a dream.
Freud’s ideas in the book have raised many arguments and comments since its publication. The theory proposed by Freud has continued to expand years even after he's gone. Maclagan (335) argues that “the exchange between dreaming and the conscious mind is more flexible and mutual than Freud assumed,” implying that the nature of the dream-work is dynamic. It is a ‘complicated traffic’, back and forth between conscious and unconscious levels. Not only a manifestation of the locked traumatic memories that can take part in the dream, but also some conscious or subconscious memory.
death in a dream about fiery plane crash, like what Morewedge and Norton proposed in their journal research When Dreaming Is Believing: The (Motivated) Interpretation of Dreams. Their studies suggested that people exhibit a general belief that dreams hold hidden meaning and, therefore, have a general tendency to interpret their dreams and allow those dreams to impact their judgment and behaviour. However, not all dreams are interpreted. The dreams that are most likely to be interpreted are the dreams that have the most relevance to one’s life.
Based on the theories above, the writer would like to propose these questions: Are dreams really the royal road to the unconscious that manifested our repressed trauma, memories, and feelings? And if it is true, do dreams really have an impact towards someone’s life? The writer will examine the events that happened to the characters in Inception in order to seek for the answers.
4. Discussion
Inception’s main character, Dominick Cobb, encounters the projection of his unconscious (Mal) several times in the movie. She appears within the multilayered dreams and jeopardized the mission carried by the team. Freud’s dream-work theory will be used to analyze this phenomenon: who or what is Mal, and why does she attempt to fail Cobb’s work. We will also look at Robert Fischer, the other character that holds a significant role in the movie. After discussing the unconscious of these two characters, we will see if the dreams they have experienced really affect their lives.
distinction between unconscious and subconscious. They will have different meanings, as several scholars suggested in the previous section. The term unconscious indicates the repressed trauma, feeling, memories, as Freud’s theories suggest; meanwhile the term subconscious concerns the accessible memories where one can easily access the dreams like the movie implied.
4. 1. Repressed memories, feelings, and trauma within dreams
In his book, Beginning Theory, Barry asserts that when some wish, fear, memory, or desire is difficult to face we may try to cope with it by repressing it from the conscious mind. But this doesn't make it go away; it remains alive in the unconscious and constantly seeks a way back into the conscious mind. One way for it to resurface is through the process of dreaming.
This concept is introduced to the audience in the beginning of Inception, when Cobb, Arthur, and Saito were talking. They are discussing how to defend their subconscious while asleep because in a dream conscious defences are lowered and their thoughts are vulnerable. This scene introduced us to the notion of subconscious that the whole movie revolves around. And as stated above, it is also suggesting that subconscious contains repressed or hidden memories that will re-emerge within a dream.
ARTHUR. And you-what the hell was all that? COBB. I had it under control.
ARTHUR. I’d hate to see out of control- (Nolan, 17)
And later on, in a hotel where they are about to run away from the company who employs them:
ARTHUR. Down in the dream... Mal showing up like that ... COBB. Yeah. I'm sorry about your leg.
ARTHUR. It's getting worse, isn't it? (Nolan, 20)
These dialogues indicate that somehow Cobb is the one who is causing the failure. Well it is true; he is the one to blame – his unconscious. We soon learn that Mal is the deceased wife of Cobb; she is only a projection of Cobb’s subconscious. She committed suicide because she could no longer tell the difference between dreams and reality due to spending so many years in the dream world. Mal’s suicide is definitely a horrible memory that Cobb’s trying to forget.
In Inception, there are two ways to wake from the dream sharing besides waking naturally when the sedative wears off. The first method is to use a “kick” – a shock sensation such as falling, hitting water, or a sharp jolt – to snap you out of the dream. The other method is to get yourself killed. In the real world, Mal felt like she is still living in a dream; she is desperate to go back to reality and she ended up killing herself. As a husband and the closest person to Mal, this shocking experience must left him in emotional and mixed feelings that he unconsciously repressed.
Ariadne pointed it out to us, “You won't build yourself because if you know the maze, then she knows it. And she'd sabotage the operation. You can't keep her out, can you?” He is afraid of Mal’s interference; he cannot restrain her, for the unconscious is uncontrollable.
Mal’s death leads Cobb into great misery because not only is Mal missing, but also his children are. Cobb is accused of killing his wife by the authorities and he has been running ever since. He cannot stay in the United States and has to leave his children in his parent’s custody. His longing for his children caused a projection of the last image he has before leaving his house:
Ariadne follows his gaze to the garden. A small blonde boy faces away from them, crouched on his haunches to look at something on the ground.
COBB. It's James. And there's Philippa. I thought about calling out, so they'd turn and smile those incredible smiles... but I'm out of time-
THIN MAN. Right now. Or never, Cobb.
COBB. Then I start to panic. I realize I’m gonna regret this moment, that I need to see their faces one last time. But the moment's passed. And whatever I do, the dream's always the same... When I'm about to call... they run. (Nolan, 68-69)
result, Fischer becomes suspicious and Cobb almost fails in gaining Fischer’s trust because of this incident.
We can analyze throughout the movie that as time goes by, Cobb unconscious’ interference is getting worse. In the first layer of the dreams when his team is kidnapping Fischer, a train suddenly cuts off their escape route and makes Saito get shot in his chest. This train is also part of his unconscious projection, formed out by his past memories with Mal. On the second layer of the dream, as mentioned above, he catches a glimpse of his children’s back and it distracts him. The deeper they go down, the stronger the unconscious bursting. Mal shows up once again in the third layer and sabotages the mission just when it’s about to succeed.
4.2. The dynamic of the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious within the dream
As the writer has pointed out above, this movie has not used the term unconscious even once in the entire screening. Instead, it uses subconscious for everything that happens in the dreams. However, a distinction between these two notions should be made because the subconscious suggested by the movie is not as deep as the unconscious. It seems like this subconscious lies in the middle between the conscious and unconscious, and we can still control it.
projected by her subconscious in every level of the dream as the stage where the job is carried out. The memory from her conscious is easily brought into the dream.
On the other hand, Mal’s appearances in the dream come from the deeper part of Cobb’s mind, and they are uncontrollable. Thus Mal is not merely a projection of his subconscious; but unconscious. Mal is a projection of unconscious that manifest itself in Cobb’s subconscious. Just as Maclagan argues, the nature of the dream-work is dynamic, it is a complicated traffic. The conscious, subconscious, and the unconscious have interchangeable movements – back and forth inside the dream and it is uncontrollable.
So why exactly does Cobb’s unconscious try to sabotage his every mission? The answers have been stated in the movie numerous times, but let’s take a closer look at it. After returning to the real world, Mal continued to believe that she was still dreaming and believed that dying was the only way to 'wake up'. On their wedding anniversary, Cobb went to the hotel room they always stayed in and found out that Mal is outside the window, prepared to jump. She asked him to jump with her, but he refused and attempted to bring Mal to her senses. She ignores him anyway and jumped to her death. Obviously this tragedy left him with mixed feelings such as sorrow, pain, regrets, and guilt.
ARIADNE. It might have been your idea to push the limits, Cobb. But you’re not responsible for the idea that destroyed her. The idea that her world wasn’t real... that was her own idea from her own mind. Your guilt defines her. Powers her. ...
COBB. You don’t have to do this for me-
ARIADNE. I’m doing it for the others. They don’t know the risk they’ve taken coming in here with you. (Nolan, 93)
Ariadne keeps reminding him that he cannot blame himself forever, that it is not his fault and it is time to move on.
We can see then that in the fourth layer of the dream Cobb and Ariadne are forced to look for Fischer after Mal shot him. This fourth layered is what they call as Limbo. Limbo is an unconstructed dream space – a place of random subconscious impulse. Mal is waiting for them here and eventually Cobb has to confront her. From their intense conversation, Ariadne finds out a shocking revelation:
MAL. What do you feel?
COBB. Guilt. I feel guilt, Mal. And no matter what I do, no matter how hopeless I am, no matter how confused, that guilt is always there, reminding me of the truth.
MAL. What truth?
COBB. That the idea that caused you to question our reality came from me. MAL. You planted the idea in my mind? (Nolan, 133-134)
Ariadne, who constantly questioning the cause of Cobb’s ‘wild’ unconscious, eventually made Cobb confronts his unconscious. She is the ‘subconscious’ that helps us unravel the deepest memory that repressed in Cobb’s unconscious.
Just like Ariadne who acts like the subconscious for Cobb, the whole work done by the team also serves as the subconscious in accessing Robert Fischer’s unconscious. Fischer is the target of the whole operation. He inherited a multi-billion dollar empire from his father, Maurice Fischer. The huge corporation soon becomes a superpower that dominates the energy supply of half the world. This is why Saito asks Cobb to do inception, to make Fischer destroys his father’s empire. They try to change his mind by planting the idea that Maurice did not want him to take over the company. They need to plant the seed of the idea into Fischer’s unconscious. The focus here is not about the planting of the idea, but the focus is what Fischer’s found in his unconscious.
FISCHER. We didn't have a lot of meaningful experiences together. After my mother died, I went to him in my grief. You know what he told me? "There's really nothing to be said, Robert.
BROWNING. He always had a hard time with emotional- FISCHER. I was eleven, Uncle Peter.
BROWNING. He loved you, Robert. In his way.
FISCHER. "In his way?" At the end he called me to his deathbed. He could barely speak, but he took the trouble to say one last thing to me. He pulled me close... I could make out only one word. Disappointed. (Nolan, 84-85)
Eames understands that the relationship between Fischer and his father is worse than what he thought. Fischer as a child felt that he was not loved and supported by his father, even hated by him. This is the repressed feeling that unconsciously he tried to bury.
This piece of information is then used as a scenario in the third layer of the dream. Ariadne designs this level of dream as a snow fortress with a big safe. This safe is not a safe that has been talked about before; this is a safe that contains Fischer’s unconscious. The safe is opened; the image projected in front of him is his bed-stricken father muttering his last word. This is the subconscious projection of his last painful memory with his father. He felt that he disappointed his father because he couldn't be him:
FATHER. (hoarse whisper) I... was ... dis ... dis ...
FISCHER. I know, Dad. You were disappointed that I couldn't be you. The dying man SHAKES HIS HEAD with surprising energy.
FATHER. (whisper) No... no. I was disappointed... that you tried. (Nolan, 140)
The dialogue exhibits Robert’s genuine wish (it is a dialogue between him and his unconscious). He realized that this is what he’s been longing for, not the recognition of years of endless hard work, but merely an acceptance of his existence, knowing that his father actually loved him. So once again, the movie gives a perfect example that subconscious assists us to find the truth of our unconscious.
Nevertheless, the dynamic movements between the three (conscious, subconscious, and unconscious) do not stop there. What happened in the dream is brought back into reality (conscious). And this process, where the dreams are brought back to our conscious, is where dreams become important for us, the dreamers.
4.3. The Importance of Dream
Modell (536), in his journal, stated that dreaming is a neurophysiological process, but the dream itself is not. The content of a human dream is unique and at the same time full of meaning. Cobb and Fischer both acquire something valuable from the dream. The encounter with their unconscious that happened in the dream changes them. After confronting his unconscious (Mal), and Cobb realizes that he has to let go of his painful memory. He does not want to do it before because he felt like he does not deserve happiness. But he needs to move on for his children.
MAL. You remember when you asked me to marry you? You said you dreamt that we’d grow old together.
COBB. But we did... We did, you don’t remember? I miss you more than I can bear, but we had our time together. And now I have to let you go... (Nolan, 142)
Cobb was still in a dream or did he return to his children in the “real world.” The answer of the dispute is actually not important. The important thing is the fact that Cobb is finally being able to move on from the unconscious that is haunting him.
The next person to get on with his life is Fischer; he is going to carry out his father’s last request with a light heart since he does not have to do it under pressure. “The will means that Dad wanted me to be my own man, not live for him. And I'm going to, Uncle Peter,” said Robert Fischer (Nolan, 143).
I believe that for Fischer, it is not important what his father truly meant to say if there is time left. The dream itself has become some sort of healing process for Fischer. He becomes at peace and is no longer conflicted with the idea that his father does not love him. When he discovered that his father kept the pinwheel, it becomes a proof for Fischer that his father did love him. Is it real? No, we know that that is just a dream. However, that all seems real to him and he now believes his father loved him. His hidden wish of reconciliation with his father has finally occurred and it affects him very much, although it was not real.
Dreams, as Freud said, offer us a shortcut to understanding ourselves, carry unfulfilled wishes and issues from the past. What has happened to Cobb and Arthur confirms it. Each of them encounters their unconscious that projects their hidden wishes and feelings. They manage to understand themselves better and this event changes their lives ever since. Dreams are indeed important; this is the message that Inception is trying to pass on to the audience.
meaning and therefore they have a general tendency to interpret their dreams and allow those dreams to impact their judgment and behaviour.
5. Conclusion
This paper aims to study the film Inception using Freud’s psychoanalysis. The theory of the unconscious is used to analyze two central characters in the movie, Cobb and Fischer. The movie is solely based on the notion of subconscious, and it never mentions the term of unconscious, although they are actually vastly different. According to the film, everything that happened during dream sharing refers to the subconscious. However, the term unconscious is more suitable to represent certain events that occurred in the dream. Distinction between these two notions is also needed to be made in order to investigate their dynamic movements within the dream.
The movie itself is a portrayal of Freud’s dream theories. Remember that Freud distinguished the dream into two parts: manifest and latent content. The manifest content usually describes the fragments of images that we remember after we wake up. The latent content, in contrast, is the true meaning – the essence of the dream. It contains the unconscious desires of the dreamer. The latent content is the repressed memories, emotions, and wishes which later on transform themselves in to the manifest content – the projection and images of the dreamer. We can see from the movie; dreams do project the subconscious and unconscious of the dreamers. Therefore, the writer support Freud’s famous saying dream is the royal road to the unconscious; based on the evidences found in the movie.
are many of us in the morning who are curious of the meaning of the dream they just had. This is showing that people indeed take dreams seriously. And even for some people, dreams can also become a source for inspiration. It stimulates their imagination and awakens their creativity into producing famous masterpieces in music, art, films, narratives, etc. Some examples of these creative people are novelist Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) and Stephenie Meyer (Twilight), poet Edgar Alan Poe, and, of course, Christopher Nolan himself who inspired to make Inception based on his dream experiences.
Acknowledgement
First of all, I would like to thank The Father Almighty for all the blessings He has given to me. For the strength He always gave me when I faced hardships, for the guidance He provided so I can finally completed my study in this English Department. I also would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Danielle Donelson-Sims, M.A., for your patience, help, encouragement, and endless support to me. Also, to my thesis examiner, Deta Maria Sri Darta, S.Pd, M.Hum, for the time and help you have given so that this paper could be completed.
I would like to also express my gratitude to my family. To my mom and dad, thank you for your patience, support, and prayers. To my big sister, Melita, who always supported me in so many ways. Thank you for the student account you lent me so I managed to find lots of good articles for this thesis, for your constant curiosity of my thesis progress, and also your scolding when I got lazy. I love you, Sis! To my aunt, Emiliana, for your moral support and prayers.
Works Cited
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 2nd ed. New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Print.
Davis, Katie. “Sigmund Freud, Renowned Psychologist or Literary Giant?” Literary Traveler. n.p. 6 May 2011. Web. 22 Dec. 2013
Dumas, Chris. “On Film Studies and the Unconscious.” Camera Obscura 27.3 (2012): 38-67. Print.
Fisher, Mark. “The Lost Unconscious: Delusions and Dreams in Inception.” Film Quarterly 64.3 (2011): 37-45. JSTOR. Web. 5 April 2013.
Freud, Sigmund. "The Interpretation of Dreams." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 397-412. Print.
Holzinger, Brigitte. "Lucid Dreaming – Dreams of Clarity." Contemp. Hypnosis 26.4 (2009): 216–224. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.
Hurd, Ryan. "Inception and Mutual Lucid Dreaming." Dream Studies Portal. n.p. n.d. 4 Dec. 2012.
Kaufman, Bonnie S. "Cinematic Techniques and Psychic Mechanisms–Psychoanalysis and Film." International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 8.4 (2011): 366–378. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.
Leitch, Vincent B., ed . The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. NewYork: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001. Print.
Maclagan, David. “Dream-Work and Art-Work.” Psychoanalytic Studies 2.4 (2000): 335-342. Print.
Modell, Arnold H. “Some Comments on the Freudian Unconscious.” Psychoanalytic Review 100.4 (2013): 535-541. Print.
Morewedge, Carey K., and Michael I. Norton. “When Dreaming Is Believing: The Motivated) Interpretation of Dreams.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96.2 (2009): 249-264. Print.
Nolan, Christopher. “Inception – The Shooting Script”. Film script. 2010.
Paul, William. “What Does Dr. Judd Want? Transformation, Transference, and Divided Selves in Cat People.” Journal of Film and Video 59.1 (2007): 159-176. Print.
Power, Mick. “Freud and the Unconscious.” The Psychologist 13.12 (2000): 612-614. Print. Taubin, Amy. "Dream Work." Film Comment July-August 2010: 30-35. Print.
Walden, Daniel, and Helena Poch. “Psychoanalysis of Dream: Dream Theory and Its Relationship to Literature and Popular Culture: Freud, Billy Joel, Appelfeld, and Abe.” Journal of Popular Culture 32.1 (1998): 113-120. Print
Whitehouse-Hart, Jo. “Surrendering to the Dream: An Account of the Unconscious Dynamics of a Research Relationship.” Journal of Research Practice 8.2 (2012): 1-16. Print.
Wilson, K. “Introduction to Sigmund Freud’s Theory on Dreams”. Insomnium n.p. 2005. Web. 11 December 2013
