Hehe -- I loved the movie...
None the less, the movie was entertaining and I'm just gonna leave it there. I know movie logic shouldn't be a comparison to real world logic, but the geek in me can't help but point out illogical happenings in the film.
Hence you see your dream to shift from one place, to the other. Here is a very good NOVA documentary on netflix about it: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/What_Are_Dreams_Nova/70129639...
The plot was entertaining and a good idea, but it left a lot to be desired. It's not destined to become a classic like: Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Requiem for a Dream, Primer. If you enjoyed Inception, do yourself a favor and check those out if you haven't seen them.
In dreams (at least mine anyways) there are solutions/objects/processess that suddenly, without explanation, just materialize out of thin air (but makes perfect sense while in the dream) to problems/events that occur in the dream and only realize how absurd the whole thing was when you wake up.
However, I'm in a better mood now and the movie is still wonderfully entertaining.
Particularly on the criteria of plot 'Requiem for a Dream' can surely not be considered a classic. Conceivably if we were willing to overlook the (lack of) plot and consider the cinematography, acting, realism and artistic choice of title then there's at least an argument. Although in my view it is really just 2hrs of Oscar juice and 'great' acting is surprisingly forthcoming given the right subject matter.
Spoilers!
For example, a friend was confused how Fischer could be revived. They explained that death with the heavy sedation would lead to limbo, so it could be concluded that dying was actually just a shortcut to go into a deeper dream state, he wasn't actually "dead". When they woke him up from that dream, he came back.
Another oddity I found was that they needed to synchronize all the kicks, wouldn't one kick in the deepest dream suffice? Well, in one level of dreaming if you think you're falling, you can actually feel it (whether the falling feeling happens in the sleeping environment (dude sleeping in a chair and being tipped) or in the dream (dude being thrown out of a building)), but at 2 levels of dreaming, the falling would be too abstract to cascade all the way up.
You probably found different glitches in the movie, but the above shows the process I used to answer some questions.
(of nesting (of nesting (...)))
It wasn't too much though, the top two were just sleeping in a plane and a falling van, which isn't too much to remember. The elevator scene was just him setting up charges, much more action was happening at the hospital and the limbo level.
* These dreams are far too cohesive and realistic. Dreams aren't like The Matrix where physics is normal and you do something to it. They're more like weird shit happens and you accept it as normal.
* Dreaming nested 3 levels of recursion deep? Done it, didn't need a sedative.
Don't read if you haven't seen it yet!
Saito dies at some level (if I remember right at the top dream level) and he enters limbo. Cobb goes there from the snow compound dream level but Saito has already been there 20-40 years (maybe they said in the movie, I forgot that too). Cobb then helps him remember Saito is in a dream so they can wake up together from the limbo state.
I did really love the idea behind the totem though, very clever.
If someone else has held and seen your totem, they can possible recreate it exactly in a dream. If they can recreate it then they can trick you into thinking you aren't dreaming when you actually are.
...just four?
Hmm, actually there was multi-threading, using sort of kick-based synchronisation primitive.
I think they actually used an actor-based threading model.
try {
// ... do what the OP wrote
} catch (DeathException D) {
enterLimboState() ...
}
}Of course, I also hold a disdain for "proper quoting".