Inception and Deprogramming

Alternate title: Another Framework for Understanding Karma

I was mesmerized by the movie Inception. For some reason, I had resisted watching it for 15 years. On the surface, it was because everyone who suggested I watch it with them had already seen it before, and I wanted to watch something new to both of us. But now I think that I was meant to watch it at the right time in my journey.

In 2025 I had been questioning the nature of this reality for about 2 years. I had arrived at a general Gnostic viewpoint and was fascinated with levels of reality and near death experience reports (NDEs). In one of the NDEs that I watched, an experiencer related their idea that they understood karma to be less of an external judgment wheel of “what goes around comes around” and more of an internal block, a state of holding on to limiting beliefs that impact waking reality.

And then I settled down for what I thought was a blockbuster action movie and was spellbound by the symbolism and concepts contained in Inception.

So here’s my take on how this definition of karma plays out in Inception. Dom Cobb is a man on a quest to be reunited with his children. He is locked into a reality where this is not currently possible, and he feels that this situation is out of his control. Cobb has an encounter with the energy tycoon Mr. Saito, who has the power to change this circumstance. Mr. Saito appears to assess Cobb to be of solid character, and recruits him with the first inception, an offer to clear his karma, saying, “Do you want to take a leap of faith, or become an old man, filled with regret”?

Cobb assembles his team which includes Ariadne, the “Architect”, who creates the dream labyrinth and is the pivotal character in clearing Cobb’s karma.

On each level of reality, Ariadne works to create an inception in Cobb. She plants the idea that his ongoing pain is not ‘real’, but a figment of his past that he is willingly keeping alive. As Cobb descends into increasingly slow and chaotic dream worlds, he must grapple with this new framework. He must decide, in his most inaccessible and unconscious layers, to release the mental and emotional cage in which he keeps himself bound. He must choose the mission of love for his children. If he succumbs to his guilt, pain and regret, the plan will fail. He might even get lost in the deepest levels of density, far from the level of conscious creation and never return to waking life. With Ariadne’s words of compassion, he is able to accept that the past is over and no longer real. He sees that his memory creation of the past is flawed, only the best he could do at the time. He surrenders to this insight and forgives himself and his wife. When Cobb opens his eyes as the flight prepares to descend, he awakens to a new reality. He has conviction and clarity. He is no longer using the same operating system as the one he experienced at takeoff.

Cobb walks off the airplane into an elevated life. As I watched Cobb move through the airport I was left with the surreal sensation that the return to real life was yet another level of a dream. There are many theories about this and the symbolism of the spinning top he places on the table as he turns to greet his children. It is implied that at this point in Cobb’s journey, he is content with his current reality.

How can we know where base reality resides? Is it even possible to consider this a base reality, when we dream each night, and inevitably physically cease to operate, yet science is now showing that consciousness likely continues? Does suffering in consensus reality give us the ‘kick’ we need to recognize this as just one level of endless realities, each more conscious and aligned than the one below?

Can we use inception on ourselves? Can we rewrite the movie that our memory has stored? Can we get to our base code? Which conclusions do we take so much for granted that they have been buried in our unconscious operating system? Arthur initially argues against the idea of inception with Mr. Saito, saying that core beliefs must be self-created, “the subject can always trace the genesis of the idea”. When we trace the genesis of our ideas, we may have created them, but did we have all the knowledge available to us when we put them in place?

Let’s take a “leap of faith”, and with a good team, examine the inception of our ideas. Let’s make sure that they are our own, that they reflect our current vision, and that we walk forward with clear karma into an expanded new dimension.

What are your thoughts on karma, or on optimizing levels of conscious experience? What movies or books nudged you to consider the possibility that our consensus reality might be one layer amongst many?

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