Inception is a story that centers around a man's quest to be reunited with his children and to overcome inner-turmoil related to the death of his wife. In order to rejoin his family he must assemble a team and carry out an impossible mission. Utilizing a combination of technology and chemistry that has been developed by the military to allow multiple subjects to share a single dream, DiCaprio's character (Dom Cobb) performs industrial espionage for desperate and unscrupulous corporations. Cobb's own demons, however, endanger the team and threaten the success of the mission.

In this note, I'd like to reflect on the first of two aspects or elements in the film that held particular significance for me. In a second note, I will write about time and being. The first, however, is the construct of the "totem." 

The Totem

To ground themselves to reality, subjects, dreamers, architects, etc. (roles of persons in a shared dream) all possess an item that holds particular significance to them—a "totem." Their totem will have a specific attribute known only to its possessor. A weighted die is an example. Only its possessor must know on what side it is weighted. This prevents another from constructing a dream to deceive the totem-possessor with her own totem.

Christ Our Totem

I couldn't help making the connection from the totem construct to Christ in the life of the disciple. Sin is a deception. Like the Matrix, it is the "wool pulled over our eyes" to keep us from the Truth. Since the very beginning, our enemy has used deception to separate us from God. His strategy has not changed. In this life, we can fall prey to deception and deceive ourselves. We can believe that money/financial security is our Hope and the source of our self-worth. In fact, we often place our trust in any number of dumb idols (gods who are no gods at all). Like a dream-level built to extract our trust, the system of this world imposes on us a false reality that we must resist. (Rom. 12.2) It is our experience of grace that grounds us to the Truth—the reality of redemption. Christ alone, by his spirit, keeps us anchored to our true identity and relationship to God. (Rom. 8.15) Let us hold tightly to Christ Our Totem in this dream, our lives, that we might remember who we are and what is our reality.