ARIADNE
But are you trying to fool him that the dream is actually real life?
COBB
(nods)
While we’re in there, We don’t want him to realize he’s dreaming.
ARIADNE
How could I ever get enough detail to convince him that it’s real?
COBB
Our dreams reel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up we realize things were strange.
Ariadne gestures around them—
ARIADNE
But all the textures of real life — the stone, the fabric, cars… people… your mind can’t create all this.
COBB
It does. Every time you dream. Let me ask you a question: You never remember the beginning of your dreams, do you? You just turn up in the middle of what’s going on.
ARIADNE
I guess.
COBB
So… how did we end up at this restaurant?
ARIADNE
We came here from…
Ariadne trails off, confused.
COBB
How did we get here? Where are we?
Ariadne THINKS, unable to remember. A FAINT RUMBLE begins.
ARIADNE
Oh my God. We’re dreaming.
Cobb nods. The RUMBLE is BUILDING.
COBB
Stay calm. We’re actually asleep in the workshop. This is your first lesson in shared dreaming, remember?
Ariadne looks around, mind REELING. Cobb BRACES—
The restaurant VIOLENTLY FRAGMENTS, EXPLODING AND IMPLODING PARTICLES OF FURNITURE, WALLS, PEOPLE FLYING AROUND — Ariadne WONDERS at the MAYHEM WHIRLING around them — Cobb SHIELDS his head against the debris. She sees him—
ARIADNE
(shouting over noise)
If it’s just a dream, why are you covering your—
Ariadne is WIPED FROM HER SEAT BY A MASSIVE BLAST and we—
CUT TO:
INT. WORKSHOP — DAY
Ariadne JOLTS awake.
COBB (O.S.)
Because it’s never just a dream.
Ariadne turns to Cobb’s voice. They are both sitting in the lawn chairs. Arthur watches over them.
COBB
And a face full of glass hurts like hell, doesn’t it? While we’re in it, it’s real.
ARTHUR
That’s why the military developed dream sharing — a training program where soldiers could strangle, stab and shoot each other, then wake up.
ARIADNE
How did architects get involved?
COBB
Someone had to design the dreams.
(to Arthur)
Let’s go another five minutes—
ARIADNE
We were only asleep for five minutes? We talked for an hour at least…
COBB
When you dream, your mind functions more quickly, so time seems to pass more slowly.
ARTHUR
Five minutes in the real world gives you an hour in the dream.
COBB
Let’s see how much trouble you can cause in five minutes. And we—
CUT TO:
EXT. SAME PARISIAN STREET — DAY
Ariadne walks down the crowded street with Cobb. Cobb looks around at the street, the cafe, approving.
COBB
It’s good. You’ve got the cafe, the layout… you forgot the book shop but pretty much everything else is here.
Ariadne looks at the passers-by.
ARIADNE
Who are the people?
COBB
They’re projections of my subconscious.
ARIADNE
Yours?
COBB
Sure — you are the dreamer, I am the subject. My subconscious populates your world. That’s one way we get at a subject’s thoughts — his mind creates the people, so we can literally talk to his subconscious.
ARIADNE
How else do you do it?
COBB
Architecture. Build a bank vault or a jail, something secure, and the subject’s mind will fill it with information he’s trying to protect.
ARIADNE
Then you break in and steal it.
COBB
Exactly.
Ariadne wonders at the detail of the street.
ARIADNE
I love the concrete sense of things—
(stamps foot)
Real weight, you know? I thought a dream space would be all about the visual, but it’s the feel of things. Question is, what happens as you start to mess with physics…
She CONCENTRATES on the street. The street starts to BEND IN HALF — the buildings on either side FOLDING IN until they form the INSIDE OF A CUBE OF CITY, GRAVITY FUNCTIONING INDEPENDENTLY ON EACH PLANE. Ariadne looks up (or down) at the people on the opposite city surface. Cobb watches her excitement.
ARIADNE
It’s something, isn’t it?
COBB
(quiet)
Yes. It is.
As they walk, Ariadne notices more and more of the projections STARING at her.
ARIADNE
Why are they looking at me?
COBB
Because you’re changing things. My subconscious feels that someone else is creating the world. The more you change things, the quicker the projections converge on you.
ARIADNE
Converge?
COBB
They feel the foreign nature of the dreamer, and attack — like white blood cells fighting an infection.
ARIADNE
They’re going to attack us?
COBB
Just you, actually.
They walk along the street to where it joins the next gravitational plane. They step up onto the different plane and walk down the street towards a river. As Ariadne approaches, steps emerge from the flagstone, and she leads Cobb up onto a small jetty. As she concentrates, pillars emerge and a BRIDGE starts to telescope out from the jetty. They step onto it as it grows. Cobb is impressed.
COBB
It’s beautiful… but if you keep on changing things…
People crossing the bridge STARE at Ariadne. Several of them BUMP her shoulder as they pass.
ARIADNE
Mind telling your subconscious to take it easy?
COBB
That’s why it’s called subconscious. I don’t control it.
The bridge now spans the Seine. Cobb marvels at it.
COBB
Arched stone, iron pillars… it’s…
36.
Cobb pauses, thinking. Remembering.
INSERT CUT: Mal, hair blowing, turns to Cobb, smiling, laughing. He smiles back. They are on the same bridge.
COBB
I know this bridge. This place is real—
(serious)
You didn’t imagine it, you remembered it…
ARIADNE
(nods)
I cross it every day on my way to the college.
COBB