Whose Reality - Yours or Mine?

Inception - one word: AWESOME!

Yes, the cast gave a stellar performance. And the story line is near perfection - like a big complex jigsaw puzzle that fits together with no loose end. And I love the ending bcz it's kind of like Schrodinger's Cat. Whether the totem stopped spinning or continued spinning does not happen, until we (the viewers) ourself make it happen by the conclusion we draw from the ending.

But what I truly love about the movie is the idea behind it. To me the real idea behind it (yes, I know it's not a novel idea) can be seen from the scene where the old man in the sort-of basement with a lot of people sleeping/dreaming denied that all of these people come to sleep, but that "they come to be woken up". The idea is this - Who's to say what you perceive as reality is not really just a dream, and vice versa.

To me there is something distinctly religious about this idea. I have always understood this world, this world that we perceive as reality, with things that we can feel see touch and taste, as but a fleeting dream. To me our soul is THERE, dreaming this dream, before we are woken up to the REAL eternal life. It's like Plato's Shadows in The Cave philosophy. But to a lot of people in this world, this "concrete" world IS reality, and any "abstract" notion of the 'afterlife' is just a dream that we come up with in order to help us cope with that reality.

But when you talk about Reality, THE Question is this: Whose Reality - Yours or Mine?