Things You Only Notice About Inception After Watching It More Than Once

In the first scene of "Inception," Cobb washes ashore and is taken by private security to an elaborate house on the cliffs above. As the host — a very old man (Saito) — speaks, the camera focuses on Cobb's hands while he eats from a bowl, pausing on his wedding ring. This ring isn't always on Cobb's hand, leading to some interesting fan theories about its significance and link to the dream state.

Some argue that since Cobb told Ariadne he and Mal (Marion Cotillard) are still together in his dreams, Cobb only wears his ring in the dream world, and a careful viewing of the film does suggest this is an indicator of reality for the audience. As discussed by Den of Geek, some fan theories even suggest Cobb's totem (an object used to verify reality) is actually his wedding ring and not the spinning top that once belonged to his dead wife, Mal. Still, others refute the ring theory, and there are multiple Reddit threads arguing for and against it.

If you watch Cobb's hand for the entirety of the film, many believe you can ascertain when he is in a dream state and when he is awake, leading fans of this theory to believe Cobb is awake when he goes home to his children at the end of the film. We can see he is not wearing a wedding ring after the flight attendant hands Cobb immigration papers on the plane and while he is entering the country. The inconsistency of Cobb's wedding ring's presence probably isn't something you noticed the first time you watched the movie, but if you pay attention to the ring in subsequent viewings, it is a persuasive argument for Cobb reuniting with his children.

When Cobb tells Ariadne they need a totem — an object used to verify if you are in a dream state or awake in reality — he explains that no one else is supposed to touch your totem or know how it works. Arthur elaborates, explaining how his totem is a loaded die, and he is the only one who knows how the die rolls in reality. Cobb, using Mal's spinning top as his totem, is unreliable for multiple reasons.

If the top was Mal's totem before her death, she touched it and knew how it worked, disqualifying the object as a suitable totem for Cobb (unless, of course, you are 100% positive Mal is dead). At one point, Saito also touches the top, disqualifying it as an appropriate totem. Additionally, Cobb tells Ariadne how the top is supposed to behave, making it useless as his totem, as there would be no way for him to use it to differentiate between reality and a dream Ariadne built.

David Kyle Johnson, who has a doctorate in philosophy, wrote a persuasive article on just this subject for Psychology Today. Johnson argues (like we do) that the top is useless to Cobb because he knows how it works. "This is why a totem can only tell you that you are, as Arthur tells us, 'not in someone else's dream,'" he wrote. "Since you know how it behaves in the real world, it can behave that way in your dream." Cobb's top would only tell him if he is in someone else's dream, not his own. Ariadne and Mal, knowing how the top works, compound these problems, suggesting he wouldn't know if he was in Mal's, Ariadne's, or his own dream, rendering the totem useless.

Knowing if Cobb is reunited with his children in the real world is one of the biggest questions of the film. Throughout "Inception," Cobb repeatedly sees his children in the distance with their backs turned while in the dream state. He also revisits his memories in the dream state (against his own rules) to see his children. While we never see their faces, their clothing and apparent age stay the same, although they are played by different actors in the last scene, which suggests they have aged (per IMDb).

If Cobb has been on the run from authorities because he is a suspect in his wife's death, one would expect the children to have grown significantly during this separation. But when we see Cobb's children in the last scene of the film, they look the same, even down to their clothing. The only apparent difference is that they finally turn around, allowing Cobb to see their faces before he embraces them. This is exactly something that would only make sense in a dream, supporting the theory that the entire film takes place in a dream.

Throughout "Inception," specific sets of numbers are repeated in different combinations. The most obvious combinations are 528 and 491. We see these numbers throughout the dream levels created to plant an idea in Fischer's mind — they're written on a bar napkin as an incomplete phone number and given to Fischer in the second level of the dream; and they are the numbers of the hotel rooms where the team is asleep on the second dream level, while Arthur fights projections in a gravity-free rotating hallway. Eventually, these numbers become the combination of the safe inside the snow fortress in the third level of the dream, where Fischer opens the safe containing the idea of breaking up his father's energy empire after inheriting it.

But these aren't the only repeating numbers in the film ⁠— they are just the most obvious. We see another set of numbers jumbled throughout the entire film, crossing over from what we believe to be real and the dream world. Mal killed herself in a hotel room with the number 5302, and the train that kills Cobb and Mal in limbo is 3502, sharing the number of the train that barrels down on Ariadne and Cobb in the first level of the dream designed for Fischer. Elsewhere, the taxi in the first level of the dream used to abduct Fischer has the number 2305 on the back.

All of these numbers use the digits "3," "5," "0," and "2" in different combinations, and we see them throughout the film in various dream levels and in Cobb's memories of Mal's suicide. Is it possible these repeating numbers are Cobb's subconscious trying to tell him he is trapped in a dream? Or is Cobb the real target for inception? Is the team actually using these numeric clues to help him find closure with Mal and let go of his guilt so he can move on with his life, as That Film Theory suggests? We'll likely never know or certain.

We already understand that Ariadne's name is symbolically important to her role in the film. Like Ariadne from Greek myths, she is there to lead Cobb out of the dream he has become lost in. But what about Dom Cobb's name? The phonetic pronunciation of Cobb, "khwaab," means "dream" in Urdu, Hindi, and Sanskrit. And there is another word associated with Cobb — "cobweb" — that conjures the image of a fly trapped in a cobweb. But in "Inception," Cobb is trapped in the web of a dream.

The word associations don't end with Cobb's last name. As a Latin root, his first name, Dom, means "home." Some fan theories posit Cobb is like the old men in the chemist's basement — the dream has become his home and his reality. But, when -dom is used as a suffix, it means a state of being: "kingdom," "fiefdom," or "freedom." In this case, Dom Cobb could translate to "dream state." But the commonly accepted English meaning for the name Dom is "lord." While this might not convince everyone, those of us who believe dreams are symbolic know Dom Cobb's name has significance.

When Cobb visits Miles in Paris, Cobb is ostensibly there to recruit a new architect through his father-in-law. But the conversation they have is cryptic. When Miles suggests Cobb build the dream himself rather than drawing someone else into his fantasy, Cobb says, "Mal won't let me." At which point, Miles looks at him sadly, saying, "Come back to reality, Dom, please."

While Miles never refutes the alleged charges against Cobb that came after Mal's death, Miles does think Dom is living a fantasy. But whether this means Cobb is trapped in a dream or simply unwilling to let go of Mal is ambiguous. Is this another instance of Cobb's subconscious trying to tell him he is stuck in a dream? Is Miles a projection of Cobb's subconscious? Are all the characters in the film, as Cobb explains to Ariadne, manifestations of his subconscious trying to alert him to the unreality of his world?

Another fan theory that came from this meeting between Miles and Cobb is that Miles has enlisted Ariadne's help to guide Cobb out of the dream world he is lost in, making Cobb the target real for inception, not Fischer. Den of Geek acknowledged this fan theory, saying, "There certainly were parallels between Cobb's catharsis with Mal and that of Cillian Murphy's Fischer, their mark who's been targeted for inception."

Cobb's team uses the song "Non, je ne regrette rien" by the French singer Edith Piaf to announce the end of a shared dream. The line translates from French to English as "No, I regret nothing." If you believe Cobb is still trapped in a dream at the end of the film, this is, in a sense, his answer to Saito's question, "So, do you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?" If you believe Cobb does wake up at the end of the film to be reunited with his family, you may think the song had its intended effect ⁠— giving Cobb the kick he needs to awake from limbo having accomplished his inception of Fischer, ready to move forward with his life with his children at his side.

For those of you who believe the entire film is Cobb's dream, the significance of the song is almost impossible to ignore — and also absolutely perfect! As confirmed by Rotten Tomatoes, the running time of the film is 2 hours and 28 minutes, and the length of the original Piaf song is 2 minutes and 28 seconds. The length of the song correlates with the length of the film, giving us a reminder that dream time is experienced as being longer than real-time, meaning an entire film could take place within one song in a dream. Hans Zimmer, who created the original score from the Piaf song, certainly seems to confirm the centrality of the song to the themes of the film (via  The Guardian).