ok so i watched it 2x but i still couldn’t figure out something. watchit again and let me know what you think. from various blogs:

Points that favor Carter still being in a dream: via http://www.popcrunch.com/inception-ending-explained/

Cobb’s children are wearing the same clothes in their reunion that they have been wearing in Cobb’s dreams throughout the movie.
Cobb’s children also haven’t aged in comparison to his memories of them. This seems impossible as time has clearly passed since he was forced to leave the US.
Cobb’s top is still spinning as the movie cuts to credits. (But is it about to topple?)
Point that favors Cobb being awake:

CinemaBlend points out that Cobb is shown wearing a wedding ring at the beginning of the movie, and that throughout the movie he is shown wearing a ring during dream sequences but not during reality sequences. At the end of the movie he is not wearing his ring.

Another possibility, one with legs I think, is that Cobb is actually having an extremely elaborate inception performed on him (possibly for the purpose of helping him get over his guilt concerning his wife Mal), and that the Fischer storyline is simply a part of it.

also maybe:

- Perhaps Inception was the teams work in Saito’s mind on the plane for him to make the phone call. So, Fischer was a part of the team. Saito was manipulated to give them the work.

- Cobb and Saito kill each other (since Saito died few minutes early – inside the dream – he spent much longer) – then in the second layer – they drown – and die – and eventually wake up in the plane.

also:

After meeting the chemist, Cobb tries a bit of the sedative, and he has an intense dream of his wife, and he wakes up rather vividly on his own, no kick, no dieing. The chemist says something along the lines of “Pretty potent stuff, right?”

Cobb’s then immediately goes to the washroom, washes his face to help wake him up. He pulls out the top and spins it to see if he is still dreaming or awake. Someone walks over, and Cobb conveniently knocks over the top onto the ground, and picks it up, and we never see it top fall from then on.

Cobb could still be dreaming inside the chemist’s chair. Not saying I side with this theory but its a possibility.

also:

I think hes still in the dream and that, now that he’s let Mal go, he can let go of the wedding ring which would explain why hes not wearing it at the end. Along with that, if u recall when Ariadne enters his memories at night, he shows her the memory of his children and how he didnt call out to them. He told her with deep regret that he could not change these memories as much as he tried therefore stating that he’s more or less hanging on to them. When he lets go of Mal, he now has free range to manipulate his memories and become and architect again. He does this by changing his limbo into his memory of the house and calling out to his children this time, having no distractions to keep him from doing so. Therefore, he is still in Limbo, but at least hes happy.

i like this version:
MY SPIN>>>>
The ending: Cobb has no wedding ring on as dream sequence, child actors are older but dressed similiarly ( check end scroll of actors names are different..no longer 3 and 20 months are now 6 and 3yo) their shoes are different, to…p spins but cuts away as begins to topple or wobble at least, signifying reality. Having enormousquilt from the death of Mal, his wife, I think the whole thing is a dream from the chemist chair onto the wash room washing his face after the first or only dose of a drug. I think Michael Caine, his father, who always enlightens in every movie as a teacher it seems, covertly arranges for a life lesson to his con loving son. A businessman, who is a con artist and manipulator, wakes to real love..his children. He walks away from the totem not even caring if a dream or reality in the end ( isolated time…the rest of movie he is obsessed with the totem). Always deterred from seeing their faces from his escapades placing his con and business first, he finally ‘knows” true reality. The love for his children forces him to want to live and through the dream sequences relieves his quilt, chaotic emotions and confusion to live peacefully with them and himself finally.. without his wife.

and finally:

It is NOT a dream: The WEDDING RING gives it away.

I have now seen this movie three times. The first time I saw it I thought it was not a dream and he was home. When I saw discussions to the contrary, I saw it again looking for any clues to tell whether he is dreaming the whole time, and questioned the ending thoroughly. It was not until I saw a post about someone saying he is only wearing a wedding ring when he dreams. Multiple people shot it down saying that they saw him wearing it in reality or that he was not wearing it in this dream or that one. My third viewing had me looking for the ring in almost every shot, seeing if his totem ever falls in a dream (Something someone said happened), looking at his children’s faces to see if they are the same, etc.

My analysis as follows:

The Wedding Ring:

We start the movie with Cobb in limbo with Saito, he is wearing a ring. Step back to the beginning, he is trying to convince Saito to let him into his mind to help protect it, this takes place in a dream two layers down. He is wearing a wedding ring. Things go south and we wake up in the apartment, where we think an angry mob is really coming down the street. They threaten Saito’s life with him thinking it is reality, only for him to discover otherwise. In this entire scene Cobb is wearing a wedding ring. Wake up on the train, NO WEDDING RING. In the hotel suite on the phone with his kids, NO WEDDING RING. On the roof talking to Saito, NO WEDDING RING. France, the architecture university, NO WEDDING RING. The coffee shop in Ariadne’s first shared dream, Cobb is wearing his wedding ring, she freaks out. They wake up in the workshop, NO WEDDING RING. They go back under and Ariadne explores the physics of the dreamworld, again Cobb is wearing a wedding ring.

Cobb goes to see Eames, the entire time not wearing a ring. He meets the new chemist, still no ring. The chemist gives him a quick taste of his latest potion, in that scene we get a quick glimpse of his hand with a WEDDING RING. Wakes up, no ring. See the pattern?

So finally, the inception. We are on the plane, we clearly see is not wearing a ring. Level 1, WEDDING RING, Level 2, WEDDING RING, Level 3 WEDDING RING, Limbo he is wearing his WEDDING RING.

After he meets Saito as an old man, the conversation continues past what we saw in the beginning, yet even here he is wearing a WEDDING RING still. Then, when Saito reaches for the gun, we are on an airplane. He is not wearing a wedding ring here.

HERE IS THE KEY. As he is walking through the terminal, no ring, as he is greeted by father in law, no ring, when he gets home and spins his totem, no ring.

In his dreams he is married to Mul still, as she can still exist there. In reality, he knows she is dead and does not wear a wedding ring as he is no longer married. A simple yet easily unnoticed way to test which parts are reality.

Not done there, I investigated another thing, Cobb’s totem:

I have seen many posts of people saying his totem falls when he is in others’ dreams. This is simply not true. People say it wobbles and falls over in the beginning. I watched and listened closely, Saito spins the top and we hear it spinning as the scene cuts to the young Saito. Then, in the end when we see him old again, he looks down and it is still spinning, he knows he is not in reality and goes for the gun.

When Cobb uses inception on Mul, it continues and never stops. In the hotel after the failed Saito mission, it falls. A funny thing to note is that every scene in which the top spins endlessly he is wearing a WEDDING RING. In the scenes in which it topples, he is not.

Now, the awakening scene. Looks an awful lot like a dream right? Not really. He wakes up on the plane surprised, but everyone is smiling. They woke up from the sedatives, but Cobb and Saito were down in limbo. When they got back, everyone is happy to see he made it, Saito looks just as stunned only backing up the fact that he really snapped back to reality. They are all getting bags, going through customs, etc. Everyone looks at each other with a grin because they know inception worked and that Cobb is finally home. Not very dream-like except that it seems like a dream come true. Had the scene after he and Saito with the gun been him in his home, him on his way to his home, etc, I would think it is a dream. No, he awakens in EXACTLY the place he went to sleep to start inception. You never really know how you get to where you are in a dream do you? Then how does he know he is on a plane and just successfully completed inception on Robert Fischer, the man in front of him?

Finally, the home scene. Looks like a dream? In this case, yes it does. we see the children exactly where they were, doing the same thing, wearing the same clothes. They appear the same age. On my second viewing this was red flag that it was a dream. But on my third viewing I noticed slight differences, such as the kids looking slightly older. The cast list has two sets of kids listed, ones slightly older than the others. They are not voice casts but actual actors in the film. I especially noticed a difference as the camera pans towards the totem, I chose to focus on the back door with the kids. The girl is seen throwing herself on her father, in this scene she looks clearly older than the memory he has of her.

And of course, the totem itself. I watched each spin my third time through. It spun flawlessly for a while, began to wobble slightly, then started a hard wobble then fall. In the final scene it appears to be spinning smoothly for a long time, he probably gave it a lot of power. It starts to slightly wobble, and the screen goes black after it begins a HARD WOBBLE as if it is about to topple, not correct itself.

Conclusion: The movie isn’t a dream, Cobb isn’t caught in some “limbo that looks a lot like reality.” Cobb spends the entire movie trying to get to his kids in reality, why would he settle for shades in a limbo? What proof is there that he is dreaming the whole time? If he is dreaming at the end, where is he dreaming? Limbo? So he goes from talking to Saito to just waking up on a plane, all as a part of a dream in limbo? Really? Think about it.

Nolan would never take the “eeet was aaaaalll a dreeeeaaaammmmm” cliche way out. But the fact that he cut the film before the top falls over does have a meaning. He is planting a seed of doubt in your mind. He uses inception on the audience to have them question the ending. The concept of the movie thus becomes reality to the viewer, a heavy thing to think about and something that hasn’t been done before.

But all the evidence points to reality.

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