Mimpi dalam Mimpi: Christopher Nolan & Borges

Bilakah kali terakhir anda terjatuh dalam sebuah mimpi? Bilakah kali terakhir anda mimpi dilanggar kereta? Bilakah kali terakhir anda mimpi lemas di dasar sebuah tasik? Bilakah kali terakhir anda terpejam di siang hari dan anda hilang sekejap meninggalkan tubuh anda di atas bangku? Bilakah kali terakhir anda menemui diri anda yang lebih muda sedang mengejar mimpi yang anda sendiri sudah lupa ketika anda berjaga? Barangkali kita seperti watak Leonardo DiCaprio dalam Inception, kita meragui apa kita lihat, kita tertanya-tanya jika kita masih bermimpi, atau terjaga ke dalam sebuah mimpi yang lain.   

Menurut Christopher Nolan, salah satu inspirasi filem Inception ialah cerpen Jorge Luis Borges berjudul 'The Circular Ruins.' Beliau menceritakannya kepada Tom Shone yang menulis buku kajian The Nolan Variations: The Movies, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan: 

I think with anything that you wind up loving and come back to over the years is partly because it has more sophisticated version of some of the things you were already thinking about or interested in, and partly because it opens up new idea for you. It's both. So the dream within a dream thing, I certainly had before I read Borges, but 'The Circular Ruins' is a very resonant story for that reason, and I come back to it a lot. With those Borges short stories, you have to something rattling inside you already that then connects with that, but if you're not already predisposed to that, if it just comes to you as a story, it doesn't necessarily spark anything.  

Seperti saat Leonardo DiCaprio jatuh ke dalam limbo, cerpen 'The Circular Ruins' bermula dengan seorang lelaki terdampar di atas pantai. Bagaimana dia sampai ke situ? Kenapa dia tercampak ke situ? Dia merangkak-rangkak bangun, dalam keadaan serba luka, lalu menemui sebuah kuil ajaib dengan patung harimau dan kuda memayungi bumbungnya. Dia tertidur di atas lantai kuil, dan apabila dia kembali membuka mata, lukanya sudah sembuh. Dia yakin sekarang dia telah menemui kuil yang melunaskan impiannya untuk terus tidur: 

The goal that led him on was not impossible, though it was clearly supernatural: He wanted to dream a man. He wanted to dream him completely, in painstaking detail, and impose him upon reality. The magical objective had come to fill his entire soul; if someone had asked him his own name, or inquired into any feature of his life till then, he would not have been able to answer. The uninhabited and crumbling temple suited him, for it was a minimum of visible world; so did the proximity of the woodcutters, for they saw his frugal needs. The rice and fruit of their tribute were nourishment enough for his body, which was consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming. 

Mimpi untuk melahirkan seorang manusia sempurna dalam mimpi sebenarnya lebih kena dengan impian seorang novelis. Bukan pencerita fabulis seperti Borges. Tapi pemetaan imaginasi Borges ialah pemetaan semua manusia saat dia memejamkan mata. Kita mimpi bukan untuk lari dari realiti; kita mimpi untuk bangun di atas pantai realiti yang sebenar.