Inception (Blu-ray) Official AVSForum Review - Page 8

That his totem isn't the top, that was his wife's totem. His totem is his wedding ring. It bothered me that he was using his wife's totem as his own totem when I first saw the film in the theater. After I got home I looked it up and saw a theory that his totem was actually his wedding ring. When I watched it again a couple weeks ago and paid attention to his ring it makes sense. At the end when they all wake up on the plane he is not wearing a ring, so he is awake in the end with this theory. The totem falling or not falling doesn't matter.

I guess I should have worded that better. The totem is used to ensure that they are not caught in someone's else dream. Not necessarily their own dream. That is why they say its important to never let someone else handle your totem. Only the person who's totem it is should know what it feels like. When Arthur is explaining the totem to Ariadne he shows her the dice but doesn't let her touch them or show her how they work. Only he knows how they work and he didn't want her to know and be able to trick him when she creates a dream world. Also even though its not an actual totem, at the beginning of the movie when Saito is on the floor and mentions the carpet is the wrong texture and then he realizes he is in someone's dream. So it's important to have something that only you know the shape and feel of to know if you are in someone else's dream. It's never explained how his ring works but we do know that a few different people have seen and know how the top totem works (His wife, Ariadne and Saito(although he only touched it and doesn't know how exactly it works)). When his wife was alive and before he taught her about Inception he had to have had a totem and it doesn't really make sense for him to take on a different totem that his wife used and then let people touch it and explain how it works to them. That is what I said bothered me when I first saw the movie, then I read about the ring being his totem and it makes sense after watching it again and focusing on the ring. That is something only he knows how it feels when he wears it. As I said its never explained how the ring totem would work, as its not mentioned at all in the movie but if you watch it and look to see when he is wearing it you will notice he is not wearing it in supposed reality and is wearing it in supposed dream sequences. I also believe that along with the main inception of implanting the thought into Fischer's mind to split the company that the others pulled an inception on him to get him over his wife. I think he usually spun the top for his wife and at the end was able to finally let go of her and walk away from the top.