Nolan interview excerpt

Have you always had an interest in making a film about dreams?
A.
Certainly, dreams have been a feature of films in many different ways, for years. What “Inception” deals with is a science fiction concept in which really only one simple thing has changed, which is that you and I are able to experience the same dream at the same time. Once you remove the privacy, you’ve created an infinite number of alternate universes in which people can meaningfully interact – with validity, with weigh, with dramatic consequences.
Q.
So who do you read in preparation to make a movie like this? Freud? Philip K. Dick?
A.
Probably Borges. I’d like to think this is a movie he might enjoy. [laughs] It sounds like a highfalutin reference in some ways, but the truth is, he took these incredibly bizarre philosophical concepts – like a guy facing a firing squad who wants more time to finish a story in his head, and he’s granted more time by time slowing down, as the bullet travels between the gun and him – and makes them into very digestible short stories. “The Matrix,” to me, was another a great example. It was an incredibly palpable mainstream phenomenon that made people think, Hey, what if this isn’t real? Yes, that’s a massively complex philosophical concept in some sense. But in another sense, it’s really simple.