You know how after a long trip and you open the door to your home and everything smells the same, everything feels the same, like you've never really left? Like somehow your journey took place on a different timeline and somehow it only feels like you've been gone for a day? There's that moment when you feel different and you know you'll adjust but things just aren't the same yet.
I watched Inception for the second time recently. At the very end, right after the climax, when Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio's character) awakens on the airplane, there's a moment when Cobb looks around and has to adjust to reality. DiCaprio did a spectacular job at capturing what that moment feels like. Unlike Cobb, I don't jump in and out of people's subconscious for years and years but when I saw that scene again I was drawn into DiCaprio's acting and could relate to that feeling.
I immediately associated it to reverse culture shock. It's like carrying around an invisible pack. Sometimes the transition is smooth and sometimes it's rough and emotionally taxing but it's something only you experience. Others can sympathize but no one else can fully relate to the experience you had. Even fellow travelers must part ways and cannot continue to share a past experience in the same way. You must readjust to your own life and the period of transition spurns introspection that is intimate and unique to only you. Eventually the readjustment happens and there is no more transition and no more pack to speak of.
Anyway, watch 0:00 to 1:10 (a less choppier version here).
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