RECONSTRUCTING REALITY IN INCEPTION (2010): A COGNITIVE-CULTURAL ANALYSIS THROUGH PIAGET

This study investigates how Inception (2010) dramatizes memory distortion, perception instability, and the construction of reality through the lens of Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. The film’s protagonist, Cobb, experiences internal dissonance and psychological fragmentation as unresolved emotional trauma warps his cognitive schema. Using Piagetian concepts such as assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium, the analysis reveals how Inception visualizes the mind's struggle to maintain stability in the face of repressed memory and external manipulation. Beyond individual psychology, the film engages with contemporary cultural anxieties surrounding the fluidity of truth, the unreliability of memory, and the mediated construction of reality in a post-digital age. The layered dream architecture becomes a metaphor for modern cognitive confusion, where the boundaries between fact and fabrication collapse. This paper contributes to interdisciplinary discussions on how film can serve as a cultural lens for examining psychological dissonance and epistemological uncertainty. In bridging cognitive theory with narrative cinema, the study positions Inception as a reflection of collective memory crises in 21st-century cultural consciousness.