Cobb's team is woken by being driven into a river.
| “ | It's that feeling of falling you get that jolts you awake. It snaps you out of a dream. | ” |
—Cobb | ||
One method used to awaken from a dream within a dream is called a "kick", which is the sensation of falling, hitting water, or a sharp jolt that can startle the sleeper and force them awake.
A kick is usually performed on one's sleeping body, not one's body in the dream within the dream. However, in order to wake a sleeper when using a sedative that allows shared dreaming within multiple-level dreams, only synchronized kicks can create enough impact to wake a sleeper. When dreaming three or four levels deep, synchronized kicks require the sleeper to experience a kick on their bodies within the innermost dream, and on all dream levels where their body is sleeping. This would require significant planning and synchronization in order to perform such a kick through multiple dream levels. As dreaming multiple levels deep causes time dilation, a kick that occurs instantaneously in a lower level will last longer in a higher level, thereby making it easier to synchronize a kick the further through dream levels a sleeper is.
Playing a musical cue in the ears of a sleeper is an effective way to warn one of an incoming kick and coordinate multiple kicks.