Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
I'm not sure I completely get the totem thing either, but I think you have one specific backwards. Your totem is yours and yours alone. You are not to let anyone else handle your totem. You can mess with anyone elses totem, its up to them to keep it to themselves.
The purpose of the totems was to allow the dreamers to determine if they were in a dream at the present time or in reality. Example: Arthur's totem was a loaded die. We can assume that when rolled in the real world, it would roll the same number every time. Say that Arthur entered Cobb's dream. Well Cobb knew Arthur had a loaded die, but he didn't know which number it was loaded to. So if Arthur was in Cobb's dream, we can assume that the loaded die would behave like a normal die. This would allow Arthur to determine if he was in a dream by rolling the die. If Cobb got his hands on the die in the real world, then Arthur would have to find a new totem.