Re: [Dream Training]
Arthur had the advantage of never meeting a woman who was, in actuality, a vacant doll. In his various professions and ultimate reality as more spy than military asset, Arthur simply did not run into fools, either male or female. Sometimes they looked like fools or acted like fools, but even if they were fools, it was drummed into him at a very early stage to treat no one as a fool. Better to assume everyone was a danger, and now he did. Including Eames, who he gave the look a librarian gives an unruly child. "You're getting around to it."
Then he looked at the redhead and nodded. "We call Eames 'the dreamer' and you are going to be 'the subject,' in this case. It sounds backward but it will make sense in a minute. Like he says, Eames provides a structure for you, and your mind is going to fill it in. It is all but impossible to know whether you're a subject dreaming into someone else's structure or not, at first. Especially when you're dealing with a trained expert. Eames," Arthur said, his eyes still on Hannah while only indicating the man with a jerk of his chin and a very strange smile, "is one of the best."
"There's lots of reasons for this that are better than you might get if you're dreaming into the structure provided by, say, a machine. The flexibility and imagination is not something that can usually be replicated." Arthur's tone was academic, but his eye twitched ever so slightly when he said 'usually.' Hannah probably wouldn't notice, but Eames would. Arthur knew that. He got the funny smile again, still not looking at Eames, who didn't know Hannah wasn't fully human yet... unless she had lately told him. Unlikely.
"A good architect can encourage your subconscious to hide things. A good subject can also sometimes subvert the subconscious to dig around, but it is incredibly difficult, and Eames is being paranoid." Now he flashed the other man a grin. "The mind often has natural defenses and if you really start messing around, the defenses go off and they'll hunt you down like a white blood cell hunting out bacteria. Better and faster if they're trained. Eames has got a big fly trap in there so he's being a baby about letting you in." Arthur took Hannah's elbow and started probing the inside of her arm in a clinical way, his fingers cool.