Somnacin is the fictional drug used to sedate participants in Christopher Nolan’s Inception.
In the film, Somnacin is part of the equipment and chemical process that allows a group of people to share a constructed dream. The characters use a powerful sedative so the dreamers can remain connected while the extraction or inception operation takes place.
The drug is associated with the PASIV device, whose full name is the Portable Automated Somnacin Intravenous. PASIV is the machine used to connect the participants, while Somnacin is the fictional substance that enables the synchronized dream state. These terms are related but are not interchangeable.
The film also introduces the concept of “kicks,” sudden sensations that help wake dreamers, and “limbo,” an unconstructed dream space reached after deep levels of dreaming. Those ideas can cause confusion in quiz answers, but the sedative’s name is specifically Somnacin.