Coming back to reality is an ironic use of a common human expression. It's something you hear every day put in a new light by extraordinary circumstances.
It might no longer matter to you what happens with the totem, you might walk outside instead of getting an answer. That's the authors choice to leave some with uncertainty. You might not like his or her decision to stop regretting and doubting is too passive. Do you need to PICK UP THE TOTEM before it produces an answer. Walking away from it could be cop out because of the nature of the totem. If he or she walks back in an hour later, the totem would still give an answer. That lacks actual resolution for the character, they need to take action to show how much they don’t care about the totem. If the answer doesn't matter to the character, then it needs to be played out in a way that doesn’t leave the answer spinning on a table. Is it or isn’t it is the recurring debate. Having that debate misses the point about characters resolution. And when it ends, it could be made more clear how irrelevant that debate is…while still leaving the debate unanswered.
Or…If you lost the totem during the journey would you start to have significant doubts.
Peace, DAG!
