Hey guys, remember in Christopher Nolan's "Inception," where we find out that Cobb and Mal had spent fifty years together inside their own minds, only to discover that no actual time had passed in the real world? Well, Nolan's back at it again, but his latest bit of time wankery is even more surprising -- and it involves "The Dark Knight Rises."

You may remember seeing "The Dark Knight" just three years ago, but it turns out your mind is playing "Inception"-style tricks on you, because according to a new interview with Empire, "The Dark Knight Rises" is actually going to take place a full eight years later.

Did we just blow your mind?

Well, if we did, let's back up a little bit, because we want to be very clear on one point: You will not, in fact, have to wait until 2016 to see "The Dark Knight Rises." No, it's still set to come out on July 20, it's just that, for dramatic purposes, Nolan decided it would be best to fast forward and see just what long-term effects the Joker's rampage have had on the hero called Batman.

"We left him in a very precarious place," Nolan said. "Perhaps surprisingly for some, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after 'The Dark Knight.' So he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we are testing Batman both physically as well as mentally."

And while the villainous Bane may not be as well known to casual Bat-fans as Heath Ledger's Joker was, Tom Hardy thinks you'll find him just as terrifying -- if not more so.

"He’s brutal. Brutal," Hardy said. "He’s a big dude who’s incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. It’s not about fighting. It’s about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it’s nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns. He’s a smashing machine. He’s a wrecking ball. If we’re going to shoot somebody, shoot the pregnant woman or the old lady first. Make sure everybody stands up. He’s a terrorist in his mentality as well as brutal actions. He’s a horrible piece of work."

Guess it's a good thing the movie takes place eight years later, because we might need that long to stop having nightmares about Hardy's description. And Bane's weird face mask thingy? What's up with that?

"He was injured early in his story," costume designer Lindy Hemmings explained. "He's suffering from pain and he needs gas to survive. He cannot survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at the back where there are two cannisters of whatever it is…the anesthetic."

Mind-altering drugs and an eight-year time shift? Sounds like fans may be getting "Inception 2" a little sooner than they expected.