plot explanation - How does Ariadne know that Saito is dead in the upper level? - Movies & TV

When they are in the limbo, we see Ariadne asking Cobb to find and get Saito and not to lose himself before jumping from the building. However, before they entered this limbo Saito was still alive.

He dies protecting these dreaming people - Fischer, Cobb and Ariadne in the Snow Fortress in third level.

But, how does Ariadne know that he is dead in the upper level, when she asks Cobb to find and get him? He was alive before they started dreaming, so they shouldn't know it right? Am I missing something or is it a mistake?

Answer

(Personally I do have a lot of sympathy with your thought that this is a plot hole - but here is a train of thought that might explain it)

To be fair on Ariadne, it is actually Cobb who first asserts that Saito is dead. From the script:

    ARIADNE

Cobb, I'm not going to let you lose 
yourself in here! You have to get 
back to your children!

    COBB 
Send Fischer, I have to stay

    ARIADNE
You can't stay here to be with her


    COBB
I'm not. Saito is dead by now. That 
means he's here. I have to stay 
here and find him.

I know that making the distinction between Cobb and Ariadne first suggesting that Saito is dead seems very nitpicky, as we can ask the same question 'how does he know?'. However it does give a sliver of a reason why this might not be a plot hole. As pointed out earlier in the story when it is revealed how strong their sedation is:

    EAMES
So what happens if one of us dies?


    COBB
That person doesn't wake up. Their 
mind drops into Limbo.

    ARIADNE
Limbo?

    ARTHUR 
Unconstructed dream space.


    ARIADNE 
What's down there?

    ARTHUR
Raw, infinite subconscious. Nothing 
there but what was left behind by 
anyone on the team who's been trapped 
there before. On this team... just 
Cobb.

Cobb is the only person in the party who has been to Limbo and what was left behind by Cobb is the only thing filling Limbo. This residual Limbo can only have lived on within Cobb's mind - almost like Limbo is his dream. Cobb as the only visitor to Limbo has got some more ownership over it than the others until they inhabit it and claim it for their own. Ariadne and Cobb have only been in limbo a few minutes or perhaps a few hours, which would only be a very short time in the dream layer above, but perhaps Cobb through his stronger connection with Limbo and the world he created in it, he can sense that Saito has died and entered it with them.

Tenuous I know - but it is my only 'in universe' explanation.