don't open your eyes [unlimited]

"What the hell is going on?"

Z1's pupils shrank: "Why did the cocoon's detection make such a mistake?"

Judging from the current situation, it is certain that the passenger ship will encounter a sea storm that symbolizes death.But the clues provided by "cocoon" did lead them all the way to that ship.

"In the programming of 'cocoon', it's not a mistake." Ling Su rubbed his neck.

He glanced at the rags that Z1 was still clutching in his hand, raised his hand and swiped in the air, and a virtual flowing beach appeared in front of them.

This kind of virtual picture can only be seen by dreamers like them.The other people in the tavern were still in shock and panic caused by this explosive news, and no one had the heart to pay attention to the movement here.

"It's better to start from the beginning."

Ling Su casually built the outlines of different buildings, raised his head and asked Z1, "Have you ever seen a mirage?"

Z1 frowned and nodded silently.

Although Ling Su's style of painting is very rough and abstract, it is not difficult to recognize that what he is building is the port in the Dreamland.

It’s hard to notice when you’re in it, but when Ling Su gradually built the entire consciousness flow sand table, Z1 sat and looked at it from his own perspective, and suddenly his eyes widened: “This is the last time we left by boat, when we arrived. The little town in—”

Ling Su nodded, and he snapped his fingers lightly. After a cluster of flames went out, the same shadow as the port appeared on the other side of the sea.

Immediately afterwards, he used a child's stick figure style to daub a few times casually, filling in the blue sky, white clouds and tall buildings in the real world.

The car on the road turned on its tail lights a few times, beeped its horn, and started running by itself.

As soon as Z1 regained its mind from the abstract mirage, it was sprayed with exhaust fumes from the same drifting cartoon car in "Cars".

He looked at the mixed painting style in front of him, which was enough to cause some kind of mental pollution, and his mood was a bit complicated: "Ling team, or you can just talk about it, and you don't draw a schematic diagram..."

"Don't interrupt." The hypnotist was watching intently, and pressed Z1, "Concentrate on watching."

Zhuang Die, who was sitting opposite and was also watching intently, also looked away, and looked up at Z1 with serious condemnation.

Z1: "..."

Ling Su leaned back in the chair and smiled: "That's the point."

He dialed the schematic diagram with an unknown style, and it slowly rotated, and finally shrunk to a suitable size, and landed on the table between them.

"If the hard stones, concrete and tarmac are the physical world we live in, the ocean is the vast subconscious world."

Ling Su said: "The soft sandy beach is where the 'Dreamland' is located."

"Normal ordinary dreams have no boundaries because they float in the subconscious ocean—you can't find a clear line between water and water in an ocean."

Ling Su clicked on the beach: "But if the sea water overflows here after high tide, then it's not necessarily true."

The only highly simulated sea waves hit the reef, making an extremely distant roar.The sea water surged up chasing Ling Su's fingers, and it seemed that he could still touch a little real splash.

Z1 wiped the rain off his face and closed the window.

He sat up straight and looked at the small puddles left on the beach in the virtual screen: "These are the dream fields?"

Z1 vaguely understood Ling Su's meaning: "The so-called dream domain is actually a dream stranded in the place closest to reality...they are becoming more and more, because the subconscious ocean is rising."

"Very apt."

Ling Su nodded: "In the first three months before the dream changed, there was only so much to explore..."

"Wait." The hypnotist was stunned for a moment, "Didn't the dream only change for more than three months?"

Z1 stared at Ling Su for a while, then retracted his gaze, and explained to the hypnotist: "That's the flow of time in reality, and Team Ling is talking about the 'cocoon' timing method."

In the introduction about the Pioneers, it was mentioned that in order to gain enough time to cope with the mutation of the dream realm, the ratio of the internal basic time flow rate of "cocoon" to reality was adjusted to 10:1.

The time flow rate of some key departments has been adjusted slower, such as the technology research and development department, which has been adjusted to 40:1.That's why so many new functions can be developed in such a short period of time with an almost impossible super high efficiency.

More than three months in the real world, at least three years have passed in "Cocoon".

Z1 has already begun to have doubts about Ling Su's identity, but after hesitating for a long time, he still didn't ask further: "Ling team, please continue...Did you discover something new later?"

"Yes." Ling Su said, "At that time, the requirement for the pioneers was to go as far as possible... Three months later, the group of people who traveled the farthest also found a beach on the opposite side of the sea. "

The beach looks almost exactly the same as reality, and even seems to have returned to reality, so that in the original research, there were even wrong discussions such as "whether the subconscious world is a ball or not".

But it didn't take long for the pioneers who thought they had returned to reality to notice something strange.

Although I can't find any clear problems, everything here has an unspeakable awkwardness and weirdness.

The things forgotten in the corner of the drawer will disappear completely the next day. As long as the documents sent out are not noticed, the handwriting will gradually disappear after a long time.The color scheme of the office is obviously blue and white, but in an inadvertent moment, it seems to turn into black and gold...

Until one day, they discovered to their horror that the facial features on the face of the colleague who was usually the most silent, the most inconspicuous, and the weakest sense of presence disappeared.

The colleague himself was unaware of this incident, and continued to work and commute normally, but his face was completely blurred.

"The principle of 'that world' is a bit like a mirage that happened in the subconscious world, so we also call it a mirage."

Ling Su introduced: "It is composed of the thinking activities of all individuals who have ever existed and have self-awareness...a simple analogy."

Ling Su gestured to the gin on the table: "What do you think it tastes like?"

"It's weird, it should have added a lot of spices, I don't like it very much."

"There is a very special fragrance, very refreshing, a little sweet."

"hot."

……

Ling Su raised his eyebrows, looked at the little curly hair who came in to join in the fun, and rubbed Zhuang Die's head: "When did you drink it?"

"Just now." Ling Su's scalpel was stained with some wine. Zhuang Die couldn't help but tasted it, and immediately lost interest in the wine. "It's very bad. We should let non-alcoholic cocktails take over all the pubs."

Ling Su couldn't help but chuckled, and nodded in agreement: "Drinking alcohol is harmful to health, it makes sense."

While talking, he has already made another glass of non-alcoholic pomegranate mojito, put two green mint leaves on it for decoration, and gently pushed it in front of Zhuang Die.

"In Mirage, this wine will mix everyone's opinions on it, and everyone who tastes it can feel it at the same time."

Ling Su gestured: "It's weird and refreshing, and it's fragrant, sweet and spicy."

The hypnotist imagined the taste, couldn't help shivering, and shook his head: "Forget it."

The hypnotist quickly lost interest in that world, but out of professional instinct, he still understood Ling Su's meaning by analogy: "Everyone's cognition is a part of that world."

"If ten people drink this glass of wine, and nine of them think it is bitter, in that world, it is 90.00% bitter."

"If a person who is otherwise very good has a thousand people who think he is a selfish villain because of some false rumors. In that world, he is a thousand 'selfish' identifications and one incomparable in this case. Small self-knowledge."

"What is forgotten disappears because it is no longer in the focus of attention...and so are people and things that are forgotten."

"Gradually, because they were completely forgotten—even they themselves forgot themselves—they lost their carrier in that world and turned into a group of wandering black shadows, leaving only 'emotions' themselves."

"It is a world completely determined by cognition... Good products may be misunderstood by accumulated 'inferior quality' and become real garbage. Originally defective things may also be cherished as high-quality goods, and really make up for the original. regret."

The hypnotist looked at Ling Su: "I understand, this is why the people who went in didn't notice the strangeness in the first period..."

Ling Su added a few stick figures to the virtual screen on the table: "Yes, unless there is a conflict of cognition."

The world in everyone's eyes is originally composed of one's own cognition - that is actually a rather subjective view, derived from one's own perspective, character, standpoint and everything that has been experienced.

When we see the part that is in line with our own cognition, it is difficult for anyone to feel "wrong", but will feel that everything has become a lot more comfortable.

Only when you come into contact with completely contradictory cognitions, and as you stay in "that world" longer and longer, this discomfort will accumulate more and more, will you have an abnormal feeling like a stick in your throat, and you will start to doubt yourself Whether it is the real world or not.

"Tell me about the problem with 'Cocoon'."

Ling Su said: "If I remember correctly, for this kind of drifting dreamland that is about to be blocked, its automatic exploration program sets the goal to 'find the exit', is that right?"

"Yes." Z1 also responded, "So...it did find the exit."

"That's the difference between a machine and a human."

The hypnotist couldn't help but sigh: "In the calculation of the program, there is no way to take the subjective cognition into consideration..."

For these near-death dream realms that may have high-risk characteristics and cannot be smashed through the program, the action logic of "cocoon" is determined by the program: the entire dream realm is completely digitized, and through massive calculations, find the shortest path to the exit. path.

Machines are absolutely objective, without the concept of "cognition", and naturally cannot distinguish the difference between that world and the real world they are in.

"So, falling asleep again in a dream of falling asleep is the same as encountering death in a dream of death...the nature of reality is actually the same."

Z1 looks at the virtual sand table on the desktop, and the high tide has completely submerged the puddles left on the beach.

Those puddles have not disappeared, some of them have formed into clear ice floes, some have been polluted and formed undercurrents, and some of them are engulfed in the gravel accidentally picked up on the beach, floating and sinking in the boundless sea water.

The stick figure that Ling Su had just drawn walked from the beach into the sea with short arms and short legs, and was frozen in a piece of ice floe in a blink of an eye.

"This is the realm of near-death dreams—under normal circumstances, as long as you return to the place where you just set off from the sea, you will return to reality. But if something unexpected happens..."

Ling Su fanned it with his hands, causing the ice floe to float to the world across the ocean.

As the ice floes finally touched the shore and melted, the stick figures also melted on the opposite beach, turning into a few black sticks.

Then they automatically piece together, stretching their arms and kicking their legs to jump up, the stickman has already arrived in the opposite world.

Like "falling asleep in a dream", its essence is also "going to the wrong shore from the subconscious ocean" and straying into the opposite world.

Because it has drifted too far, this beach that accepts it is no longer the one that will really leave footprints in reality.

……

"But 'cocoon' only gave one solution."

Z1's face turned pale: "So, aren't we trapped here?"

His teammates are still in the world called Mirage, Z1 just happened to receive the same mission, so he returned to this near-death dreamland.

This was different from the time on the submarine, where the souls of the captain and crew were still trapped in the dream realm.As long as the captain chooses to regain consciousness, he has the ability to unlock the dream realm and send those trapped in it back to the real reality.

But in the dream realm they are in, there is no longer any independent consciousness.

This is just a long dream that a person had before he died... This dream has not yet ended, because of the passing of the dream owner, there are still obsessions lingering in it that cannot be dissipated, and can only float like this forever.

If there is no other exit from this dreamland, they will only have two choices - either stay here forever, or go to that world that must never be forgotten...

"So it's up to us to find other solutions."

Zhuang Die held the stick figure and put it back on the hard asphalt road: "Just treat this as an ordinary near-death dream, find the obsession left by the dream owner, and find a way to help him unravel it. "

Z1 was speechless, he was silent for a few seconds, and still smiled wryly: "Mr. Zhuang, you may not understand..."

He wanted to give Zhuang Die a detailed introduction to the current research on near-death dreams, but before he could speak, the hypnotist pulled his shoulders and pushed him back: "Sit down, you have to be firm enough to follow them."

"We worked together to deal with a dream domain before." The hypnotist kindly reminded him, "The last one who sang against them is still cleaning the study."

Z1: "..."

The hypnotist was already very experienced, and looked at Zhuang Die: "What do you think? Since the dreamer has been shipwrecked..."

"Who said the dream master got on that ship?" Zhuang Die asked.

The hypnotist and Z1 were taken aback when they heard the words.

The two looked at each other, and Z1 reacted first: "That's right!"

He had just realized this, and Huo Di stood up: "If the dream master was on the boat, it would be impossible to have this memory of being on the shore after the accident!"

Because this is a near-death dream, after seeing the news of the passenger ship wreck, Z1 naturally connected the two, so that it was ignored.

No matter how talented the simulation ability is, it is impossible to simulate the intense dialogue and chaotic actions of so many people at the same time.

Since they are still staying in the tavern, they clearly heard everyone's flustered conversations because of the news, and saw people rushing outside the window, constantly inquiring about the situation... It means that in the memory of the person concerned, at least this experience is clearly .

When the passenger ship was wrecked, the dreamer did not die in the storm with the passenger ship—he must still be on the shore!

"We can find clues." Z1 tried his best to control his emotions, sat down and said, "At this point in time, at least the dreamer is still alive..."

"And most of them are in the tavern." Zhuang Die nodded, "As long as we continue to investigate, there will be other discoveries."

Ling Su smiled, and raised his hand to wipe away the virtual screen on the desktop.

"Now that the problem has been found, it is enough to find a way to solve the problem."

Zhuang Die finished his special pomegranate mojito, stood up, straightened his cuffs: "Now, gentlemen, let's re-decipher this dream."