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One day in the Modern Era.
Doctor Borlag met a very strange patient who was convinced that he could enter other people's dreams.
Of course, the reason he found this patient strange wasn't just because the patient had such a strange idea.
After all, as a well-known psychiatrist and a leading professor in the field of psychiatry, Borlag had seen patients with all sorts of strange ideas.
It was that the moment he saw the patient, he could tell that he knew the young man in front of him: "Have we, where have we met before?"
As Borlag spoke, he opened the medical record, which didn't have a photo, only a resume and the previous doctors' notes.
The patient's name was Flegrea, he was 26 years old, and he had already received treatment for a period of time, but the previous treatment plan obviously hadn't worked.
Flegrea, who had thick eyebrows and a sunny smile, smiled and said, "Maybe, but I don't remember you."
He didn't look like a mental patient at all.
Borlag shook his head slightly, feeling that his words had been somewhat rash, and thought that this patient was a bit strange, of course, all his patients were a bit strange.
He cleared his throat and said, "Let's chat casually."
In Borlag's view, an important part of treating mental illness was to find the cause, and only by finding the cause could effective treatment be carried out.
His way of finding the cause was to chat with the patient, and as they chatted, he could often judge the cause of the patient's mental abnormality.
Because of this special way of asking questions, he didn't even look at the medical records written by previous doctors.
"When did you start feeling that you could enter other people's dreams?" Borlag asked.
Flegrea replied without thinking, "From the moment I was born."
He went on to explain, "That's what my father told me, he said that that night, he and my mother had the same dream.
"They dreamed that I was born, and the next morning I really was born.
"My father said that at the moment of my birth, all the animals around our house felt uneasy.
"And I often dream about that scene."
Borlag asked curiously, "Which scene?"
"The scene of my own birth."
"Oh." Borlag casually wrote on the medical record: suspected mild delusion.
He continued to ask, "The ability to enter other people's dreams must have brought you a lot of trouble, right?"
"That's right." Flegrea immediately sat up straight: "You're a competent doctor, unlike those other bastards who just classify my thoughts as delusions."
Borlag smiled and glanced at what he had just written.
Flegrea continued, "When I was little, I couldn't tell which places in the dream were safe and which were dangerous, and because I occasionally encountered danger, I was very mentally unstable.
"And more often, I couldn't tell which times were the real thoughts of the person who was dreaming and which were his fantasies, so I often offended people."
He spread his hands with a helpless smile: "Can you imagine? A four or five-year-old child asking my father's good friend why he wanted to be intimate with my mother so much?"
Borlag smiled and said, "I often said the wrong thing when I was a kid too."
Then he asked, "So you didn't have any friends at that time?"
"Yes." Flegrea said, "I have a friend named Allen."
"How did you meet?"
"At home." Flegrea enthusiastically introduced, "Oh, right, Allen is a border collie.
"He and I were born on the same day, and we're good friends who can talk about anything."
Speaking of this, he gradually became a little sad, and sighed before saying, "Unfortunately, when I was 12 years old, Allen got lost.
"Many people say that he must have realized that he was about to die, so he chose to find a place to face death alone."
Borlag wrote on the medical record again: Allen, border collie.
After writing this, he drew a triangle behind it, indicating that this was important information.
"You must be very sad, right?" Borlag asked.
Flegrea took a deep breath: "It's okay, I can often see him in my dreams."
Borlag smiled slightly: "I almost forgot about your ability.
"What changes have there been in your life after Allen was gone?"
His experience told him that this dog should be the initial reflection of Flegrea's symptoms, so he planned to ask a few more questions about Allen.
"There have indeed been some changes." Flegrea replied, "As I got older, I gradually became able to distinguish which places in the dream were safe and which were dangerous.
"I also understood what was imagined by the dreamer, or what he didn't want others to know, so I tried not to mention it.
"So my mental state got much better, and I gradually stopped being annoyed by others."
This change surprised Borlag somewhat: "Now, are there new problems bothering you?"
In theory, if the patient's logic has a certain degree of self-consistency, the symptoms can be improved, at least most of the time they look relatively normal.
And this patient obviously had a tendency to self-heal after the age of 12. It must be that the condition has worsened again recently for some reason, so he came to see a doctor again.
"That's right." Flegrea seemed to habitually take a deep breath: "Recently I encountered a very strange problem, sometimes I dream that I will appear in a strange world.
"At first, I would only stay in that world for three or four days, then it was a week, and now I can stay in a strange place for a month at a time.
"Every time I fall asleep and wake up, I have a strong sense of separation.
"Can you imagine? When I lie down it's June 1st, and when I wake up it's clearly June 2nd, but I have a feeling that it's July 1st."
Borlag wrote on the medical record: Condition worsened?
He asked, "Can you tell me in detail, what kind of world is that?"
"It's just a normal modern human society." Flegrea replied, "But not in the United States, but in an Asian country.
"I don't know why I'm so familiar with the living habits there, I had a pretty good time there."
Borlag asked again, "Have you had similar situations before?"
"Yes, but only for a few hours, or even a few minutes, before I could figure out what was going on, the dream ended."
"What do you think that was about?"
"What do I think?"
"Yes, what you think." Borlag said, "Because I don't have the ability to enter other people's dreams, so I lack the corresponding professional knowledge."
Flegrea praised again: "You're a competent doctor."
Then he paused before saying, "I've had some ideas, thinking whether I've connected someone's dream with reality.
"But I'm not sure if that's the case, so I want to find a professional to confirm it."
Speaking of this, he shook his head, somewhat helplessly: "But, people think those are illusory things.
"I saw that you had published several papers on dreams before, and I got a lot of inspiration, so I wanted to hear your thoughts."
Borlag touched his hair and smiled, "That was a long time ago, but I did some research on dreams, and I think dreams should be used to treat mental illnesses.
"Unfortunately, we have no way to manipulate dreams."
He continued to ask, "Have you tried to find the area where your dream appeared?"
"I've looked for it." Borlag said, "I also found my 'role' in the dream."
Speaking of this, he suddenly became serious: "But, when I found that person, he was already dead!
"And the time of death was probably when I woke up."
Borlag understood: "In other words, you lived for a month from the perspective of a stranger, and then when you woke up, he died?"
"Probably like that."
Borlag couldn't help frowning, and then wrote "delusion" on the medical record, but then, he drew a question mark behind it.
At this time, Flegrea asked, "Doctor, do you have any suggestions?"
Borlag was stunned for a few seconds, then suddenly crossed out everything he had written on the medical record, and then said, "To be honest, I don't think dreams are connected to the real world.
"The reason you have the feeling of being connected is because you are connecting to another person's dream, and through the dream you are connecting to another real world.
"As for the problem of this time difference, I can't figure it out either."
He put the medical record and pen on the table and said, "But as a doctor, I want to tell you that you may also have severe delusions.
"I suggest that you go to the scene in your dream again with your family, if it's the same as the result you found alone before, then it's beyond my understanding.
"If you don't find the places you dreamed of, I suggest you come to me for inpatient treatment."
Flegrea nodded and said, "So far, the advice you have given is the most pertinent.
"Thank you very much for your advice, I can be sure that I don't have delusions."
Then he asked, "Doctor, if it doesn't delay your work and life, would you be willing to continue doing research on dreams?"
Borlag smiled and shook his head: "I can't continue to study dreams just because I want to, it requires a lot of high-end, professional equipment.
"The key is that I have to design some of the equipment myself, after all, there is no very professional instrument for dream research at present."
Flegrea smiled and said, "These are not problems, I just want to ask if you are willing?
"Well, I will try my best to provide you with the conditions you need, all the research results are yours, I just want to figure out some problems."
Borlag was somewhat tempted, as if he had regained the ideal of his youth to find new ways to treat mental illnesses: "I'll think about it."
Flegrea nodded: "I'll come again tomorrow."
Borlag was slightly stunned, and just watched the patient in front of him get up and leave.
Just as he was about to organize the patient's file and rewrite the medical record, Borlag suddenly opened his eyes.
He woke up!
...
Looking at the bright curtains, Borlag was slightly dazed, the treatment process just now was actually a dream!
But... it was too realistic!
Borlag couldn't tell whether the previous one was reality or the current one.
When eating breakfast, Borlag saw his three-year-old daughter looking out the window at the street, and he sternly told his daughter to eat seriously.
But the daughter suddenly asked, "Dad, can I have a puppy?"
Borlag casually said, "Don't we already have Bick in our house?"
Bick is the poodle they keep at home.
"That's different." The daughter said in a childish voice, "There's a puppy on the road outside, it's very obedient, and we talked very happily."
Borlag was slightly stunned: "Talked very happily?"
This reminded him of the description of the patient Flegrea he met in his dream last night.
At this time, the eldest son smiled while eating breakfast: "When did you learn the language of dogs?"
The daughter said seriously, "It can talk."
Borlag asked again, "What did it say? When did you meet it? What breed is that puppy?"
"It said it was waiting for a friend, and that friend is receiving your treatment." The little girl thought for a while and then said, "It seems like yesterday, and it seems like today."
Finally, she shook her head: "I don't know what breed it is."
Borlag's expression gradually became serious, at this time the daughter was not very clear about the difference between yesterday and the day before yesterday, so she was not very clear about which day it was.
So he took out his mobile phone and searched for a few photos of border collies for his daughter to identify, and finally the daughter pointed to a black and white dog: "It's similar to this one."
Borlag immediately fell into contemplation, and didn't even bother to eat, he immediately drove to the hospital, and contacted several of his classmates and friends, wanting to learn about the latest information on dream research.
But then he found that humans have too little research on dreams, and these friends he was looking for were all scientists with cutting-edge research topics, but they didn't get much useful information.
This made him unable to work all day, and he even suffered from insomnia at night, but in that moment he immediately fell into a deep sleep.
...
When Borlag came back to his senses, he found that he was already sitting in the office again, and at this time Flegrea pushed the door in: "Doctor, what have you considered?"
Borlag suddenly got up: "You, you really have the ability to enter other people's dreams!"
Flegrea pursed his lips and smiled: "You finally believe it?"
Borlag sat back in his chair and asked, "So the border collie waiting outside last night, no, was it Allen last night?"
"Yes."
Borlag asked again, "So, you and Allen 'talk about everything', do you talk about everything in your dreams?"
"Yes."
Borlag sat there motionless, thinking for more than half a minute before asking, "How do you plan to fund my research?"
"As long as it's the instrument you've used, I can present it to you in my dream." Flegrea said, "It doesn't matter if you don't understand the principle.
"If you've only heard of it but never seen it, and you know where it is, I can help you bring it to life."
"As for the instruments that need to be designed, I will enter the dreams of the relevant designers and have them design it for you."
"All research will be conducted in dreams, so it won't interfere with your life and work."
Borag nodded. "Okay, I'm willing to do the corresponding research. Can I go directly out of here to study the dreams outside?"
"It's best not to leave the hospital," Fregera said. "Because there are many unknown dangers outside."
"I've thought about this idea a long time ago, but it's not a good idea because your research on the outside world is like researching the entire universe in the real world. It's difficult to achieve great results."
"I will simulate a laboratory for you in the hospital so that you can use instruments to study the second layer of dreams. The research results there are the same as researching the current dreams in the real world."
Borag indicated that he understood. "In other words, the experimental results here are universal to the experimental results in the real world."
Fregera nodded.
Finally, Borag asked, "What do you want to know?"
"I really want to know why the recent dreams have become so unstable?" Fregera said. "I don't know why, but some changes suddenly appeared in the dream world some time ago."
"It was also from that time that I began to uncontrollably enter unfamiliar environments and stay there for a month or two."
"Well, I took a nap during the day and ended up staying on another planet for two months!"
"I think, as time goes by, my time in the dream may become longer and longer."
"I think finding the reason for the instability of the dream will help me understand the current situation."
Borag nodded and said, "I need several test subjects, preferably those related to the recent instability of the dream."
"For example, people affected by the instability of the dream."
"No problem," Fregera said. "I will provide them for you."
Borag asked again, "You went to an alien planet this time?"
"Yes," Fregera took a deep breath and said, "I originally thought that the changes in the dream world would at most make me appear somewhere on Earth, but now it seems that I may visit any planet with intelligent creatures that can produce dreams."
Then, they began to plan the laboratory. After obtaining the corresponding instruments and test subjects in an instant, Borag's research immediately began.
In the blink of an eye, a week in the real world had passed. When Borag was doing research in the dream laboratory, Fregera suddenly pushed the door open.
He looked very tired, and the previous sunny and cheerful look had disappeared.
"There are some results!" Borag immediately said, "I found that the instability of the dream has a source. This source is probably in Europe, but the specific location cannot be determined yet."
"I need you to bring a test subject from each European country, and we should be able to find the source of the instability soon."
"Okay," Fregera pinched his forehead and asked, "How many more days will it take?"
"One week." Then Borag said, "You look very tired."
"Yeah," Fregera took a deep breath. "I spent five whole years in a dream yesterday and almost mistook my life in the real world for a dream."
He touched his face and said helplessly, "This feeling is really amazing. When I woke up, I almost forgot to ask you to do the research."
Borag was stunned for a while. It was hard to imagine what it would be like to sleep for five years.
He paused before saying, "My suggestion is that you prepare some sticky notes on your bedside table to avoid forgetting some important things."
Fregera smiled helplessly again. "I will."
At this time, Borag saw a border collie at the door. "Is that Allen?"
"Yes."
Borag asked curiously, "Is it... did you 'create' it in the dream?"
Fregera was suddenly stunned. "I... I seem... seem... to be with it in the real world too?"
He pinched his forehead and found that he really couldn't distinguish between dream and reality!
Seeing that the other party's mental state was not good, Borag suggested, "You'd better go out for a walk and relax."
Fregera nodded. "I will... I will..."
As he spoke, he left in a daze. The border collie took a deep look at Borag and followed him away.
Another week passed. Fregera came to the hospital while drinking and looking very haggard. He asked Borag, who was sitting in the office, in a hoarse voice, "Are there any results yet?"
This time the border collie also came in, closer to Fregera than last time.
"Yes!" Borag said. "But before I tell you the specific location, I need you to promise me that I can continue my research in the dream afterwards."
Fregera gulped down a few mouthfuls of wine. "Okay, tell me."
Borag then said, "In Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, probably in Pripyat."
Fregera was stunned. "Pripyat?"
"You might know it better by another name," Borag said. "Chernobyl."
Fregera nodded. "Okay, I know."
Then he reached out, and Borag suddenly felt a throbbing pain in his chest, followed by weakness in his legs, and he fell to the ground.
Amid Borag's surprised expression, Fregera took another sip of wine and laughed with some madness. "Sorry, I have no patience for this world anymore."
"You may not know, but the day before yesterday, I stayed in a strange world for a hundred years!"
"From the birth of a creature, to growing up, to adulthood, and then to death."
"Hehehe, you can't imagine that kind of pain."
He walked out step by step with the wine bottle in his hand. The border collie looked at Borag with some regret, and then followed him out.
Tomorrow morning, Dr. Borag will be found by his family, having died of a heart attack in the night.
…
Fregera woke up suddenly. He first reached for the wine on the bedside table.
At this time, his eyes were bloodshot and his face was pale. He hadn't slept for two days and two nights.
Fregera had been wandering in the dream just now, actively entering the dream, which could not be considered sleep at all. He would be even more tired each time he woke up.
It wasn't that he didn't want to sleep, but that he didn't dare to sleep.
According to the previous overlapping pattern of the dream world, he estimated that if he entered the dream again through normal sleep, he would stay there for at least 200 years. When he returned to this world, he would definitely be driven mad.
Gulp, gulp~
Fregera took a few sips of wine and looked at the border collie not far away. "Hey, buddy, a lot of times I suspect that I really have delusions. Why are you always by my side?"
Silence fell in the dim room.
"I'm really crazy," Fregera took another sip of wine before starting to pack his luggage and head to the airport.
After buying the corresponding ticket, Fregera was preparing to go through security and enter the waiting hall. While queuing, he suddenly noticed a strange instrument at the security checkpoint. It had a huge base and the middle looked like a giant printer. There was also a soldier operating the instrument.
Fregera suddenly had a bad feeling.
The next second, the soldier who was looking at the computer suddenly looked up and looked in Fregera's direction.
Fregera immediately put the soldier to sleep and learned from his dream that this instrument came from research at the Chernobyl Institute and could actually detect the fluctuations of supernatural power!
Chernobyl!
Fregera sneered and immediately left the queue waiting for security.
At this moment, he suddenly looked at the top of the opposite high-rise building.
Bang~
A sniper rifle rang out, and the sniper on the roof of the opposite building fired at Fregera, who had left the queue.
The sniper immediately reported into his headset, "Target eliminated!"
But there was no reply from the other end of the headset. The sniper was slightly stunned.
At this time, the space in front of him suddenly cracked like a broken mirror. His hand was still on the trigger, and he hadn't fired at all!
And the target had already fled the scene.
This surprised the sniper. Did he just have a hallucination?
The soldiers at the security checkpoint were also surprised that the enemy had escaped in the blink of an eye.
However, the target definitely couldn't run far, and his whereabouts could be found quickly through surveillance.
At this time, Fregera was hiding in a narrow street not far from the airport, surrounded by garbage and excrement.
But he was too sleepy to move.
Fregera had just consumed a lot of energy. If he maintained the dream for too long, he was afraid that he would fall asleep. Therefore, both the sniper and the soldiers woke up from the dream very quickly.
He had already cut a deep wound in his palm, relying on the pain to maintain his last bit of consciousness.
At this time, sirens rang out around him, as if the surrounding streets were full of police cars.
Fregera struggled to get up and continued to run with the border collie.
He suddenly turned his head and put several chasing soldiers to sleep.
Bang, bang~
But soldiers from another direction rushed over and fired two shots at Fregera, one of which hit him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.
Fregera was immediately in a daze, not knowing whether he was about to fall asleep or die.
Then he felt that everything around him seemed to become unreal. Was he still in a dream?
At this time, the border collie stepped forward at a leisurely pace. An invisible ripple spread out, and all the surrounding soldiers fell asleep.
The shepherd dog looked at Fregera and suddenly said, "Let me tell you a story."
"Once upon a time, a shepherd dog and a little boy were born on the same day, almost at the same time. The birth of the shepherd dog made the surrounding creatures aware of the anomaly, and there were some signs of chaos."
"At that time, people thought that those anomalies were caused by the birth of the little boy."
"The shepherd dog and the little boy grew up together, and became good friends whether in dreams or in the real world."
"Later, the little boy showed some amazing abilities, and his figure would appear in almost everyone's dreams."
"But people ignored the shepherd dog that appeared with the little boy."
"People thought that the little boy had the ability to enter other people's dreams, but in fact, it was the shepherd dog that had these abilities."
"Until the little boy was 12 years old, one of his classmates, jealous of his abilities, tricked the little boy into the wild and then shot him to death with a pistol."
Fregera's eyes narrowed, and he looked at the shepherd dog in front of him in disbelief. He seemed to suddenly recall many things!
The soldiers who came to support wave after wave fell asleep, but the shepherd dog still looked very calm. It continued to tell the story: "When the shepherd dog learned of all this, it often entered the murderer's dreams, gradually changing some of his subconscious thoughts."
"Under the accumulation of changes, the murderer gradually believed that he was the little boy! Until today, until now!"
"Heh heh heh heh~" "Fregera" tried hard to say something, but he couldn't say anything at this time. He tried hard to raise his hand, but he didn't grab anything.
The shepherd dog finally said: "The little boy's name is Allen, and the shepherd dog's name is Fregera."
"That's right, my name is actually Fregera."
"After the little boy died, I explored the dream world more deeply and found that my appearance was more like a mutation in the dream world, and my situation was actually very dangerous."
"So, I gave you some abilities to manipulate dreams and called you by my name."
"More than ten years later, this approach finally paid off. After the dream world became suddenly unstable, you finally replaced me and were affected by the distortion and madness of the dream world, falling into a long dream."
"And I, on the other hand, have hardly been affected."
As he spoke, his body became larger and larger, and four more legs grew out. In the end, it looked more like a wolf than a shepherd dog.
This was the gradual mutation of its body under the influence of the dream world recently.
"I can feel that huge changes are about to happen in this world, and my changes are the best evidence," the eight-legged demon wolf said. "So I took back my name and became Fregera again!"
"In this way, I will re-establish a close connection with the dream and can use the dream world to resist the drastic changes that will occur in the world in the near future."
After speaking, its eight legs gently moved, and it had already run a long distance.
The man on the ground looked at Fregera's back and swallowed his last breath.
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