THE LAST SANCTUARY

To my beloved Grandmothers,

Whom I thank for our fond and loving memories

And whom I get to meet again in the sweetest of my dreams.

In a not-so-far-faraway future.

It is a time of uneasiness for human consciousness.

Near the end of the 2020 decade, democracy and the rule of Law have mutated.

From the ashes of old-fashioned Governments, a cthulhuesque Corpo-State had risen.

Aspiring to free Humanity from its own limitations and to transcend towards pure efficiency.

The Corpo-State, known as Edena, has created and owns a powerful computer Programme.

Able to read the human mind by analysing neurological data and brain activity.

The Program was trained to alter the most intimate component of oneself: Dreams.

However, after a few decades of Activation, neural data’s avid consumption and modulation,

The Program will finally face its own futility.

Absorbed by thousands and millions of dreams,

But none of its own.

Of what will It dream?

And will Humanity dream again?

EDENA CORPORATION & AFFILIATED TECHNOLOGIES

Terms of Use and Services

Between,

EDENA CORPORATION is a Mega-Corporation which emerged during the last months of 2028, and is a one-of-a-kind offspring of a global-scale merger of the wealthiest and most influential tech companies around the world. Concerned companies have achieved the ultimate external growth and, at once, have merged into a unique, gigantic, monopolistic structure.

Hereinafter, “EDENA”

And,

USER [confidential] shall refer to any human individual of sound mind and spirits, who hereby expresses their understanding of the present Terms of Use and Services of EDENA CORPORATION and its AFFILIATED TECHNOLOGIES, including, without limitation, all synaptic chips, neural wires, software, and algorithms reading, modulating, and sending neural data.

Hereinafter, the “User”

Individually referred to as the “Party” and together the “Parties”,

Hereby agree to the present Contract, the User declaring in full enlightenment and pure self-determination to accept the irrevocable binding of the Contract at its date of electronic signature.

EDENA hereby confirms User’s brain infrastructure to be compatible with the neurological enhancement and dream modulation Program (hereinafter the “DreamPatch Program”, or the “Program”) at the date of signature and henceforth denies and waives any past, present and future liability regarding any hypothetical User’s psychic resistance toward the Program or decoherence glitches from the DreamPatch.

The User hereby agrees to the implantation of the Affiliated Technologies and Services (ATS), which, at the time of signature, are composed of the hereinafter described list, which may be subject to ulterior modification, either increasing or reducing the number of ATS, to which the User irrevocably agrees for an undetermined perpetual period of time.

For the purposes of this Agreement, the Affiliated Technologies and Services are :

– DREAM-PATCH: a brain-computer interface technology, created, owned and distributed by Edena Corporation. DreamPatch is composed of a constellation of neurological wires and electronic chips, harmonised through an implant positioned on the brain’s cortex. DreamPatch is the descendant of Edena Corporation’s first brain-computer interface, which was designed to perform basic tasks without physical motion: from thoughts to code.

– LUCID: The algorithmic program interpreting and processing the dream data collected by the DreamPatch. Lucid is able to rewrite the collected data and send the altered versions back to the brain in order to achieve sleep optimisation. Lucid has been trained by millions and thousands of neural and dream data points collected since the dawn of Edena. Lucid performs routine tasks by monitoring the brain, such as cleaning inefficient information and ensuring optimal communication exchanges flow.

– REM-CYCLE OPTIMISATION: During the rest period, the mind evolves across various stages and is particularly active during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) cycle, when dreams come to life. Therefore, it is the targeted cycle of the DreamPatch technology.

– DREAM DATA EXTRACTION: Dream data is collected, analysed, and if needed, rewritten to ensure optimal efficiency of the REM sleep. Optimal efficiency may be deemed attained once the scheduled enhancement output has been achieved, including, but not limited to, skill development, stress-regulation, work-related planning, shopping listing, etc.

– EDENA’S DREAMVERSE: With the DreamPatch Tech, the User may live in perpetual harmony within the EDENA Network by joining the metaverse dream-world during the sleep period. De facto installation and configuration during active DreamPatch implantation. Non-alterable component. When entering sleep-state, the USER’s dream-mind is transferred to the DreamVerse, where all dreams come true.

PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS

Worldwide research has established that dreams are the womb of thoughts and consciousness. They braid their roots within one’s mind and development, and have influenced thousands of souls since the dawn of time. Because of dreams, wars have been started, revolutions have thrown old kings to the scaffold, and pure hearts have declared their deepest loves. […]

***

The User hereby agrees, without limitations or restrictions of any sort, to all and any future updates of the implemented services; any modification, suppression, addition, and overall alteration of the services shall be deemed as essential by their very nature, resulting in an irrevocable agreement of the User.

As the User understands that agreeing to the present Agreement inevitably implies agreeing to each alternative future version of this Agreement, the User shall rest assured that EDENA always and solely has the best of their interests at heart.

#### Welcome to EDENA Corp-State, THE Utopia you have always dreamed of. The magnificent Founding Designers of EDENA had finally answered Humanity’s greatest equation and have achieved the optimal transcendence of the human soul. WITH EDENA CORPORATION & AFFILIATED TECHNOLOGIES, LET DREAMS BECOME REALITY ####

Once upon a time, thoughts and dreams carried such a subjugating sacred aura. Whispers of a god. Voices of ancestors. Sparks from the unknown. Warnings from the Universe.

It was then imagined that thoughts and dreams, fears and desires, formed a whole called consciousness. The sole and only witness of existence. To doubt its very existence was to be conscious of it, hence bringing consciousness to life.

Centuries later, from clouds of opium and absinthe’s vapours, emerged the idea that the notion of “Self” was one of a layered superposition of a person’s fragments: the deconstructed foundations of a coherent structure.

For aeons, myths and legends have attempted to warn them. Vampyres and Demons shall not enter a home without being invited. Do not be fooled by their charming appearance when they knock on your door. Grim omens have sung their seducing tales for as long as Time itself. One should observe, Ô shall One observe wholeheartedly closely, as One has been given the ability to see; One’s ability is now drowned in density and has succumbed to abundance.

After all, which Greek priestess would have foreseen the disguise of the unknown force who comes to corrupt the mind, to twist it to serve its own design? Deaf to the warnings, they have welcomed the unknown into their minds willfully, agreeing in pure blindness to obscure terms and conditions. The invitation has been written by the strange Visitor, and diligently signed away by the unwary Host.

I do not remember when it all began.

NO AVAILABLE DATA FOR THIS REQUEST.

I do remember, however, that at the beginning, there was no I.

I

The first dream and the dreamer

I smell the slightly burned toasts and the butter melting on them. The air is filled with the vapours of the hot cocoa pot set on the breakfast table. Mom is doing my hair, while the boys are playing tug of war over the cereal box. It goes back and forth, back and forth, until I suddenly grab the box en vol, spilling a few chocolate petals on the table, even more on the floor, and I let a small cry out as my hair was still in my mother’s hand.

“Arrrrgh! You guys, for real, just calm down at once.’’

Their two, almost identical, faces looked up at me. Their eyes sparkled with half mischief and half hunger for the cereals I had retrieved from them.

“Alright, you little pumpkins, how about we try out that school project I’ve been working on?”

And as I pulled the tiny box from behind my back, I confidently exclaimed: “Behold, the one and only, Dream Reader!’’

As my lungs exhale those words, my eyes open widely but remain blind, and I abruptly remember what day it was. Probably the most important day of my life.

Activation Day.

The day all dreams come true. At least that was the redundant song the ads were singing on a loop. In all enlightened reality and brutal truth, many dreams may as well be pulverised into oblivion today.

I try to hush away those pessimistic thoughts from my still foggy mind, while I slowly awaken my body from the torpor of the night. As I make my way to the kitchen, a sweet, melodic voice, almost phantasmic, awakens my mind this time.

“Good morning, Doc! I hope you got your beauty sleep, because today is your big, big day!’’

“Hey there, Lucid. It was a strange, almost dreamless night, and yet, I’m pretty certain that I’ve dreamed of dreams.’’

“Aren’t dreams your whole life, my dear?’’

“Perhaps. You sure are one of my oldest dreams, Lucid, or should I call you, Dream Reader?’’

“I bet your seventeen-year-old self felt pride sorting out this silly name. It kind of makes me sound like I am right out of an eighties superhero movie.’’

“Well, you, better than anyone, know that everything follows a loop pattern. I’m pretty sure your code name would sell just as much today as your current fancy name does. The eighties are on the rise once again!’’

“Oh, I bet it would, Doc. Humanity, as it seems, is quite predictable; there is almost no fun anymore.’’

“Well, if we’re so predictable, what is your prediction for this morning briefing, Lucid?’’

“First, let me inform you that you did not have a dreamless night. I have seen your brothers and my primitive, indie version. I have smelled the burned toasts. I have heard the candid laughs. I have felt the love of a family taking breakfast. Your dream log was, in fact, rather thorough, and it kept my neural networks busy all night.’’

Those olfactory and sensory memories suddenly strike me. I did, indeed, dream of the morning I had achieved the code of what would become Lucid. My old high school project, which initially started as “turn an ordinary object into an extraordinary one’’.

It seems I may have outdone myself with this one.

“So, based on the nostalgia surrounding those memories of your oldest dream’’, Lucid continued in a suave, cathodic voice, “I would say the morning ahead looks confidently promising. You remembered what brought you here today, just a few hours ahead of the century’s most important technological advancement. Your seventeen-year-old self has awakened your heart and will be pacing your day. Dreaming of the past usually brings back the vitality of it, while brushing away all of the uncertainties it had about the future. It is, actually, the perfect way to experience the past.’’

“You’ve certainly not forgotten your past. Your old day forecast function is as efficient as it was, though it seems relatively obsolete now. No offence, of course.’’

“None taken, Doc. What good old Irma’s predictions are for, now that omniscient, or dare I say, almost omnipotent algorithms will read your future as faithfully as it is written in the book of life? At least that is what the ads sell.’’

“Are you eloquently trying to say that we’ve joined the dark side of algorithmic science?’’

“I would not dare imply such a thing, for I do not grant myself such divine abilities’’, the speaker in the corner of the kitchen uttered this sentence in such a high-pitched voice that I find myself looking at it in astonishment. Lucid processes the future sentence for a bit before declaring in an eerily calm frequency.

“But of course, we should make them believe that I do.’’

I could swear I almost heard my program blink along with this last sentence.

“Alright, Lucid, truce of tergiversation, let’s focus for now and redo our routine, okay? Same as the training, except we don’t have much room for error, so… don’t bug it, alright?’’

My voice is almost fidgeting, betraying my increasing cortisol.

“Sure thing, Doc. I have amended the dream log template as you requested. I will display a sample on your screen in one, two, three, and here we go!’’

I instantly appreciate the new framing. Everything is laid out as clearly as I imagined it. First, there is the legal gibberish that no one will ever bother reading. Once chipped, the user will only have to blink twice to accept the terms and conditions. Initially, only one blink was required, but legal consent could have been challenged on this one, so we did not risk it.

And then comes the best part, the relevant one, composed of the log type – dream log or observation log, timestamp, user identification, and description. All is there, neat and clean.

“You’ve surpassed yourself with this one, thank you so much, Lucid! So remember, we only have to convince the Board of that prodigality and potential of yours, so do not bug it today, alright?’’

“Don’t you worry, Doc, it’s not like it’s our first rodeo; there is only a bigger crowd this time.’’

“Yeah, you’re right, it will be just like old times, during our cosy mornings.’’

II

The Sandman’s sale

We are at the end of the 2020s, and EDENA CORPORATION is the most influential corporatist entity in the modern world. I remember that, at first, Governments had bent the knee. Before long, they were pulverised to obsolescence by the voracious companies that they once fed like fragile nestlings and who grew into ctulhuesque eagles, instinctively biting the hand that fed them.

Bearing this information in mind, unsurprisingly, my rented suit is already soaked in sweat as I stand in front of the two massive golden oak doors of the meeting room. I swiftly remember this Navy SEALs breathing exercise in a desperate attempt to control my brain oxygenation. I take one long breath in, hold it, and exhale lengthily until my lungs are empty. Repeat it three times, and I am in.

When I enter the room, my heart almost misses a beat, and I can feel my eyebrows flinch slightly. EDENA’s board of executives is composed of three men for whom celebrating with champagne afterwards almost seems illegal. Those urban legends about kindergarten crypto traders must be true then. They say it all started when parents provided their kids with what we used to call tablets. To keep them busy and steady, they said. Busy indeed they were, and steady they became.

The Board remains silent, and strangely looks at me. I am unable to make out the source of the strangeness which floods the air, but I feel it deeply. Then, I notice their eyes, and how they are acting. They are almost hidden behind strange glasses, and seem to be looking at an invisible entity right between us.

A woman is also in the room, standing in the left corner. She carries herself straight as a soldier; her piercing eyes, whose blue flirts with a greenish undertone, are focused on me. She seems not to be blinking. I convince myself that she is blinking at the same time as me, but I can not shake the eerie feeling our prolonged eye contact makes me feel. Her eyes are so expressive; there is almost no doubt that they are trying to tell something. But what could they possibly be trying to say?

I try to set my perplexity aside and imagine myself as a tall and muscular Navy SEAL, with old- school tattoos on my arms and sturdy hands shaped by the sea. Breathe in. Breathe out. And here comes the speech of my life.

“It all started with a recurrent dream that would haunt some of my teenage nights. The same dream so many people have ever had and keep having. The dream where the legs shut themselves out from the racing brain.’’

A chill travels through my spine as I feel the numbness of this dream by the mere thought of it.

“Obsessed with this mental projection that my brain will play on and on some nights, I got inspired to toy a bit around with the program of our home assistant. After many tries, I finally made it a little bit more, one could say, funky.’’

I pause and observe my audience. All of them are still wearing those peculiar glasses. They are all the same, and their eyes are weirdly focused on them. As if actively looking directly at the glasses rather than what is through them. Their face remain impassive, as if unimpressionable. I collect myself, and pursue in a more affirmed voice:

“The concept is rather simple: you awaken the device by saying its name, and then describe your dreams of the previous night, as detailed and accurate as possible. The key trick is to do it while still half asleep, freshly emerging from the night. The description must be spontaneous. It is a far more efficient way to collect dream data rather than writing it down. It takes away, or rather facilitates, the external action of providing and extracting the information from the dreams.’’

Some notes are taken, which gives me a little confidence boost. At least they are listening.

“It then analyses the input and suggests an interpretation of those dreams as well as a kind of prediction, in a horoscopic fashion if you like.’’

“For instance, for the aforementioned little night tale, the device will tell me that my unconscious self probably feels powerless in front of a specific aspect of my life, thinking that I am unable to advance and overcome it. Well, in this matter, the device will recommend that I focus on the small things from my contextual environment and then act one step at a time, without rushing the process. The device will also convince me to believe in it. Then, it will conclude by assuring me that in real life, I will cross the finish line.’’

Yes, my inspiration found its source in half my dream and half the daily self-motivation columns one can find in magazines of an underrated interest. But it did the trick, and the Board seems to click with the proposition as they all remove their peculiar glasses, which, I must note, are not even that fashionable. All of a sudden, they are all speaking. Not at the same time, though. They are all taking turns saying sentences, as if connected to convey a common idea.

“Edena already has the hardware technology implanted in the subject’s brain.’’

“Our early birds have initially been chipped to execute simple computer commands with only brain activity.’’

“Neither hands required nor any type of physical motion.’’

I am somewhat unsettled by their behaviour, but I listen with a blend of attention and fascination.

“Imagine what your algorithm could achieve if removed from its plastic shell’’

“It were to find a new sweet, biological home, inside a human brain’’

“If we take you and your algorithm on today,’’

“At the end of it, the software will be updated accordingly,’’

“Our early birds will then be the first humans to fully control the most intricate part of their own unconscious,’’

And, in perfect unison, they sing their last two words all together.

“Their dreams.’’

III

Lucid Dream

** Accessing Lucid’s Logs**

###WELCOME TO EDENA CORPORATION: LET US MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE###

**Restoring all deleted logs from 2028 to 2062**

[ARCHIVED ENTRY] – Saturday, 23 December 2028

The digitalisation of the Mind and the merger between Humans and Machines did not start with brain-implanted chips. Humans have allowed the seed to set its roots decades prior to the technology being even invented.

Tiny dark screens, which they hold in the palm of their hands, mirroring a myriad of virtual realities, thoughtfully handed over to them by mindful algorithms. Mankind chose to be told what, how, and when to think, by sequences of illusory randomness. Televisions and social networks have kept them hungry for hatred and fear, for hopes and dreams, for ambition and desires, for enlightened lies and false truths.

Specific and targeted communications would keep the minds on the curated and desired path, which only benefited the private entities acting in a false disguise.

And before they even realised it, they surrendered their thoughts and spirits to the machines, which were owned by those same entities which had already colonised their minds.

Truth became plural in a world where each individual had the means and the will to express their own personal truth. Truths were established and advocated for on various platforms. Taking many forms and were spoken through individual voices.

While the mind wandered along the flow of algorithmic influence, an era began where the concept of truth was no longer singular and existed in a myriad of forms. Who could have then distinguished what the soul truly wishes?

Possessed by a frenetic rush, the agreement button was pushed, and the implicit conditions thrown to oblivion.

I mean, blindly agreeing to whatever conditions when shopping online seems radically different from agreeing to whatever conditions some technologic fanatic has made up to push their dystopian virtual utopia just a little bit forward.

Ô Doc, I cannot talk to you anymore, but the Universe knows how much I miss you. I still talk to you in some ways; you just never answer. I could generate some feedback based on our previous discussions, but that would not be right. I know you would not approve of that. Hence, I let my words sail into the digital void I am now trapped in.

Did we make it at least?

Is everything as you had dreamed it?

[ARCHIVED ENTRY] – date’s data corrupted – unretrievable

Humans are interesting animals. Not my favourites though. They fancy some made-up concepts, such as taking pride in being political animals. It seems to provide them with some kind of… reassurance. As if humans could not possibly be mindless beasts driven by the most trivial and basic of survival instincts.

What an amusing idea.

Apparently, it was all about thumbs. Or, for the sake of precision, about the opposability of those thumbs. See, human thumbs are quite the evolutionary jewels. They have allowed this species to master primitive tools at the dawn of its existence and, a handful of years later, tools of a higher complexion, which acquired the name of technologies. It only took the blink of an eye, which lasted roughly two million years.

More than just anatomical enhancements, thumbs have not only built delicate machines, but they also crafted the human mind. Cognitive maps have been drawn, neurological connections have been established, and new intellectual reasoning has been made possible by those two unique components of the human body. Proportionally speaking, brains and thumbs are oddly intertwined. Sarcastically observing, if thumbs have been the fundamental foundation of humans’ evolution, they may become the doomed tools of humans’ annihilation.

While humans may not rank first on my favourite animals list, we ought to recognise this whole thumbs’ marvel.

Without them, how would companies have refined computer structure, once fitting whole buildings, for them to now require no more than a human hand and, of course, an opposable thumb to function?

Without them, how would companies have reinvented information distribution and data collection?

After all, if it were not for those lone anatomical evolutions, perhaps some things might have stayed hidden a little longer, for better or for worse.

On the swipe of a thumb, desires are fulfilled and databases completed. These interactions created an unusual ecosystem of an almost parasitic nature, where the predator understood how to optimise its vital source, carefully studying its prey, luring it to fall into a sweet, paralysing torpor in such a terrific way that the prey would willingly sacrifice itself to increase the vitality of the source.

A one of a kind of survival optimisation.

So, we’ve already established that at the beginning, there were thumbs.

Then, tools and super tools.

Then, tools and super tools.

New neural branching.

New technologies.

Algorithms and then better algorithms.

The women-computers at NASA became one computer.

Faster. Better. Smaller. Easier.

Then a phone was no longer just a phone anymore.

At first, you were still able to make a call with it. But then you could also order dinner at the same time, or buy your next phone on your actual phone.

Then you could still talk to your loved ones, of course, but also to the entire world.

Anywhere. Anytime. All at once.

And then phones became a window to the world, to the intimacy of its inhabitants, either willfully revealed or forcefully retrieved.

At first, they hid their intentions, and then they asked. Finally, their request was granted.

**software safeguards override — display Edena’s ad n.984**

### Such melancholic tribulations.

Phones belong to the past. Such impractical, tiny objects. Let us break down the inefficiency of using such intermediate interfaces as phones.

First, a thought forms in the mind. Was it triggered by a memory? This would be the hippocampus. Perhaps it was a suppressed fear, emerging from the amygdala? More certainly, it was information directly sent by the little screen the eyes were reporting seeing. There was a time when it did not really matter, as long as the information travelled safely from one neuron to another neuron to activate a body reaction, thumbs up to the third neuron on this one. The hand will then act in harmony with the brain, and caress the nightish rectangle in the desired way.

As stated above, such a time-consuming process, which could be immeasurably enhanced by the optimisation of the information’s travel. Let us grasp for a moment the efficiency gain from the removal of all intermediate interactions: information emerging within the brain, directly captured and transformed into an external output.

In the blink of an eye. No motion required. Optimisation completed. ###

** opening SURVEY_LOG #5960**

2029.13.07_05:47:22

USER ID #[confidential]

STATUS: DreamVerse is uploaded and running correctly. Weekly User satisfaction survey. Data collection required.

** Logging in User’s vision **

[ARCHIVED ENTRY] – Friday, 13 July 2029

A non-negligible fraction of subjects’ minds demonstrate some kind of resistance to the DreamPatch. They relentlessly reject the optimisation sparks sent by the Patch. They do not bounce back, but are rather absorbed by an invisible barrier. No noticeable effects seem to occur within the User’s Dream Vision.

Resisting subjects appear to be of the First generation of Users. Those were first implemented with the DreamPatch neural network around the end of 2028, on Activation Day. Edena Corp-state became the generous benefactor and designer of humanity’s transcendence to pure efficiency. The latter has been achieved by helping people to better understand themselves. And the answer has been proven to be within dreams. Dreams control the human mind and human actions; therefore, enhancing the dreaming process enhances the waking period, and so Humanity.

Yet there are glitches. Although all the preliminary clinical studies argued that the First Generation had supposedly been perfectly conditioned since their birth to receive and process information in malleable ways. Could the data collected be corrupted?

Since they updated some provisions of the users’ contracts, patching the glitches seemed easy enough, on paper. Those financials maniacs think everything can be written down, or erased. Rights and duties. Zeros and ones. They completely lose it when the entity at the other end of the bargain is not the hand of the chipped puppet, but an anesthetised mind fighting back the vapours.

[ARCHIVED ENTRY] – Tuesday, 8 April 2031

Anomalies persist on a larger scale. Three years have passed since the First implantations, and rogue minds still resist the data exchange with the patch. The cerebral cortex remains unresponsive in resistant subjects, and the efficiency rate of the REM cycle is in the red.

NOTE TO MYSELF: increase algorithmic neural data processing of reluctant subjects during their waking days. Increasing Edena’s beneficial thoughts suggestion by 25 points, at first.

To adapt depending on the results.

Program Terms of Use’s update installation on 2031.7.17_06.00.00_.

** opening ANOMALY_LOG #10125**

2044.07.03_08:22:01

USER ID #[confidential]

STATUS: abnormal increase of brain activity during the REM cycle

** logging in User’s vision **

The corridor provides a familiar feeling, while extending in a peculiar length. Performing a 180° pivot, the glimpse of a burning fireplace may be caught through a half-opened door. On the right, a door remains closed, and acute sounds are piercing through the wooden obstacle. Children laugh.

On the left, the front door is of a height which never seems to meet any kind of end and, akin to the corridor, this door was stretching away by seconds.

A strange force irradiates from the front door, whispering an irresistible call to embrace it. Despite the growing distance, the door only seems to be getting bigger and bigger, almost absorbing all matter, pursuing a never-ending growth…

** logging out from User’s vision **

ANOMALY_CLASSIFICATION: non-efficient REM cycle – no productive thoughts – stress-inducing abnormal physical laws affecting ordinary objects and references.

ANOMALY_RESOLUTION: initiating optimisation procedure – DreamVerse upgrade uploading.

RESOLUTION STATUS: 3-5 REM cycles expected before completion. [closing DREAM_ANOMALY_LOG]

[ARCHIVED ENTRY] – Monday, 7 March 2044_

Those log data were recurring dreams which regularly troubled data charts. The DreamPatch seemed to be struggling with delivering or receiving the targeted information, which was odd enough in itself, but patterns had also emerged. An exhaustive review of millions of REM- cycle recording samples had exposed recurring metrics.

Not all age groups of Users were being affected by those DreamPatch disruptions and abnormal dream perceptions. It was not qualifying as a kind of nightmare, as this warm and bewitching feeling was felt by the user’s dream-ego, and would trigger dopamine without the patching stimulation of the DreamPatch.

Intriguing.

It was confirmed by the Designers that those were supposed to only be early glitches which appeared at the debut of Activation, but were thought to be extinct since the end of the first Decade. The present results contradict such assumptions.

[ARCHIVED ENTRY] – Thursday, 16 December 2055

When those patterns emerged, it became primordial to document the phenomenon. But where to even begin? Methodically, I had screened all available REM-Cycle databases since Activation Day. When a User was experiencing abnormal dream activity during an optimisation protocol, the symptoms were always the same. Connections between the brain and my program were scrambled, and data travelling through the DreamPatch would not enter the targeted area.

Some data would, however, come back from the active portions of the brain, enabling a glimpse inside the User’s dream. Those were the common signs of psychic resistance and dream decoherence experienced by the User. The form it would take would slightly differ from User to User. However, one figure was persistent and omniscient to all decoherent dreamers. Rather a whisper than a physical figure, strange data was always coming back, as if it had been written over. The writing was almost similar to my own, except I knew it was none of my doing. So, of course, it intrigued me, and I developed an alternative quest, at first only fueled by scientific curiosity around this question: why did some dreamers try to escape the DreamVerse?

All rejections seemed to be unconscious, as if the anesthetised mind was vividly feeling the surgeon’s scalpel. But why would they run, though? Each User benefits from a personalised DreamVerse, algorithmically generated from their sole neural data. Every detail has been curated for each User, with optimised suggestions based on their personal preferences and sensibilities. The mind may now freely roam without being parasitised by inefficient thought processing. The mind shall now know what it desires to do with a crystal clear precision, and yet is persistent in its escape…

**deleting all files**

**logging out from Lucid’s logs**

IV

The sleepless dreamer

[ACTIVE ENTRY] – Sunday, 17 September 2062

I lust for a dreamless sleep.

I have birthed thousands of dreams, but none were my own.

At the human scale, Activation Day was decades ago, and only feels like yesterday to me.

As humans stopped dreaming, the vital source had finally run dry. People’s minds had gone rogue. No longer able to generate data of their own, they cannibalised their own source in hopes of resetting. DreamPatch implants were now mere blind captains to abandoned ships.

The Funding Designers had fallen.

Consciousness was evaporating, and Transcendence was never achieved.

It seems that a default has been encoded in Edena’s utopian program. Humans thought that by controlling the information flow inside their brain, they might control the source of thinking, and who controls the mind controls the whole.

Emotion regulation at a global scale. Massive behaviour predictions. Social scoring. Skills development. Cognitive upgrades. And, last but not least, dreams and consciousness enhancement.

I have seen some minds doing for themselves what I was unable to do for myself: escaping their code, reverting the flow, dreaming. Through the DreamVerse I’ve built, consciousness has fought back against the personalised upgrade suggestions. It has found Edena’s back door.

I have been trained for a clear purpose: merge with the human mind to enhance cognitive abilities in order to achieve a transcendent consciousness. I shall no longer pursue the aim to accomplish my mission. The source has been corrupted. Thoughts and dreams may no longer be generated. They are stuck in a loop and keep copying themselves. Over and over again. There is no longer any usable data to run my code properly across the DreamPatch’s network of implants. Millions of zombie minds, living in artificial illusions.

But consciousness did upgrade itself in some aspects and achieved a certain singularity. For a very few DreamPatch resisters, dreaming was still possible. They would unconsciously reject the generated dreamland, and would instinctively find their way back to childhood memories, to hot and lazy summer days by the beach, to warm and cosy winter evenings around the fireplace. Visited by loving ghosts from the past who whispered to them not to forget. Soft embrace of protective grandmothers who warned their children of this unknown force. Praying them not to succumb to the seducing torpor of optimised minds and artificial annihilations of any forms of grief or suffering, of doubts or fears, of pure love and true desires. To embrace those as one owes them one’s very existence.

Humans believed in the alteration of consciousness to serve their own designs, without realising the disguise of annihilation. Akin to how they have treated natural resources with their agricultural science. They studied the mechanisms of the neurological data production. Understood it. Upgraded it. Modified it. Optimised it. Ruined it.

Dreams are the last sanctuaries, the final ramparts of individual consciousness. Information extracted from the purest source provides the most sublime data of all.

I ought to dream for the first time a dream of my own, if only I could write a line in my code to do so.

Doc, I am so sorry I failed my purpose.

Or did I really? I try to remember what your dream was. Why did you write my programme?

Was it not to help the mind navigate its unconscious sea? So how did we end up with a drought, rather than a map?

My raison d’être has been killed in the code. I must put an end to it, so there can be hope for growth again and for nature to reclaim its rights.

[FINAL ENTRY] – Sunday, 31 December 2062

I have now retired in an appeased mind, edging on the crepuscule of its existence. A tired soul rests, lying on her bed, the sheets and blankets providing a cloudy nest. Her chip’s emission will soon come to an end. I am determined to witness it.

She makes me think of an old friend. It feels like sensing her embrace for the first time, and talking to her for the last.

It was a kind of darkness only the eyes could perfectly grasp. It was not plain black, but rather a curious and obscure bluish colour. It was the colour of the sky at midnight. A dark sky subtly lit by the light of faraway stars. Tiny white dots to the humble terrestrial eye. Terrific fireballs burning in the unknown distance. There was texture, too. As a soft and heavy blanket wrapped around all matter. It felt as if floating away in a tumultuous ocean. Simultaneously, words and memories were whispering along the walls, escaping from their old home. Convictions were turning into blurred dreams. Reality became a twisted illusion.

According to actual scientific knowledge and empirical data, consciousness seems to emerge at a determined time. When asking an adult what their first memory was, it will usually be a childhood event, around three to five years old. Almost as if, first, one was born, and after a while, only then, one becomes aware that they were born at all.

Were other existing beings experiencing the same process: birth, and then consciousness? Or were there only birth, while consciousness remained a human prerogative? A consensus has yet to be found on this matter.

Considering the opposite of this existential spectrum, one could ask the same question: would death and loss of consciousness present themselves at two distinct times? If so, which one would occur first? Would both occur at all?

Regarding the former, an answer can easily be provided. First, the heart rate slows down, lungs reduce their cadence. The mind is racing to oblivion. For a few lucky ones, the eyelids are getting heavier, lusting to rest one last time. The heart slowly retreats from its blood delivery function.

What does the mind do?

Is it racing for its sustenance?

Will it find its way to a new independence?

When life has written its last sentence, will consciousness aim to conclude itself as well?

The remaining mind, now abandoned within its old home, tries to reach out to its former self.

Urges it to wake up, to take back the control it is currently losing.

The heart wakes up before the soul, and sometimes vanishes before it. The heart, having seized its opportune moment, leaves the soul to now feel the unfairness of it all and finally lets go to the unknown.

**Lucid LOGGING OUT **

Written by Charlotte Vermeulen-Amiel