Hot Wavelength

Chapter 58 (Subconscious 2): Artificial Dreams
October 2032, Marine Valley, Sand Oil Country
Prince Harufa of the Sand Oil Kingdom built a mirage that seemed both real and illusory in the middle of a desert. This cluster of smart cities stretches for nearly a thousand kilometers and is named Sailor Valley.

Before officially opening to global tourists, Prince Harufa invited partners and friends to a soft opening ceremony. Michael, Daphne, and Irene and her daughter Mandy were among those invited.

The group first visited the breathtaking minimalist postmodern architecture. Minimalism, in this context, refers to the fact that the outlines and facades of each building present a highly cohesive geometric shape. Cubes, spheres, and cones—like enlarged versions of children's building blocks.

The exterior walls are made of special materials, and the walls are like pieces of mirrors. They can absorb infrared rays that can be converted into electrical energy and reflect ultraviolet rays that are harmful to the human body.

While the exterior architecture is minimalist, the interiors are incredibly diverse, ranging from retro palaces to futuristic space capsules. Of course, there are also numerous man-made natural landscapes: sunny beaches, birdsong, fragrant flowers, cascading waterfalls, and fresh air.

What attracts attention to smart city clusters is not just the architecture and decoration, but more importantly, the word "smart." Sailor Valley's biggest selling point is its "unmanned" city.

All service personnel in public facilities and commercial establishments are highly biomimetic humanoid robots. Everyone visitors encounter, including receptionists, waiters, and even police officers, is a humanoid robot.

Visitors immersed in the experience often feel a sense of disorientation, as if in a dream, and frequently ask, "Are you a real person?"

Mariner Valley also offers a futuristic range of tourism activities. One of them, suggested by Michael, allows visitors to create or designate their own humanoid robot, just like in science fiction movies and TV shows, to serve as a clone.

Visitors can choose from scenarios such as dances, bars, hunting, or adventures, and join in various activities with the intelligent robots. The project is called "Doppelganger Social Interaction".

Another tourism project is even more impressive; it's called "Man-Made Dreams".

With the backing of a large sum of money from Prince Harufa, Michael Max used the powerful computing capabilities of a ternary computer to establish a connection with the subconscious mind. This allowed him to create controlled, artificial dreams while the person was asleep.

Sure enough, everyone was eager to try their hand at creating a dream. Prince Harufa nodded to his partner Michael, then turned to the ladies and said with no small amount of pride:
“There are two ways to create artificial dreams: one is called ‘hot topic dreams’ and the other is called ‘themed dreams’.”

"'Hot Topic Dream' means experiencing a 'dream movie' about a hot topic. Visitors can choose a dream like ordering food from a menu and experience the corresponding story in their sleep. You could say it's like watching or acting in a movie in your dream."

Mandy eagerly said, "I want a dream, one related to my work in preserving ancient villages. What's the number one dream in the natural geography category with the most previews?"

Prince Harufa smiled mysteriously and replied, "You know Bharat, right? He was introduced to me by your mother. The dream with the highest number of previews in the natural geography category is called Bharat's Golden Deer."

Mandy's dream begins, and an Indian boy named Bharat is telling the story of his family and the Golden Deer.

Bharat's grandfather often worked as a guide and translator for foreign archaeological teams, and over time, he developed an interest in archaeology and paleontology.

In 1970, Bharat's grandfather discovered a complete animal fossil beneath ancient strata in the Kashmir region. It was an animal that lived approximately 6000 million years ago, with short limbs, a long body, a pointed snout, and a long tail; it was a mammal.

Grandpa couldn't quite describe what it looked like, so he named it Indohyus, an ancient Indian pig. After researching and comparing samples, he concluded that this animal was the ancestor of modern large mammals.

My grandfather was a nobody in the field of paleontology, and his opinions were not taken seriously. It wasn't until later, when more and more fossils of the same animal were unearthed, that biologists discovered that this animal was more like a small deer.

The turning point came in 2006, after Grandpa had passed away. Grandma Vanita, following Grandpa's wishes, handed over the fossils and research notes to a paleontologist from Liang.

As if by divine intervention, the biologist's assistant accidentally broke the fossil's skull, but unexpectedly discovered that the fawn fossil's auditory tympanic bubble was attached to the external tympanic bone, a structure of the ear bone that only appears in the skulls of whales, dolphins, and all transitional species.

Ancient geological exploration indicates that starting about 6500 million years ago, the Neo-Tethys Ocean between the ancient Indian subcontinent and the Eurasian Plate experienced marine regression and gradually disappeared, with the uplifted land including the present-day Kashmir region.

The disappearance of the Neo-Tethys Ocean was a slow process, occurring faster in the east and slower in the west. To this day, the western part of the Neo-Tethys Ocean remains ocean, namely the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

There is reason to believe that the Neo-Tethys Ocean, located in the region between India and the Red Sea where Pakistan is situated, disappeared more recently.

If ancient fawns, which were terrestrial creatures, evolved into marine mammals like whales or dolphins, then the Pakistani region should be able to find transitional animals in the evolutionary process.

This transitional animal has indeed been found. It's called the Pakistani whale, an amphibious mammal slightly larger than a fawn, with a long, thin nose like a crocodile, and its limbs are further shortened, making it a better swimmer.

Mandy was dozing off until Bharat showed her the skeletons of an ancient Indian deer, a Pakistani whale, and a humpback whale, which shocked her greatly.

The three skeletons share a common origin and are extremely similar, exhibiting clear evolutionary characteristics. After tens of millions of years of evolution, the ancient Indian golden deer miraculously evolved into the enormous humpback whale!

Modern biologists and archaeologists have come to a startling conclusion: humpback whales in the ocean evolved from small land mammals (pigs or deer) 6000 million years ago!
Bharat's grandmother, Vanita, looked at Bharat with affection, holding Rabindranath Tagore's "The Gardener" in her hands. The page she turned to was the 69th poem: "The Golden Deer."

In Mandy's dream, on the vast ocean, a group of humpback whales leaped high from the water, playing and chasing each other joyfully, their calls high-pitched, like singing.

"But the wind, carrying the curse, blows through the homeless."

A light touch on my body, without my knowledge,

What year is it tonight? Where am I?
Empty your mind and body, disregard everything that belongs to you.

I traversed the valley, solely to search for that golden fawn.

Mandy didn't know if she was awake or in another dream. Before her appeared a kind old man with a white beard. Was that Tagore? She couldn't express her feelings at that moment. She didn't know what to ask or what kind of answer she wanted to hear.

Tagore, with his flowing white beard and composed demeanor, seemed to see right through Mandy's thoughts. Mandy, without thinking, joined the old man in reciting a poem from *Stray Birds*:

"Oh ocean, what are you telling us?"
This must be an eternal question. Heaven, in what language do you answer?

It was an eternal silence.

Mandy opened her eyes, feeling a sense of disorientation, wondering what year it was and where she was.

Daphne, standing beside Mandy, looked at her curiously. She couldn't imagine what kind of story the dream, which ranked first in preview screenings in the natural geography category, was, but she clearly saw a light in Mandy's eyes.

It was a mysterious light, and tiny humans marveled at the omnipotent and wondrous light of nature.

Michael patted Daphne on the shoulder and said proudly, "The combination of artificial intelligence and the subconscious has opened another window for us. Artificial dreams are just the first attempt. Subconscious learning, and even subconscious communication between humans and machines, and between humans, will all become possible."

Daphne, without giving Michael's grand vision a chance to ponder, said to Prince Harufa, "What does 'themed dream' mean? I want to try it."

“A themed dream means that you set a theme for the dream you want to have, input the scene, the story outline, or even just a single word,” Prince Harufa explained.

Daphne thought for a moment and typed in a word: VESSEL.

In Liangguo Nidu Hasen River Park, the landmark building VESSEL stands in the square. It is both an incredible building and an eye-catching performance art piece.

There's no enclosed space, no practical use in the conventional sense, just layers upon layers of steel frames and staircases connecting them. Steps, endless steps, stretching upwards. What is VESSEL? It's a stairway to heaven.

Wearing a helmet, Vito connected his mind with Michael's through VESSEL, the name Michael gave to his brain-computer interface. Father and son softly sang "Say I Love You" within VESSEL:
Speak my love softly, hold me tight, our hearts are connected.
Semantic sensing, a gentle, trembling moment.

In that world that belonged only to the two of us,

Share experiences that no one else can match.

The sun warms the fine wine of time.
We became one, blending into the blue velvet night.

Speak your love softly, so that only the sky can hear it.

Entrust this life, promise this lifetime.
Our vow of love.

My life belongs to you, because...

You whispered "I love you" and came before me.

Mars is dotted with ultra-light-emitting power stations modeled after Mayan polymer clay, which rise into the sky. The tool used to connect the clay pieces is VESSEL, the trademark of a screwdriver manufacturing company.

Still on Mars, the superluminal power station suddenly vanished. A satellite orbited Mars in the sky, and a thick carbon fiber pipe, like an oil pipeline, formed a ring fixed to the satellite, slowly rotating around Mars.

The tube that forms the ring is, to be precise, called a vessel. VESSEL means vessel.

Inside a colossal spaceship, Daphne, holding Vito and Michael, stands on the bridge. The starry sky is pristine and clear blue. They embark on a long journey, heading towards poetry and distant horizons. VESSEL means "big ship."

Psyche appeared clearly in Daphne's field of vision, and the Psyche probe was gradually approaching it. Psyche resembled a supercomputer operating at low power, emitting extremely long wavelength electromagnetic waves with slight vibrations.

The frequency is 14-30 Hz, and the voltage is 5-20 microvolts.

The frequency is 8~13 Hz, and the voltage is 20~100 microvolts.

The frequency is 4-7 Hz, and the voltage is 100-150 microvolts.

The frequency is 0.5~3 Hz, and the voltage is 20~200 microvolts.

These correspond to the beta wave, alpha wave, theta wave, and delta wave of human brainwaves, respectively.

Daphne's language center seemed to respond, and her brainwaves seemed to be "speaking"!
What were they saying? Daphne seemed to "hear" it, but she couldn't quite make it out.

Suddenly, a beam of electromagnetic waves, even more powerful and denser than a laser, shot from the edge of the solar system toward Psyche. All the electronic equipment on the Psyche was instantly burned out, and it lost contact with Earth.

The word VESSEL also has another meaning: container.

What is the connection between Psyche, human brainwaves, VESSEL, and containers?

Daphne's vision was shrouded in mist; she couldn't see clearly, nor could she understand.

&
The poem composed of collected verses at the end of the chapter:
The railing keeps me here; I need not return. (Song Dynasty, Chen Yuyi)
I dreamt I entered a paradise, but it was no longer there. —Yu Delin, Yuan Dynasty
I only wish that people of the time would see this scene. — Wang Anshi, Song Dynasty

The heavens are locked in a cloud-shrouded canopy, obscuring all brilliance. — Tang Dynasty, Yuan

(End of this chapter)