Foreword: This is a Cthulhu fairy tale, which I wrote in combination with Hans Christian Andersen's dark fairy tale and several other novels, and I dare not say that it is completely original, after all, there are still many direct quotes. In terms of setting, this is written by Xu Mingshan, but considering that he is also a character created by me, the author is actually me. On a whim, 3 chapters in a row.

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[1] Confession is also a prologue

From a very young age, strange thoughts sprouted in my mind, and they were deeply ingrained in my soul. When I stood in front of the mirror, the figure in the mirror was like a familiar stranger, unable to evoke the slightest thought of "this is me".

On the surface, this unusual phenomenon may seem like a "loss of self-concept", but I am well aware of the underlying reason: the existence of the "me", or consciousness or something, is restless in this body, unable to restrain itself from dreaming of breaking free.

The idea is so ingrained that when I read books on psychology and neuroscience, it grows like a monster devouring knowledge, if I may call it such a neutral quantifier. I don't consider myself a genius, and I don't have a lot of people around me who crush me academically, but even true geniuses, geniuses who develop advanced cognitive abilities into adulthood before puberty and will continue to do so, are still limited by the slow speed of nerve signaling and the distributed, primitive brain.

I often wonder if my friends and family, or most of humanity, would have deliberately paused to recall the important meanings that happened to appear in the dream, or the obscure world to which they were attached. According to common sense, the vast majority of our nighttime dreams are nothing more than wonderful phantoms produced by waking experiences, a subjective experience that occurs during the REM period, and the images, sounds, thoughts or feelings that people imagine during certain stages of sleep. But Freud used his doctrine of childhood symbolism to refute this argument, because there are certain things—things that are also present in memories that I find difficult to pinpoint—are not among them. Their otherworldly and ethereal qualities cannot be explained by ordinary perspectives, and their vaguely exciting and unsettling effects may give a brief glimpse of a realm that belongs to the spirit.

In terms of my own experience and feelings, this field is no less important than real life, but it is isolated from real life by a barrier that is almost insurmountable. Although my tenacious intellect has chosen to reduce all this materialistic view to some unclear neural activity, I cannot question Freud's theory of personal experience, which seems to be somewhat outdated in modern psychology, that perhaps, when people lose their earthly consciousness, they will sojourn in another invisible life form that is completely different from what we know, and that when we wake up we will be left with only the slightest and most vague memories.

We may deduce many things from these vague and fragmented memories, but we cannot verify them with the innate rational thinking and the mature paradigm of scientific inquiry. We may only guess that in dreams, life, matter, and vitality, which are familiar to human beings, are not necessarily constant: the vehicle of thought is far from being confined to the inferior organ of cells, the brain, and space-time does not necessarily exist in a sophisticated form that conforms to mathematical models as we perceive it when we are awake.

At other times, I believe that this more unrealistic life is a more real life, and that the empty time we spend on this small planet is secondary, or just a false phenomenon of some kind of sensory organ such as sight, hearing, touch, etc., which is even an illusion in itself[1].

I once asked a friend who is a cognitive scientist if he should write these things down. But he was noncommittal, and seemed reluctant to dwell too much on my past. However, considering that some things may be of incomparable importance in the study of science and philosophy—and perhaps the most valuable legacy of my life as a small mortal, I have decided to tell everything, all about the "me" of the other world. It's not just about finding peace of mind, it's about offering a new perspective on the strange and brilliant dreams of human beings, at least me, as an individual human being.

[2] Looking back on the memories of the past

Woodford is a well-known town in the eastern region of Langricarlo. The rolling forests of the countryside provide the best quality timber, and the river that winds through the edge of the town makes it easy to transport timber. Every spring and summer, many merchants come here to buy large quantities of timber and transport it along the river.

For me living in the modern age, this pre-industrial town is a beautiful Gensokyo. If it weren't for the fact that the surrounding environment is so unremarkable, and it's a little more lovely than the relatively prosperous harbour city of Sentu. But when a person really gets used to living here – I mean, for "me" in this world – he always finds something that brings joy and makes memories to cherish.

On the outskirts of the town of Woodford, on the banks of the river called Mapset, which flows to the sea, there are several small and modest gardens. When the early summer weather is beautiful, the scenery is beautiful – this is a feeling I share with my neighbor, a girl named Nina. We dodged the adults and other wild children, met each other, bypassed the abandoned flower beds where violets and lily of the valley bloomed, walked through smut currants and gooseberry bushes, and played together on the lawn between elderberry trees and ferns.

Generally speaking, the day of such dreams is usually stormy. Although I don't hate snuggling up in a warm study on bad weather, turning on the fluorescent lamps and listening to the constant sound of rain crashing against the soundproof glass windows, I have a great deal of fun to experience the difference between day and night. I can still recall from my memory how I felt, the scents of various plants blending into a faint fragrance, and the leaves above my head making a hard-to-hear, sleep-inducing rustle. Sometimes we feel tired, so we lie side by side in the shade of the trees, naturally close our eyes, quietly feel the beauty of everything, and revel in this unpolluted nature.

Often in these moments, my breathing becomes long and calm, my mouth and nose breath are like nothing, my heart is still beating vigorously, but at a slower rate than usual—my body is completely relaxed, and I enter a wonderful state: my senses of hearing and smell seem to be developed to the extreme, and even the touch of my skin is unusually sensitive. I could clearly distinguish the mixed sounds of birdsong, the scent of flowers and the moist smell of grass and earth, the soft tips of the grass sticking to the skin and the tingling of the occasional small bug crawling on the back of my hand, and even the sound of pedestrians hundreds of feet away through the walls of artificially cultivated abandoned trees. When I look back on it now, I'm still struck by the sensitivity of the senses.

Before you know it, everything seems like a dream, and those things you perceive fade away, like leaves floating in the river in the early morning, disappearing into the faint fog in the distance on the river. I fell asleep.

……

"Hey, why did you fall asleep?"

When I woke up one day, I stretched, and the bright sunlight made me squint involuntarily, and it took me a while to get used to it. Looking up, the sun hung high in the blue sky, shimmering golden in the dense foliage above it.

I straightened up and looked around, only to see large and small spots of light scattered on the grass and paths in the forest, and a special dry freshness filled the air.

With no one around me to be found, I decided to look for Nina. After a few steps, at the bend of the trail ahead, a girl with a flower basket appeared behind the thick, man-high bushes. The girl was tall, only half a minute shorter than me, with long black and silky hair hanging down to her waist, and two strands of green silk on her forehead. It's Nina.

In that moment, I was very clear—and convinced—that I had witnessed the perfection of creation. If there were gods, the girl in front of him would be the most precious work of art he had ever created and loved. I desperately wanted this moment to be eternal, but my intellect—or the only sanity I had left in my dreams—told me that eternity was beyond the reach of any human being.

……

Occasionally we would go on an adventure in the countryside in the woods – I mean, what children at that age call "adventures". Deep in the forest, the sun shines through the dense canopy, casting sporadic light, making the forest darker and colder than usual. The forest ground is rugged, littered with outcropping roots and large rocks, with the occasional skewed oak signpost or two. Those places that are a little flatter become the so-called roads.

In a slightly open area, the tall and stout trunks of oak trees stand proudly, and the leaves of hazel and rowan trees take on a golden, sparkling color in the sun. Harriers, eagles, and kestrels, fluttering and chirping under the stationary treetops, and colorful woodpeckers of all kinds pecked at the thick bark. It was a wonderful and wonderful experience for me living in a modern city, an experience that even my father had never experienced when he took me on a trip to the countryside.

Once, when we were walking together, Nina suddenly came up to me with a smile and said, "Hey, you can't guess what kind of dream I had. ”

The characters in the dream actually dream, and I couldn't help but freeze when I realized that I was in the dream. Perhaps because she was being ignored, the girl grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me violently, then pulled me to sit on the lawn and told me.

"It was a sunny morning......"

Nina's voice was very moving, but I felt like I was falling into an ice cellar when I heard it. It was a dream I had before, a dream I had in reality, and many details have been blurred in my memory.

I woke up and was on the bed in my bedroom. I sat up straight, the dark room was quiet, the faint light of the stairwell across the street through the gap between the two curtains.

Afterwards, when I occasionally think back to this dream, I comfort myself with "self-awakening subconscious memories".

It's the most beautiful time of my life, both for the "me" in the dream world – let's assume that his daily life continues when I'm awake – and for me in real life, but not forever. Nina's mother had died of illness, and the medical books I had read in reality were useless, and even if I asked my uncles and uncles who were doctors, they were just curious, and didn't doubt them too much. It is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice, and in a small town before the industrial age, it is difficult to even use the medical skills of a barefoot doctor.

Nina's father plans to move to Landry, more than 60 miles away, to find a new wife and a more decent job. At that time, I didn't know how difficult it was to make ends meet, let alone the extraordinary decision of the civilian father behind it. We said goodbye to each other in tears – and I cried again when I woke up. However, the elders of both families promised to communicate at least once a year.

I did an apprenticeship as a craftsman. Although there is no compulsory education in the relatively backward dream world, a growing child can no longer play as freely as he did in childhood. At this time, I had already begun to teach myself physics in middle school, and since I was a very hands-on bear child in reality, these skills were not difficult in my eyes. I was praised by my master for this—this seems to be inconsistent with the old saying "teach the apprentice, starve the master". The world, at least my country, has a decent traditional system, so I was recommended to Count Rex, the lord here.

"Little one, do you want to go to the academy for further study?"

Count Rex looked very much like a Siberian, and although his face was a little droopy and the corners of his eyes were covered with bright wrinkles, he could still see that he was dignified and handsome from the front. After seeing my unusual insights, especially in logic and math, he swore me to be his follower and sent me to some academy in another city.

What happened after that was a bit difficult to describe, and it seemed as if something was wrong with my memory, and the information that was stuck in my mind was disorganized. I need to tidy it up before I can write about it in line with human reading habits.