Chapter 97: Not A Dream
Opening my eyes, I see the laboratory’s white ceiling.
The quilt on the bed is a bit messy, already pulled back more than half. It seems my body wasn’t peaceful throughout the night’s sleep…
Takahashi Yui and the others haven’t arrived yet. At this moment, she’s the only one in the laboratory, quiet except for the faint hum of the instruments running.
Hoshihara Ai immediately sits up, removes the monitoring helmet, and lifts her clothes to take off all the electrodes stuck to her body.
She gets out of bed quickly and hurries to the computer, starting to retrieve the data recorded throughout the previous night.
This complex data, after processing by specialized software, quickly generates a series of complete charts.
At this moment, there’s a gentle knock on the door outside the laboratory.
“Please come in,” Hoshihara Ai says without turning her head.
The door is unlocked from outside with a key, and Kobayashi Aoi walks in. Seeing Hoshihara Ai already sitting in front of the computer, she smiles and walks over.
“This early? How did you sleep last night?” Kobayashi Aoi says.
“Slept very well.” Hoshihara Ai points to the screen. “The data is already out.”
Kobayashi Aoi sits down beside her and says, “Let me take a look.”
She adjusts her glasses and begins carefully examining the complex curves, tables, and brainwave record charts on the screen.
“Heart rate steady, breathing even, blood oxygen saturation consistently above 98%… If looking solely at vital signs, your sleep quality is extremely high,” Kobayashi Aoi says.
Hoshihara Ai points to the waveform chart on the screen and asks, “Look at my brainwave record when I was dreaming last night. Is it the same as the pattern for ordinary people dreaming?”
Kobayashi Aoi’s expression becomes a bit strange. She looks at Hoshihara Ai and says, “I just said that if looking only at vital signs, you slept well, but the brainwave record is a completely different story…”
Hoshihara Ai isn’t an expert in this area. She looks at the various data and images on the screen, waiting for Kobayashi Aoi’s analysis.
Kobayashi Aoi is silent for a long time before saying to Hoshihara Ai, “Ai… are you sure you slept last night?”
“Of course,” Hoshihara Ai says. “You just said I slept well.”
“But your brainwave record shows no characteristics of sleep at all, even…” Kobayashi Aoi shakes her head and says, “Even like experiencing a whole night of high-intensity thinking. The brainwave characteristics are more extreme than during an exam solving difficult problems, with no moment of rest all night.”
Kobayashi Aoi says with some concern, “Do you feel dizzy, chest tightness, or anything like that?”
“I feel completely normal…” Hoshihara Ai is also very surprised now. She glances at the sleep record on her smartwatch. “It also rated my sleep at 98 points.”
“Mm… because the smartwatch analyzes based on heart rate, breathing, and such, but your abnormal data is in the brain and won’t reflect on equipment monitoring vital signs.”
“So, I not only didn’t dream, I didn’t even sleep?” Hoshihara Ai asks doubtfully.
Kobayashi Aoi double-checks the data and nods affirmatively. “According to the data, that’s exactly the case.”
Impossible…
Hoshihara Ai frowns in thought as the incredibly clear dream from last night replays in her mind.
From the moment she opened her eyes on the bed and saw Sakamoto Ken, to their passionate entanglement, until even she felt exhausted, and finally waking up to the alarm clock.
The entire process lasted a long time, with every detail vividly clear.
There must have been a dream last night!
Moreover, she feels mentally refreshed now, with no signs of staying up all night or fatigue. It couldn’t be that she didn’t sleep at all.
“If I actually didn’t dream last night… then it makes sense!” Hoshihara Ai lightly taps the desk and says.
Hoshihara Ai actually doesn’t want the memory fragments in her mind to be from a traditional “dream.”
Though this hypothesis sounds like science fiction to outsiders, she still feels that what she experienced last night was something happening in the “future” of another timeline.
It’s just that her consciousness connected to her future self, experiencing it together.
And since it’s her own self, with unified consciousness, it only felt a bit awkward at first, but she quickly got used to that “first-person perspective.”
The data from all the equipment last night precisely proves this— it wasn’t a dream at all.
She doesn’t leave the experimental building all day. Lunch and dinner are brought in by students.
On the computer screen is the brainwave chart from the entire night.
The fluctuating lines and waveforms oscillating at specific frequencies—she quickly learned some related knowledge and can now understand some of the characteristics.
Kobayashi Aoi had previously concluded: “Your brain was abnormally active, with no brainwave characteristics of ‘dreaming,’ just like experiencing a whole night of high-intensity thinking.”
Her own sensation is also completely different from the nap she had that noon at home on the lounge chair.
One is like an immersive movie, the other like an immersive game—something like that distinction.
Why does this difference exist?
In the afternoon, she lies back on the laboratory bed again, puts on the helmet covered in sensors, trying to recreate that noon experience.
However, the monitoring data shows it’s just an utterly normal nap.
After falling asleep, her brain activity steadily cycles through light and deep sleep, then she wakes up normally. There might have been dreams during it, but no related memories.
Until late at night, Hoshihara Ai sits at the workbench, jotting down various messy ideas on paper.
Over the next few days, Hoshihara Ai repeatedly adjusts the experimental approach and uses equipment for verification.
Unfortunately, though she conducts nap experiments every noon, she doesn’t re-enter that abnormally realistic dream.
On the contrary, at night, she successfully recreates another “dream” where monitoring shows high-intensity thinking.
This time’s scene is at the Shonan seaside, just like the date in her memory.
She and Sakamoto Ken booked a small seaside villa guesthouse. At night, under the starry sky, on the terrace facing the sea, listening to the waves, they entwine until dawn.
Hoshihara Ai feels her “future” self is too greedy. A Jian is already begging for mercy, but she still doesn’t let him go.
After hearing the alarm clock, Hoshihara Ai still feels no attachment. She knows everything she saw is just a projection from a future timeline, not a reality she can control herself.
The key now is that without anyone else, this experiment is forever incomplete.
The core is Sakamoto Ken himself—he’s absent.
To truly verify this hypothesis, he must be included in the experiment.
She needs him to willingly lie on her experimental bed.
