Reality Programming Association

Chapter 32: Chapter 14: Target Dream Incubation Project

He kept scrolling, when suddenly, a title on the screen caught his eye.

It had a lot of replies, and the title read:

”Tested it myself and it works. Hyping up the TDI project—it cured my decade-long insomnia.”

He frowned. The wording reeked of an ad.

His first instinct was to scroll past it, but the phrase ”cured my decade-long insomnia” made him pause.

On a whim, he tapped open the post.

The post had been up for a few days, and the original poster had written a massive wall of text.

The gist of it was that he had participated in a project called ”Targeted Dream Incubation.”

The English name was Targeted Dream Incubation, which was abbreviated as the ”TDI” in the title.

According to him, the project required no medicine or injections. All it took was playing some music to help him fall asleep and treat his insomnia.

The original poster had participated in the first phase of the project, which was for treating insomnia.

Even more amazing was the second phase, which supposedly let you have any dream you wanted: fast cars and beautiful women, Cultivation and demon slaying, famous mountains and grand rivers. Aside from anything too graphic or violent, you could dream of whatever you wanted just by telling the TDI researchers.

The most absurd part was the third phase. It claimed that through these dream incubation experiments, you could break real-life bad habits. Someone had even managed to quit smoking through Phase Three of TDI.

Yu Xian’s lip twitched. ’Isn’t this a bit of a stretch?’

’This is the first I’ve ever heard of dreaming whatever you want. And you can quit smoking through dreams?’

’Is this some kind of cyber-punk version of those ”Qigong cures all ailments” ads you see on telephone poles?’

’The app’s moderation is really slacking, letting these kinds of scammy ads through. Gullible people could easily fall for this.’

He scrolled down, ready to see if there were any sane people in the comments calling out the original poster. If not, he was prepared to write a few lines himself to warn everyone.

But to his surprise, the comment section was completely harmonious. In fact, it was filled with unanimously positive reviews.

”Right there with you. I was a volunteer for Phase Two. I had the researchers set my dream to be in the world six hundred years from now, with a bunch of safes, gold, silver, and all that. I couldn’t remember much after waking up, but the experience was incredible.”

”I’m in Phase Three. I’ve used the TDI project to build a habit of writing for ten hours a day. Now, if I *don’t* write for ten hours, my whole body feels restless. It’s insane.”

”Thank you, MIT researchers! Thank you, technology, for changing our lives.”

Yu Xian’s brow furrowed even more deeply.

’Are these all shills?’

’How much must they have spent on an army of bots?’

He casually clicked on the avatars of a few of the commenters. Their IP addresses were from all over the country and even the world. Their account levels were high, they had all been registered for over a year, and their post histories covered all sorts of topics.

’They’re all... real people? Why is there absolutely no sign of bots?’

Yu Xian sat up. He copied the keywords ”Targeted Dream Incubation,” switched to his browser, and searched.

The very first result left him stunned.

Unlike the sketchy online ads or fly-by-night clinics he’d expected, this was a legitimate academic entry.

’A lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?’

Yu Xian clicked on it. The webpage was entirely in English, with a very academic layout.

’This is... actually a legitimate research project from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?’

He quickly scanned the description on the page.

Phase One TDI: Effectively improves post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic insomnia in patients through technologies like sleep monitoring devices and transcranial acoustic stimulation.

Phase Two TDI: Successfully guides subjects to dream of specific themes by playing targeted audio via sleep monitoring devices as the subject enters the ”hypnagogic state.”

Phase Three TDI, the latest experimental stage: Rewrites a subject’s behavioral patterns on a subconscious level through deep targeted dream incubation. This includes, but is not limited to, breaking addictive habits, forming new ones, and optimizing personality traits.

At the bottom of the page was a long list of links to papers published in renowned academic journals like *Science* and *Nature*, as well as numerous video testimonials from actual volunteer subjects.

He was floored.

To put it simply, Yu Xian could more or less accept that the first generation could treat insomnia. After all, things like melatonin, psychotherapy, and electromagnetic pulse therapy could achieve similar results.

But the second generation started veering into the realm of the supernatural. It could directly guide you to have any dream you wanted? ’Is this some kind of real-life *Inception*?’

The third phase was even more unbelievable. Helping you quit smoking and drinking, form good habits, and change your personality, all through dreaming?

’Is this even scientific?’

’Is it still 2025?’

Sometimes he really felt like he and these people weren’t living in the same era.

It was like some people were still using basic flip phones while others were already on VR holographic devices like the Vision Pro.

Granted, just as Shi Zuozhou had concluded today, he had also encountered some inexplicable things in his own life.

For instance, Xia Li’s disappearance and the change in Shi Zuozhou’s eating habits. But at least he had filed those away in the category of ’things that need a scientific explanation.’

But this Targeted Dream Incubation seemed to have already been successfully validated in theory and mass-produced in practice.

But the endorsement from MIT, the detailed experimental data, and all those real-life case studies were all telling him one thing:

This was real.

This was the current level of technology.

It was difficult to comprehend, but it could genuinely help him and alleviate a great deal of his suffering.

Yu Xian figured that since they had already reached the third phase, the first phase’s insomnia treatment must be very stable and effective by now.

He searched the website, trying to find out where he could apply to be a volunteer for the first phase of the experiment.

But after looking around, he found that only the third phase was currently open. And even then, it was in a closed beta stage, accessible only to users with an invitation code.