Awake

Global insomnia rates have climbed to record highs. Governments of various countries secretly fund the "Threshold Dream Bureau" project - using neural mapping technology to monitor citizens' dreams to prevent alienation of dreams from triggering collective mental catastrophe. Former psychiatrist Shen Xing became a "dream patrolman", responsible for entering patients' dreams to repair "dream cracks". If the Dream Crack is not repaired, it will spread into the Dream Plague: a contamination of consciousness that can spread between groups. But during a routine mission, Shen Xing discovered that the dream realm is not a linear hierarchy, but a closed loop - what humans call "reality" is just the thin outermost layer of the dream loop. When the boundaries between dreams and reality begin to synchronize and become unstable, memory, time and perception begin to infiltrate each other. The medical explanation is delayed brain neurofeedback, and the philosophical explanation is self-referential loop of consciousness. The psychological explanation is "latent arousal syndrome": an individual wakes up in a dream, but can never return to the consensus reality. And every time the clock stops at 3:17, he will see himself in the mirror - blinking half a beat too slowly...