The human brain is a mystical thing.
It is a wonder of nature, a complex supercomputer, containing more connections than the stars in our galaxy. So complex it is, that it had shrouded us with daunting questions for centuries.
What is soul?
What is consciousness?
Does it reside in the brain, or somewhere else?
Can we replicate it?
And what truly are dreams?
Now these mysteries are starting to become nothing but a fading daydream. Mankind has finally tapped into the manifolds of the human brain, unlocking insane capabilities. By 2032, people acquired a technology to mold dreams—they could now jump into a hypervirtual, hypnagogic, alternate life.
Dreams were now reality.
The technology began with humble beginnings. Two decades ago, scientists made a rat's tail move by exciting the motor cortex of its brain. Then it was followed by brain-controlled bionics for paraplegics. There were also modified non-dive VR headsets, allowing players to play a simple video game with thoughts alone. Another tried syncing multiple rat brains across the internet, making them collaborate while they performed puzzles. And a bunch more obscure, but otherwise brilliant brain-computer experiments.
All of these were the building blocks of the grand neural revolution that is to come.
In 2021, a group of neuroscientists, with the aid of a supercomputer, reached their first milestone at mapping complex pathways of the brain.
Two years later, the first ever commercial mind remote was invented by Arc Technologies—the ArcBand.
It was a light circlet worn around the head, which can read the user's brainwaves by listening from the scalp for clusters of firing neurons, and thus convert thoughts into commands.
It was the start of the first neuro-virtual revolution.
Companies began to integrate this new tech into their products. The mind remote slowly seeped into everyday life—forcing most devices into obscurity. Why use a keyboard and mouse when you can control the computer using your thoughts?
In 2024, this marvelous tech made its way to video games, and esports. By eliminating hand movement lag, it was now a matter of processing speed, rather than reaction time, resulting in a much fiercer online gaming competition. Those who could not process as fast enough as another is at a severe disadvantage.
Around 2030, the same year man had started colonizing Mars and set up vertical farms in alien soil, another profound achievement had been made—the brain mapping project had reached a second, astounding milestone. With the brain slowly being unraveled, the potential was there for the taking.
Arc Technologies saw the opportunity, and seized it.
So in 2032, the first ever, hypervirtual console was invented—the ArcVisor.
With the tech, people could deep dive—a concept where they can enter and manipulate customizable dreams at will.
The console resembled a jet pilot helmet. It was a spherical, carbon fiber helm with a matte finish. A dark smoky visor can be slid to cover only up to the eyes. Its interior held soft leather, lined with antibacterial liners. Inside the material lies an intricate web of electrodes, circuits, coils, neural transmitters, and transducers.
Now the technology behind it, is simply marvelous.
When the ArcVisor is outfitted on the head, visor drawn over the eyes, and strap is cinched, the user is advised to lay down on a flat surface and relax. If one has sleep or insomnia-related issues, the interface aids by normalizing brain activity to the delta wave frequency, inducing a trance-like, somnambulistic state. For this reason, the console also can function as a sleep aid, though people—more often than not—might find themselves tempted to use dream apps instead of resting.
The Dreamer OS logs in when the user falls asleep.
To enable awareness, the device stimulates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex using gamma waves with the magic number of 40hz. This allows complete, logical control, similar to a lucid dream.
At first use, the console will take longer loading times, as it registers the person's mind. After log in, a user interface is displayed, where a user can choose a dream app to dive into.
Dream software relied on mostly four things—reading the brain, writing into the brain, sending data over the network, and feeding data into an algorithm for processing.
Brainwaves are read using the same technology of the mind remote ArcBand. The ArcVisor, however, had more granularity, coupled with an ingenious algorithm to decode astounding information without the need for invasive brain surgeries, a feat that most of the other nerve consoles have failed.
For most dream apps, over 100,000 neurons are just needed to be recorded simultaneously.
The device writes into the brain using a coil that sends continuous pulses of magnetic energy over time, exciting or blocking certain parts of the cortex. This is where the magic of hypervirtual reality happens. With this, customized dreams can be created by developers, after painstaking efforts. The entire dream engine remains to be a trade secret, though Arc Tech has released a kit to allow others to develop their own dream apps.
For dream software that required multiplayer functions, network was important. The brainwaves are compressed, and sent over the internet. There was no need for wires, as ArcVisor was completely wireless.
These are then verified in a server, and fed to a machine learning algorithm for decoding. Once this is processed, the server sends a command back and the ArcVisor stimulates the necessary brain areas, all in a matter of milliseconds.
Everything is entirely simulated in the mind. A new reality. Networked dream apps, then, are simply massive multiplayer online dreams.
The ArcVisor triggered the explosion of a second, oneiro-virtual revolution.
The device was ridiculously priced for the first few years, with mostly the rich being able to make use of the proto, miraculous tech. As years passed, cost dropped down, the device inclined to a less clunky design, and became almost as ubiquitous as a smartphone.
Dream apps flourished. Social medias turned into virtual parties, schools held virtual classes. Most applications were now in dreamspace. Hypervirtual software, from recreational to therapeutic to even the lucratively erotic, dominated the world, cementing the ArcVisor console into society.
There also came ambitious devs, jumping in the gold rush and foraying into the wild west of hypervirtual reality game development, all of which either manage to churn out nothing but awkward minigames, fade out, or officially shut down.
Eventually, someone has to emerge victorious. Fast forward to 2037, the full potential of the ArcVisor would be realized with Arc Osaka's groundbreaking online virtual reality game:
Defiant Sins Online.
A game so immersive, it required the need for recording 1 million neurons simultaneously.
It had taken the world not just by storm, but by firestorm. Arc Tech and its subsidiaries had struck a gold mine. Selling over 100 million units on launch day alone, and boasting about a billion players (and rising), it easily became the most successful game in the history of mankind. For good reason.
As DSO is a freemium game, anyone with an ArcVisor could now live their ultimate RPG dreams. It was a surreal, special feeling. Something that goes beyond the limits of key presses, screens, and motion pads. Defiant Sins Online promised full immersion. And it delivered.
It became mankind's ultimate escape. A rebellion to the real world. When reality became increasingly stressful, people immersed themselves in the fantastical, sprawling world.
And the irony was, it felt more real than real life.