Chapter 203 Fear (4K)
In short, the most urgent task is to calm down first.
Chai Cuiqiao silently took the Langhao pen away from the examination paper, and looked around the examination room left and right.
All the candidates in the examination room are facing the same situation. Even the fastest-moving candidate can barely write a single stroke on the test paper under tremendous pressure.
Then I tried my best to drop my pen and couldn't finish writing my name.
'something is wrong'
Chai Chai withdrew his gaze, put his hands on his cheeks thoughtfully, 'The final exam in the academy is set up for recruiting students, not to torture candidates.
The Jinshi Corps of the Chang'an folks graded the 2,500 candidates who advanced to the final exam, and divided the candidates into three grades: A, B, and C. Each grade has three grades, upper, middle and lower, to guess who The most likely to pass the final exam and become a disciple of the academy.
According to the probability, there are at least four above-A candidates in this examination room.
If even they are at a loss and get stuck in the first step, it is even more impossible for other candidates to pass’
Chai Chai fell into deep thought, blocking out external noises.
'The examiner said just now that this final exam will not only test courage and perseverance, but also test heart, wisdom, and understanding. . .
In the illusion generated by the test paper, there must be hidden clues to pass the level.
Whether it is an ordinary candidate who has just started to have spiritual power, or a student recommended by the Ministry of Military Affairs who has fought the enemy and has been tempered in courage, the initial conditions of both parties should be fair.
As long as you find the clues, or figure out the joints, you can unlock the illusion’
Chai Chai thought for a moment, put the hairpin back on his head, put the two intact test papers aside, faced the first test paper that had been blackened by ink, and picked up the Langhao pen again.
In the next moment, an illusion of interlaced light and dark is generated around,
The beam of light projected from the top of the head is warm and bright, highlighting the chaos and sinister surrounding darkness.
Without any warning, the light beam above the head began to slowly shrink immediately, becoming weak and dim, while the surrounding darkness surged over without haste.
Chai Chai felt a cold wave rushing all over his body, his scalp was involuntarily numb, and he instinctively wanted to turn around and flee.
‘Calm down, think! '
She forced herself to stand where she was without backing down, and began to look around for clues.
The light above the head is cylindrical, and the contraction rate is about one inch per breath. It's not like it's emitted by a normal light source, it's more like it's constructed by the illusion itself.
The ground under your feet is neither gold nor wood. It seems to be some kind of stone with a hard texture. There is no muffled sound after stepping on it, unlike an underground cavity.
No pen in hand.
Prove that only consciousness is in an illusion.
In addition, spiritual power can be used.
But the best candidates in this year have just entered the sense of atmosphere, and they have not yet gotten started with talisman spells, let alone using spiritual power to create artificial light sources to illuminate the surrounding environment.
Where are the clues?
She pulled off the hairpin she was wearing on her head, held it firmly in her hand as a weapon, and stared into the darkness ahead.
The weird sense of being stared at by natural enemies came to my heart again, and the uncontrollable fear flooded the will like sea water.
The blood flows faster, the muscles become tense and stiff,
As the darkness spread step by step, the fear finally reached the critical point, and the soles of the feet lifted and retreated uncontrollably.
"call"
The light and darkness receded in an instant, and consciousness returned to the examination room again.
The writing brush in his hand dripped a few extra drops of ink, which further stained the test paper.
'Same as last time, I didn't even see what was hidden in the darkness, and there was almost no progress. '
Chai Chai put the brush on the table, paused, and touched the hairpin that was firmly on his head, ‘Well, it can’t be said that there is no progress. '
In the illusion, I clearly took off the hairpin and held it in my hand as a weapon.
and escaped from the illusion, but the hairpin is still worn on the head
Hallucinations are just hallucinations, except for the terror of the mind, without any actual physical impact?
Won’t there be a situation where “the person who dies in the hallucination, the person in reality also dies”?
Chai Chai thought for a while, picked up the Langhao brush again and returned to the illusion, and before being frightened by the darkness, took the initiative to take half a step back and escape from the illusion.
‘Retreating is indeed the trigger for leaving the illusion. So going, walking into the darkness, is the way to break the illusion? But how to overcome the fear of being invisible and intangible.’
Chai Chai pursed his lips slightly, looked down at the Langhao Pen, and Li Ang's views on the mechanism of biological fear emerged in his mind when he was chatting.
"That Darwin, based on the fact that orangutans are afraid of snakes they haven't seen before, thinks that orangutans will fear snakes and pass it on to their offspring in the form of genes."
"What is a gene? Well, you can understand genes as dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and the sons of mice can make holes."
"But this theory, to some extent, is half right."
"The things that genes can do are relatively limited. There have been studies by psychologists and anthropologists. When humans are still babies, they will simply classify the things around them. For example, people who can walk on two legs, animals that can't move , fish swimming in water, dogs walking on four legs, etc.”
“During this process, the brain will establish a cognitive model to screen out useful information, useless noise, and potentially harmful information.”
"When something that goes against the common sense of the brain happens, the brain will immediately recognize it and mark it as abnormal, generating fear interest."
"Like walking on the street, everyone is walking on two legs upright, you don't have the mood to observe everyone at all. But when a few people suddenly walk on all fours on a normal street with their faces in the air, the fear emotion It will be generated involuntarily, even earlier than curiosity and doubt."
"The same goes for the uncanny valley theory."
"If you show a large model of a hippopotamus to gorillas who have never seen a hippopotamus, they also have a certain probability of being afraid."
"What? How do you explain that mice are naturally afraid of cats?"
"To be precise, mice are not naturally afraid of cats, but respond to certain smells and sounds such as cat saliva, cat urine, and cat meowing. When they smell cat urine, the endocrine system of mice will It starts to work automatically, increasing the anxiety level of the mouse, forcing it to move far away, so as to avoid the possibility of encountering the cat."
"And if genetic engineering technology is used to edit the mouse gene so that it no longer responds to the specific protein of the cat-like pheromone, then the mouse will no longer show stress. Even in the face of a live cat, it will not be afraid. mood."
"The same is true for Toxoplasma gondii. Rats parasitized by Toxoplasma gondii will be indifferent to cat pheromones, and even take the initiative to contact cats, hoping to be eaten by cats, so that Toxoplasma gondii can continue to spread."
"So, innate fear is just the brain's own reaction."
"So, is it possible to overcome innate fear, or even not generate fear emotion at all?"
"That's a good question."
"Well, there are also methods. One is to use genetic engineering technology to knock out specific genes like what is done to mice. However, humans are different from mice. During the long evolutionary history, mice accidentally mutated the corresponding DNA, making mice When facing predators such as cats, there is a higher probability of survival, and thus a greater probability of passing this DNA to the next generation. And in the tests from generation to generation, continue to optimize, and finally form a unique 'ability'. "
"As for humans, in the millions of years of evolution of the terrifying upright ape, it seems that they have never encountered too terrifying predators and natural enemies, and they will have uncontrollable fear of specific smells and sounds."
"Another method is to beat the brain."
"Emotions are a game for the brain to entertain itself. The area that controls emotions is called the limbic system. It includes the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal area, dentate gyrus, cingulate gyrus, mammillary body, and amygdala. "
"Among them, the amygdala controls the emotion of fear. If the macaque's amygdala is removed, it will lose the ability to fear forever. No longer afraid of snakes, no longer afraid of strong members of the same group, no longer afraid to climb high place—even if it's high enough for him to fall to his death."
"In another case, a woman suffered from a rare genetic disease called 'lipid proteinosis'. This disease can cause lesions and even shrinkage of the bilateral amygdala of the brain. Because this disease , the patient will not feel any fear. Watching horror movies, playing in haunted houses, being pointed at by guns, and seeing unknown shadows outside the house, no matter what she encounters, she is extraordinarily calm."
"In theory, patients with this disease, and those whose amygdala has been removed, are the closest people in the world to the literal meaning of the word 'fearless'."
Memories gradually faded, Chai Chai opened his eyes and let out a long breath.
Li Ang often told her things that she couldn't understand or understand, but she never thought about why Li Ang somehow understood so many strange things, she just attributed it to the reason that "the young master is a genius".
In Chai Chai's small world, Li Ang is the smartest and most resourceful person. Even a saint who is born with knowledge is not as capable as Li Ang.
Chai Chai believes in this before, now, and in the future.
What she has to do is to use the information in Li Ang's fragmented words to pass the final exam.
‘The emotion of fear originates from the amygdala. It is the amygdala that detects specific information and outputs various hormones. Increased heart rate, sweaty palms, and elevated blood pressure. An involuntary desire to run away, or to freeze in place and not move. '
‘To overcome the illusion, the most fundamental way is to remove the amygdala. Anyway, the injuries in the illusion will not be brought to reality. But I can’t do it by myself—the young master didn’t point out the location of the amygdala to me. '
‘Then, the only way is to shield the fear. '
‘How to do this? When the amygdala is stimulated, it will start to direct the body to secrete rapidly, unless the five senses are stripped away, so that oneself will not receive any stimulation from the source of fear from the root. '
‘The young master seems to have said that there is a way to strip the five senses. Blindfolded, lie down in a pool of warm water made of highly concentrated salt water. Floating on the surface of the water, without hearing or seeing, all senses will gradually fade away, and finally reach an ethereal state. '
‘But there is no such condition in the illusion. Is there warm water and salt there'
The dilemma has returned to the original starting point,
Chai Chai frowned, desperately thinking about countermeasures.
Peel off the five senses and block fear.
‘Vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch. In the illusion, there are very few external stimuli. There are only two kinds of light and darkness. '
"Could it be."
Chai Chai's eyes lit up, he exhaled slowly, and picked up the Langhao pen on the table.
The illusion strikes again, and she appears under the light again, facing the vast darkness around her like an abyss like an ocean.
‘If I am not mistaken, darkness is not a direct stimulus to fear. There is nothing there. There is no visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile stimulation. '
‘What really triggers my inner fear is the light above my head. '
She raised her head and looked up at the warm and peaceful circular beam of light above, as if she wanted to see through the beam of light to see clearly what was in the light.
Tear and pull.
Accompanied by the sound of cloth being torn, Chai Chai cut off a corner of the clothes with a hairpin, wrapped several pieces of thick cloth on the soles of the shoes,
Blindfolded in front of the eyes, and plugged the ears and nose.
Isolate the premise of fear and block the five senses.
She tied the cloth firmly, not caring even if her eyes and ears hurt, took a deep breath, and quietly waited for the darkness to come.
One breath, two breaths, three breaths.
She silently calculated in her heart, because the shrinking rate of the circular beam of light is stable and consistent, so she can calculate the time for the circular beam of light to completely shrink by breathing.
about there.
Both eyes were covered by cloth, unable to see a trace of light. There was a strong voice in her heart, calling for her to take off the blindfold and take a look at the external environment.
She blocked all the noise, opened her legs, and took a step forward.
Can't hear my own footsteps,
Even because of the soft cloth wrapped on the soles, she couldn't feel that she was taking a step forward, but just "felt" that she was controlling her legs to walk forward.
The second step, the third step.
She strictly controlled her pace, and finally, when she reached the hundredth step, she suddenly felt a cold sensation in her palm.
That is, Langhao pen holder.
She pursed her lips slightly, held the pen holder, and in the absolute darkness, she posed for writing and wrote her name calmly.
Chai Cuiqiao.
(end of this chapter)