Another week passed... Raw data continued to be sent from all senses, making me nauseous without being able to vomit anything. It was like sitting through the principal's cheesy speech, unable to divert my mind and imagination; it was nothing more than childish idealistic nonsense, and everyone agreed that it was the objective truth. It's the same in my head right now; all this information urgently needs to be analyzed, even though most of it is useless. Boring. Tiring. But I can't ignore it. Because who knows, amongst these nonsense, there is one crucial point that will determine whether I will stay alive... Or die for the second time.
The experiment was also still running; although, if counted, the failures were probably enough to fill a large container. But that doesn't mean there are no results, at least I've been able to get one or two useful things. Two weeks ago I managed to control the blood flow at several capillary points; a small result, but enough to give an idea that I'm not completely trapped in this body as a passenger.
Of course, the search for information doesn't stop at just this body. I continued to observe my surroundings, trying to put together the pieces of this world's illustration. I had to know why I could wake up in the body of a child, in a place that looked like medieval Europe. This wasn't something that could be solved by guesswork, I needed facts; because the more I thought about it, the less sense this whole situation made (I still found it hard to accept the situation). But strangely enough, that's exactly what makes me want to know more; this is more interesting than testing one's idealism, or breaking through the limitations of humans as living beings.
Even so, I should probably start being serious, decades of experience have instilled one thing: if you don't understand the situation you're in, sooner or later it will consume you. I will sacrifice everything, just so that I can be given a chance to peek at the truth from behind the cracks in the wall.
Another surprising achievement other than just minor control and one-sided senses, was the manipulation of illusions; of course, the limits of control still existed as if it were part of the laws of the world. Illusion... A brain disorder that is quite common in the modern world; in the simplest definition, it is a malfunction of the brain that starts creating things that do not exist.
Hallucinations are often taken for granted, especially by people who have never experienced them; referred to as a disorder of the weak, or a form of escape from a depressing reality. But in reality, many people would rather die than be constantly haunted by something that doesn't exist. Hallucinations are a form of silent torture that is invisible to others, but eating away at its host from within.
The symptoms are quite diverse. Sometimes the patient sees an unfamiliar figure standing still in the corner when no one is around, or a flash of light that passes suddenly as if something is moving fast. These are all forms of visual hallucination symptoms, and they are never predictable.
Sounds also follow. Sometimes it's a whisper, sometimes it's the sound of footsteps behind; the patient may even hear a woman laughing quietly, even though there is no one around. This is the auditory form, and it is said that this type is most common in people with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Again, I didn't know if this body held traces of a particular trauma, or if I had triggered it.
What was most disturbing were the tactile hallucinations. Some nights the patient would wake up feeling like something was touching his toes, sometimes like something crawling on his arm like an insect; or light pressure on the skin as if being touched by an invisible hand. Although not painful, the feeling still makes my body tense up involuntarily; even a small lie to perception is enough to distort reality.
Patients can also smell odors that have no source; the smell of burning wood, gas, or even stale meat. This is called olfactory. Then there's a bitter taste in mouth, like metal (even though the patient hasn't eaten anything); that's gustatory. And finally, their body starts to feel strange; sometimes patients feel that their arms are longer than they should be, or that their head is floating a few centimeters higher than their body. These sensations are called proprioceptive, a misperception of one's body position and shape.
In Liam's and my case, I'm not sure what triggered it. There was no chemical exposure, no severe stress, no consumption of addictive substances like in the clinical cases I've read in the past. But it was most likely the result of the consciousness transfer process itself, something I had to figure out; either my soul wasn't fully compatible with Liam's body, or his nervous system was rebelling against the presence of something foreign.
But what made things more interesting was how these hallucinations could be controlled; or at least diverted. I started to notice that visual and auditory hallucinations sometimes appeared when I was in a very focused state of thinking about something, and sometimes they also appeared automatically like a subconscious dream. The more I paid attention to them, the more I realized that these hallucinations could be useful.
That is... I might be able to recreate certain illusions. Not just see or hear things that don't exist, but also direct them, or control them like an accomplice; playing with what appears, and how it exists. This kind of control is certainly not something I can do now. But still, if these hallucinations can be tamed and directed, then I might be able to shape them into something powerfull.