Now you have the basic foundation for ECHO.

In this chapter, we will be building what I call the 'Source Castle'.

Remember how we render everything in our sea of consciousness? Well, now it is time to transform your sea of consciousness.

You must 'entangle' it with a place that doesn't exist.

There is a reason this is called 'Path of Somnus'.

Sleep.

That is the key.

You will first need to gather materials. If you build something out of nothing... it'll feel less impactful. It'll also be blurry and degrade over time.

You will building essentially a domain. A world where you are GOD.

A place with rules that benefit you immensely.

Later... when you have lost your physical body. You will still have this 'Source Castle'.

The trick here is to not use your brain to design this realm.

How is that possible? You will soon find that this technique only becomes more and more difficult and impossible as you progress.

It is an insane path that is not possible for everyone.

Perhaps only a handful out of billions can pull it off.

Sleeping and dreaming is the REAL meat behind this technique. What we have been doing up until this point is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sleep is broken down into cycles.

The whole point of this technique is so the user is able to retain their existence even when they have lost their body.

So sleep is the best tool to check your progress.

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There are four stages to a cycle.

Let's begin the process.

Skip sleep for a night.

Then, at your normal bedtime. Set an alarm for 10 minutes and go to sleep.

Wake up 10 minutes later.

You must not let yourself slip into the third stage of sleep. Hover around the first and second stage of sleep constantly.

Do this for 12 hours.

Barely falling into sleep and being waked up constantly will make you paranoid and confused. But you must persist.

It is even better if you can get someone to wake you up every 10 minutes. That'll lower the chance of you capsizing and having to restart this part.

The reason you stayed up an entire day before doing this is because it makes entering the first stage of the cycle of sleep so much quicker and easier.

Whenever you feel yourself about to fall asleep.

You shut down ECHO.

Whenever you wake up.

You start ECHO.

After 12 hours... you do something weird.

You have already shut down ECHO 72 times...

You have become quite used to this pattern of barely entering sleep.

Now... you can finally go to sleep!

Just kidding! Did you think it was that easy?

You then construct what I call the 'key'.

This is the visual image that transports you to your source castle.

It will be a rotating image, not static at all.

You'll notice that after waking up constantly, due to a lack of sleep.

Instead of entering deep sleep. Something special will happen.

You will enter REM sleep almost instantly! That's right. You skip the first two stages of sleep and even deep sleep. This is because you have deprived yourself.

Even if you don't enter REM sleep too often. You can still dream in the other stages of sleep. It is just less vivid.

This part is very important.

You are dreaming with a 'purpose'.

Make a declaration to yourself before sleep:

"I will find materials!"

You must make finding materials your goal. What do I mean by 'materials'? Clear your sea of consciousness completely.

In dreams... there is often randomness and things that don't make sense. You must perform test in the dream and realize you are dreaming.

You then take an aspect from the dream and make it into a mental resource.

You then use these resources to construct your source castle. You won't do this consciously or even subconsciously.

You need to put this construct in a place you can't imagine.

You need go where you can't go. See what you can't see.

You will spend an additional 12 hours 'mining' for resources from your dreams.

You will then entangle your sea of consciousness with the place that doesn't exist.

It will exist as data in your brain... but it will also exist independently.

This is the start of your independent consciousness.

Now, you can finally sleep. But do something different.

Do not shutdown ECHO.

Let it constantly run, even while asleep.

You will find yourself surrounded in darkness. There will be no 'you'. No sight, no hearing, no thinking. This is a lack of consciousness.

But you will still 'feel' it.

You can still 'see' it.

ECHO is running!

Your consciousness is slowly becoming eternal.