A psychological reading on ch.3 of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Ayushi

Ch.3 is when the reader understands what Murakami is subtly suggesting: the narrator's mind isn't a neutralspace, it is constructed. The slow elevator ride feels like a mental descent into a dissociative place where time stretches, awareness is slightly blurred, and you're suspended between two states. The scientist bombards him with information and eccentric behavior, forming a power imbalance so Boku becomes hyper suggestible. The lab can be read as a metaphor for the narrator’s engineered mind, because the scientist explains that the narrator’s brain functions have been modified. the lab is messy yet highly engineered and reflects the core psychological revelation of the chapter: Boku's sense of identity and self may be part;y designed by someone else