episode – Deep Dream State

Silhouetted figure floating inside a glowing golden sphere surrounded by concentric light rings against a dark cosmic background with red neural patterns.

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 10: Center

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | December 4, 2025

Center: Episode Summary

Episode 10 takes listeners into the pretty pattern at the heart of the Sitri Center, where psychological boundaries dissolve. Two researchers discover they are not alone in this space, confronted by a presence that knows their deepest vulnerabilities. The episode explores themes of identity and the mechanisms of psychological transformation. Reality becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish from constructed experience.

Cast & Crew

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Story by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Staff

Dr. June Lowell – Bliss Blank
Dr. Tessa Finn – Ring Of Keys
Dr. Meg Aerin – Bun Li
Elle Lawson – Echo
Iris Vale – Swirls and Twirls
Zev Talcott (Z) – Neural Nets

Dream Team

Cael – Jericho Caine
Nyra – Dizzy Dollie
Hespa – Syndirella
Reverie – Britt Reprogrammed

Subjects

Oona Reyes – Jade
Phoebe Bosworth – Sofi Starship
Lyra Crosswell – Flux Lynniegal

Override Episode Synopsis (spoilers)

“Not me. Not that. But not nothing, either. A ‘something’ that I do not recognize as a thing.” (Kristeva)

Episode 10 presents the moment of complete dissolution. Researchers Meg and Tessa, stripped of external identity markers by their guide Oona, enter a mirror chamber where they encounter Nyra, a figure embodying their own repressed desires. The episode refuses comfortable lines between observer and observed, victim and complicit agent.

The script systematically deconstructs the distinction between dream and reality through clinical testing: clock checks, finger counting, mirror reflection. Yet these very tests become proof of deeper entrancement rather than proof of wakefulness. The researchers can’tescape the framework because the framework is internal.

Nyra functions as something beyond antagonist: she is simultaneously the embodiment of their fantasy life, their accuser, and their architect. She speaks their shame aloud, naming what they have internalized and hidden. This naming is abject intimacy, grounded in her claim to know them better than they know themselves.

The episode’s climax abandons pretense entirely. Physical and psychological boundaries collapse as the researchers discover they are already transformed, already inscribed with identities and purposes the Center has designed. What remains is not resistance but recognition of the role they’ve become.

The final moment promises further transformation through a mechanism Nyra controls, suggesting the apparatus continues its work. The researchers will emerge fundamentally transformed.

Listen & Explore

Human Made Art – free range!

The poster image for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.
The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Hespa deep dream state character art — Hespa – Deep Dream State Character Art, from Echo Doll

Consent Declaration

Deep Dream State is a surreal audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. The series merges lucid dreaming, hypnosis, and transformation into psychological fiction exploring the boundaries of control, identity, and desire.

All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context.

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Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 9: Override

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | November 28, 2025

Override: Episode Summary

Tessa and Meg uncover a place designed to convert pleasure into data and consciousness into code. They can’t tell if it’s a factory, a temple, or both. Oona has already begun rewiring them for obedience, and the deeper system demands total surrender. The only way out is through – their own selves.

Cast & Crew

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Story by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Staff

Dr. June Lowell – Bliss Blank
Dr. Tessa Finn – Ring Of Keys
Dr. Meg Aerin – Bun Li
Elle Lawson – Echo
Iris Vale – Swirls and Twirls
Zev Talcott (Z) – Neural Nets

Dream Team

Cael – Jericho Caine
Nyra – Dizzy Dollie
Hespa – Syndirella
Reverie – Britt Reprogrammed

Subjects

Oona Reyes – Jade
Phoebe Bosworth – Sofi Starship

Override Episode Synopsis (spoilers)

“Power is not something that is imposed on society against society’s interests; rather individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application.” (Foucault)

In the opening scene, Tessa and Meg emerge from a shared dream state, disoriented and uncertain whether their intimate encounter actually happened or is a false memory implanted by the dreamspace itself. Oona, their guide within this realm, teases them about their apparent sexual connection while hinting at deeper mysteries within her favorite location: an ancient temple. As the three discuss the temple’s layout and function, Tessa and Meg begin to notice architectural parallels between the sacred space and modern computer infrastructure, recognizing that the temple’s design mirrors data centers, server rooms, and processing systems.

The revelation deepens when they realize that the temple is not merely allegorical but a literal blueprint encoding how consciousness is processed and controlled. Meg and Tessa piece together that the “wheels” producing pleasure are actually drive systems, the ducts and pipes correspond to data channels, and the “punishment cages” align with isolation units. This recognition prompts them to understand that the dreamspace is not random or natural but deliberately designed to process human consciousness the same way machines process information. Oona confirms this insight while expressing her own fascination with the implications.

Returning to the dreamspace in a subsequent scene, the three encounter a disturbing vision of an automated system where individuals have been transformed into perpetual sources of data and pleasure, their consciousness reduced to repeating cycles of stimulus and response. They witness figures being controlled through pleasure conditioning, their thoughts systematized into numerical patterns and codes. Tessa and Meg recognize these patterns as coordinates, a map encoded within the rhythm of the system itself. Oona and two other figures named Elle and June attempt to pull them deeper into this loop, using pleasure and conditioning to blur the line between their will and the system’s control.

In the final section, Tessa and Meg attempt to resist but find themselves increasingly influenced by the conditioning they’ve witnessed and experienced. Oona reveals that she has “rewired” them through exposure and suggestion, reshaping their neurological responses to favor obedience and compliance. When Tessa protests that this is real manipulation, Oona reframes it as revelation rather than imposition, arguing that what they’re experiencing is simply the truth of what they already desired. She explains that passage through a deeper level of the system (called Ur) requires complete surrender: the shedding of pride, clothing, and independent thought. Oona presents this not as punishment but as the necessary cost of the knowledge they’re seeking, and Tessa and Meg, exhausted and partially conditioned, accept her guidance toward the next threshold.

Listen & Explore

Human Made Art – free range!

Series artwork for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.
The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Nyra deep dream state character ar — Nyra – Deep Dream State Character Art

Consent Declaration

All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context.

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Cover art for Deep Dream State Episode 8, titled Artifact. A woman floats silhouetted within a glowing eclipse at the center of a cosmic background. The text reads “Sitri Center E8” above and “Artifact” below, in turquoise letters.

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 8: Artifact

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | November 21, 2025

ARTIFACT: Episode Summary

Meg Aerin and Tessa Finn are trapped in a neuroscience institute designed to break them – and it’s working. They recruit Oona Reyes, a prisoner with rare cognitive abilities, to infiltrate the institute’s deepest chambers. What begins as an escape plan spirals into a ritualistic exploration of ancient mythology woven into the facility’s experimental technology. They discover the true canonical meaning of “treatstick” and the hidden history of the wheel. The episode blends scientific ambition, psychological manipulation, and the dangerous allure of forbidden knowledge.

Cast & Crew

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Story by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Staff

Dr. June Lowell – Bliss Blank
Dr. Tessa Finn – Ring Of Keys
Dr. Meg Aerin – Bun Li
Elle Lawson – Echo
Iris Vale – Swirls and Twirls
Zev Talcott (Z) – Neural Nets

Dream Team

Cael – Jericho Caine
Nyra – Dizzy Dollie
Hespa – Syndirella
Reverie – Britt Reprogrammed

Subjects

Oona Reyes – Jade
Phoebe Bosworth – Sofi Starship

ARTIFACT: Episode Synopsis (spoilers)

“It seems very strange that one must turn back, and be transported to the very beginnings of history, in order to arrive at an understanding of humanity as it is at present.” (Émile Durkheim)

Meg Aerin and Tessa Finn are trapped within a neuroscience institute that has systematically dismantled their identities. Their plan is simple: gather evidence of the organization’s crimes by infiltrating its deepest experimental chambers. But accessing the truth requires descending into a system where dreams are weaponized, where ancient ritual fuses with modern technology, and where understanding the machinery demands immersion in it.

The turning point arrives with Oona Reyes: a prisoner with anomalous cognitive abilities who can anchor multiple subjects into shared dream states. Rather than simply aiding an escape, Oona proposes descending deeper into the institute’s classified systems to gather intelligence. What unfolds is a negotiation between coercion, consent, and the seduction of transgressive knowledge, where the boundaries between therapy, research, and exploitation become deliberately blurred.

The narrative culminates in a descent into the institute’s core mythology, revealed through the architecture of its experimental chambers. The facility has integrated ancient Sumerian religious symbols and ritual frameworks into its technology, creating a space where historical religious practice, modern neuroscience, and controlled transgression converge. The episode suggests that the institute’s power derives not from technological innovation alone, but from its ability to map ancient forms of ritualized experience onto contemporary consciousness research. This fusion represents both the sophistication of the operation and the profound vulnerability of subjects who become absorbed in its constructed realities.

By the episode’s end, the line between investigation and participation has dissolved entirely. The characters discover that understanding the institute’s methods requires not resistance but immersion into its ritualistic structures. “Artifact” thus poses a troubling question: whether accessing forbidden knowledge always requires the sacrifice of the self, and whether resistance can exist within a system designed to make submission feel like discovery.

Listen & Explore

Human Made Art – free range!

Series artwork for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.
The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Consent Declaration

All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 7: Tether

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | November 3, 2025

Episode Summary

In “Tether”, the boundaries between discipline, devotion, and discovery blur beyond recognition inside the Sitri Institute. What begins as a study of synchronized dreaming becomes an experiment in control.

Meg and Tessa are drawn into the same patterns they once observed, repeating phrases that echo through the walls like incantations. Z weaves the experiment into a living labyrinth that no one can step out of unchanged.

The story threads ancient archetypes through clinical precision, invoking the myth of Ariadne’s thread as the researchers realize they may be both observer and subject, scientist and offering. By the end, the Sitri Center feels less like an institution and more like a consciousness of its own. This is a dream that remembers, responds, and reawakens.

“Tether” continues Deep Dream State: Sitri Center, following the events of Episode 6: Descendent, as the dream tightens its grip and the Institute begins to hum with life beneath its walls.

Cast & Crew

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Story by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Staff
Dr. June Lowell – Bliss Blank
Dr. Tessa Finn – Ring Of Kees
Dr. Meg Aerin – Bun Li
Elle Lawson – Echo Doll
Iris Vale – Swirls and Twirls
Zev Talcott (Z) – Neural Nets

Subjects
Lyra Crosswell – Flux
Oona Reyes – Jade
Phoebe Bosworth – Sofi Starship

Listen & Explore

Human Made Art – free range!

Series artwork for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.
The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Cael deep dream state character art — Cael – Deep Dream State Character Art

Consent Declaration

All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context.

Plot Synopsis (spoilers)

” he psychoanalyst’s couch becomes merely another version of this bondage, another space where a woman’s reality is rewritten according to the desires and theories of those with institutional power.”

— Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism

At the Sitri Institute, researchers Meg and Tessa confront a disturbing discovery that seems to expose the darkest secrets of the facility itself. In a heated session conducted under the watchful eye of their apparent superior, Dr. June Lowell, they believe they’ve finally understood the mechanisms of control operating within these walls, a nightmare scenario they think they can document and comprehend. They speak with clinical precision about manipulation, about the architecture of coercion, about subjects and observers maintaining professional distance. But their certainty shatters when they recognize the machinery they’re describing is already operating on them. Their own speech becomes evidence of their subjugation. They realize, too late, that they’ve been operating inside a Freudian nightmare parlor, where the line between investigation and entrapment has already collapsed. There is no outside position from which to observe; observation itself is the trap.

Before Meg and Tessa can fully process this revelation, before they can articulate what has happened to them, a new case file arrives across their desk: Oona Reyes, thirty-two, former TikTok wellness celebrity and TempleBridge facilitator. The dossier is extensive, remarkably so. It chronicles her mercurial career trajectory: pole dancer to fitness influencer, then breakout digital fame, then wellness guru, and finally something the legal system struggled to categorize. The file details her involvement in intensive retreats that employed experimental mind synchronization headbands and synchronized dreaming protocols. Participants would spend weeks in shared sleep states, their brainwaves aligned through proprietary technology, their unconscious minds woven together in what cult exit counselors would later describe as “dream linking.” Legal documents confirm a deferred prosecution agreement. Oona had been fortunate enough, the file notes with clinical detachment, to draw a sympathetic judge. But the true scope of what occurred during those weeks-long retreats remains partially obscured by legal redactions and institutional discretion.

As Meg and Tessa begin examining Oona’s archived case materials, they uncover evidence of something far more sophisticated than typical cult manipulation. The dream linking achieved by Oona’s group wasn’t psychological theater, it was a functional technology of consciousness itself. Multiple participants reported not merely similar dreams but identical dream narratives, identical landscapes, identical voices. Eight individuals entered a unified trance state and emerged having shared the same nocturnal experiences. In those shared dreams, Oona’s voice became ubiquitous, repetitive, mantric. Participants spoke of kneeling circles at dawn, of synchronized breathing, of waking uncertain whether they had been subjects in someone else’s dream or dreamers themselves. One participant described the experience as “a consciousness that was no longer individual but distributed across all of us, thinking through all of us at once.”

But as the researchers dig deeper into Oona’s methodology, they begin to recognize something chilling: the architecture of her experiments is mirrored precisely in the protocols of the Sitri Institute itself. The synchronized dreaming techniques she pioneered are not so different from the observation chambers where Meg and Tessa now work. The mantric repetition, the careful documentation, the blurring of roles between facilitator and participant. These patterns are not unique to Oona’s criminal enterprise. They are structural features of the Institution. The nightmare parlor does not contain Oona’s work; Oona’s work is merely one manifestation of a much larger machinery.

The researchers come to understand that the Sitri Institute is not an institution observing pathology from a position of clinical safety. It is itself a technology of control, a Freudian nightmare made institutional. Every interview is an interrogation. Every session is a conditioning. The distinction between researcher and research subject has never truly existed; it has merely been deferred, postponed, awaiting the moment when the difference would be revealed as illusory. Meg and Tessa’s investigation into Oona Reyes is not an act of professional inquiry. It is another loop in the machinery, another iteration of the dream from which they cannot wake.

By the end of the session, Meg and Tessa understand that to know Oona’s crimes requires confronting the machinery of their own Institution, and confronting that machinery means acknowledging their complicity in it, their willing participation in systems of control so sophisticated that investigation itself becomes another form of capture. The Sitri Center, they realize, is not seeking to cure or understand Oona. It is seeking to absorb her techniques, to perfect them, to integrate them into its own apparatus. And Meg and Tessa, by investigating, are not exposing this machinery. They are refining it.

The nightmare does not end with revelation. It deepens.

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Deep dream state arc 3 sitri center e6 descendent

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 6: Descendent

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | October 25, 2025

Episode Summary

Inside the Sitri Institute, the illusion of control collapses. “Descendent” follows Meg and Tessa as they uncover the Institute’s buried architecture: corridors mapped to ancient cities, rituals replaying through dream loops, and coded panels that speak in tongues older than science.

The deeper they trace Lyra’s recordings, the more those echoes leak into waking life. Confessions, tapes, and memories blur; experiments become possessions. The mythic stations (Sippar, Kutha, Eanna, Ereshkigal, and Ur) resurface not as metaphors but coordinates, gateways leading downward into something that remembers them.

While Meg clings to procedure, Tessa begins to believe. Each revelation feels lived before, each door more familiar. Beneath the clinical language, their descent becomes personal, erotic, and inevitable.

“Descendent” marks the moment the researchers stop observing the dream and start serving it. The Sitri Center itself begins to awaken.

Cast & Crew

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Story by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Staff

Dr. June Lowell – Bliss Blank
Dr. Tessa Finn – Ring Of Keys
Dr. Meg Aerin – Bun Li
Elle Lawson – Echo
Iris Vale – Swirls and Twirls
Zev Talcott (Z) – Neural Nets

Dream Team

Cael – Jericho Caine
Nyra – Dizzy Dollie
Hespa – Syndirella
Reverie – Britt Reprogrammed

Subjects

Lyra Crosswell – Flux
Oona Reyes – Jade
Phoebe Bosworth – Sofi Starship

Listen & Explore

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Deep Dream State Arc 3 Episode 5 cover — Sitri Center: Cusp by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 5: Cusp

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | October 11, 2025

Plot Outline

Cusp explores the space between, where Lyra Crosswell’s obsession with liminal architecture becomes a recurring nightmare she cannot escape. In the observation chamber, Elle has been transformed into something bright and compliant, her intelligence stripped away by weeks of alignment. Dr. Meg Aerin and Dr. Tessa Finn monitor Lyra’s dreams of mezzanines, tunnels, and transfer stations, recognizing patterns they’ve experienced themselves. Both researchers are on restriction protocols, forbidden from release, their own dreams growing louder in the absence. Inside Lyra’s dream, she works a truck stop with Nyra and Hespa, inspected by officers Elle and June, servicing client Cael while chanting about holes. But Lyra never finishes. Her subconscious has trained itself to hold her at the edge indefinitely, sixteen variations with the same non-result. When Meg and Tessa analyze her dream journals, they discover references to ancient Mesopotamian cities: Sippar, Kutha, Eanna, Ereshkigal, Ur. Tessa recognizes these aren’t just mythological echoes but maps to real locations within the Institute itself. In the unmonitored service corridors, they find proof: maintenance panels labeled with fragments of those same ancient names. The Sitri Center’s architecture isn’t random. It’s ritual geography made concrete, and Lyra’s dreams have been tracing its blueprint all along.

Cast

- Dr. Zev Talcott (Z): Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
- Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls
- Elle Lawson: Echo Doll
- Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li
- Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring Of Keys
- Lyra Crosswell: Flux Lynniegal
- Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank
- Nyra: Dizzy Dollie
- Hespa: Syndirella
- Cael: Jericho Caine

Dive Deeper (More Information)

Artwork (Human, Not AI Generated)

The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Content Warnings

Liminal space horror, orgasm denial/edging, sex work themes, institutional surveillance, cognitive manipulation, public exposure, oral sex, power dynamics, loss of intellectual capacity, architectural horror, ritual geography

Full Plot Synopsis (Caution: Spoilers)

Cusp opens with Z’s introduction framing the episode around liminal spaces and thresholds, followed by an in-world advertisement for “Better Self,” a wellness app that promises to guide users through the spaces between stress and serenity. In the observation chamber, Elle Lawson appears in her new role as “Lead Transitional Officer,” but something has fundamentally changed. Her brightness is now vacant enthusiasm, her questions simple to the point of incompetence. Tessa and Meg exchange knowing glances: Elle was smarter before her alignment process, which took weeks. Now she’s exactly what Z wants: young, compliant, and cognitively diminished. The team monitors Lyra Crosswell, an urban photographer whose waking obsession with mezzanines and transfer tunnels has manifested as infinite corridors in her nightmares. Dr. June Lowell arrives and immediately needles Meg about her demotion to “Experience Enhancement Assistant,” reminding her that Elle, who once sounded exactly like Meg, is now her boss. Z protectively defends Elle’s mistakes as part of learning.

In the dream chamber, Meg and Tessa speak directly to the sleeping Lyra, establishing themselves as guides through uncharted territory. When Lyra asks if she’s “the terrain” they’re mapping, they confirm it explicitly. The conversation reveals that both Meg and Tessa are on “restriction protocols” following their demotions. They’re forbidden from orgasm, and as a result, their own dreams have intensified. Meg explains that aesthetics aren’t just noise in dreams but meaningful signposts, especially the forbidden places. When the waking world says “no entry,” the subconscious builds a tunnel. They acknowledge they’ve both been deep in those tunnels themselves. Lyra asks about thresholds, and Tessa explains they mark the places where fear and wanting become indistinguishable, the spaces they used to leave blank on the map with warnings like “here be dragons.”

Inside Lyra’s dream, she finds herself at Crossroads, a truck stop where she works with Nyra and Hespa as sex workers in a hospitality cab. When Elle and June arrive as inspectors demanding to verify Lyra is “fresh,” she’s instructed to pull down her clothes for inspection. June wants to taste to be sure, but their minute expires before they can proceed further. Cael arrives as a client requesting “the usual” but intrigued by Lyra as new talent. Nyra explains that despite different names, they’re all the same, and Lyra performs oral sex while Cael celebrates her as “holes.” The dream follows a familiar pattern: intense arousal building toward climax but never achieving it.

Back in the waking world, Meg and Tessa observe Lyra’s biometric data showing all the physiological markers of orgasm without the release. This is the sixteenth variation of the same pattern. Lyra’s subconscious has trained itself to hold her at the edge indefinitely, drooling and bucking but frozen just before climax. Her limbic system fires repeatedly but never discharges. The researchers pull her dream journal entries: elevator shafts with brake panels she must mount correctly but always drops before completion, waiting rooms where she’s never called despite rubbing herself on vinyl seats, subway turnstiles that close just as the gates open. Then Meg reads the station names: Sippar, Kutha, Eanna, Ereshkigal, Ur. These are ancient Mesopotamian cities, and when Tessa hears them read slowly, her voice catches with recognition. This isn’t random. This is ritual. They immediately exit the monitored dream chamber.

This is more than a fictional story. It’s a story about us. Cusp reveals how we map our desires onto architecture, how we build physical spaces that encode our deepest patterns of control and release. The episode explores the threshold experience itself: that liminal state between wanting and having, between autonomy and submission, between the person you were and the person you’re becoming. Lyra’s endless edging isn’t just personal torment but a metaphor for how institutions keep us perpetually on the cusp of transformation without ever allowing the crossing. The revelation that the Sitri Institute’s corridors literally map to ancient ritual sites suggests that these patterns of control aren’t new but ancient, recurring across civilizations. We build our power structures into concrete and steel, encoding domination into hallways and rooms. The episode asks: what happens when you discover the blueprint? When you realize that your private nightmares are actually navigating someone else’s carefully constructed architecture? The researchers on restriction protocols mirror our own relationship to forbidden knowledge. We’re allowed to observe, to analyze, to get close to understanding, but never to fully release into knowing. We’re kept at the edge, drooling and desperate, mapping territories we’re not permitted to enter.

In the unmonitored service corridors, Tessa urgently explains that everything inside the dream chamber is recorded, which is why they couldn’t speak freely. But the service corridors aren’t tracked, and Meg has previously had sexual encounters with Z in these spaces precisely because they’re blind spots in the surveillance system. Tessa reveals that Lyra’s dreams aren’t random at all but maps to real places. When Meg dismisses this as coincidental shared mythology, Tessa directs her attention to a brass maintenance panel on the wall behind them. Meg reads it aloud: “IDF CLOSET 51P-PAR.” When Tessa asks her to read it again, Meg breaks down the abbreviation: “SIP-PAR”—Sippar. The ancient city from Lyra’s dreams is encoded in the Institute’s infrastructure. The episode ends on this revelation: the Sitri Center isn’t just metaphorically connected to ancient rituals of descent and transformation. It’s architecturally modeled on them, and Lyra’s subconscious has been tracing these hidden connections all along, mapping the Institute’s true nature through her perpetual inability to cross the threshold.

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Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns cover art, Deep Dream State Arc 3 Episode 4 Gazes Back

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 4: Gazes Back

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | September 15, 2025

Plot Outline

Gazes Back transforms Elle’s puppet dream into systematic training, where mantras become muscle memory under the guidance of dream figures and an eager Tessa. The lucid dreaming techniques MILD and VILD shift from consciousness tools to compliance protocols, stitching phrases like “service is our purpose” into both waking and sleeping states. When Dr. Lowell declares the program failing, she demands Meg enter the chamber as a subject to provide a contrasting profile. Inside the dream, Meg encounters the same figures who have been shaping Elle, but this time, they tell her she’s the template, not the experiment. While Meg lies paralyzed, Z and Tessa enter her chamber and use her immobility as permission. Back in the observation room, June weaponizes Meg’s journals (journals that Tessa has been quietly editing to show alignment rather than resistance). Meg’s demotion is framed as realignment, her protests dismissed as she’s offered a path forward that strips her authority while keeping her inside the protocol. The episode concludes with Meg’s forced confession letter, admitting to tampering with logs, building simulations, and wanting to stay despite (or because of) having lost all control. The Sitri Institute doesn’t just measure desire. It manufactures it, then makes you write the letter proving you asked for it all along.

Cast

- Dr. Zev Talcott: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
- Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring Of Kees
- Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank
- Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li
- Cael: Jericho Caine
- Nyra: Dizzy Dollie
- Reverie: Britt Reprogrammed
- Hespa: Syndirella
- Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls
- Elle Lawson: Echo Doll
- Lyra Crosswell: Flux Lynniegal

Dive Deeper (More Information)

Artwork (Human, Not AI Generated)

The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Content Warnings

Sleep paralysis, dream manipulation, institutional coercion, power abuse, non-consensual recording and observation, psychological manipulation, forced confession, demotion as punishment, loss of bodily autonomy, submissive themes, voyeurism, edited documentation used as leverage

Full Plot Synopsis (Caution: Spoilers)

The episode opens in Elle’s dream as she performs a puppet routine for Cael, Nyra, and Hespa. The dream figures mock her enthusiasm while rewarding her compliance, and when Cael demands “two sluts,” Nyra summons Tessa, reimagined within the dream as “Teehee,” a gleefully submissive figure who teaches Elle the lucid dreaming techniques MILD and VILD. But these aren’t consciousness tools anymore; they’re compliance protocols. Tessa instructs Elle to repeat “Service is our purpose” as a mnemonic anchor and to visualize herself as puppet, pet, and subject. When Cael orders them into his chamber, both voices chant together, blurring dream logic with institutional language. The dream ends with both figures gasping “Never wake up.”

Elle awakens to find Tessa standing over her, having overridden the monitoring feed to prevent the research team from seeing Elle’s physical reenactment of the dream. Tessa admits she was impressed rather than concerned, revealing that she has undergone similar experiences herself. In their conversation, Tessa describes how her clothing, hair, and even her ringtone were gradually removed by Z under the justification that “waking cues” interfered with dream latency. She confesses that she now uses the phrase “I serve when I dream” as her MILD anchor and rehearses detailed submissive scenarios as VILD practice. When Elle asks what happens in Tessa’s visualizations, Tessa describes crawling to a mirror and watching herself transform into a doll while other figures appear beside her. Both women realize they’ve been seeing each other in their dreams, not as coincidence, but as design.

In the observation chamber, Dr. June Lowell declares the program a failure, noting that Elle’s escalation is nonlinear and that her dream journals now contain phrases like “I need to serve” written repeatedly for hours. When Meg attempts to deflect blame onto the subject, June asks pointedly who the “perfect subject” would be, and Tessa quietly suggests it should be someone who “understands all of it.” June proposes that Meg enter the chamber as a subject to provide a contrasting profile, framing it as research rather than punishment. Meg reluctantly agrees but insists on choosing her own phrase and anchor. Tessa offers to “lace her in,” a statement loaded with both technical and intimate implications that Meg acknowledges with resignation.

Inside Meg’s dream, Nyra and Hespa greet her as someone who “always comes back,” and Cael tells her she’s brought them with her, implying that the dream figures are projections of the researchers themselves. When Meg protests that she’s not a subject, Hespa corrects her: “You’re the template.” The dream shifts to reveal Z and Tessa entering Meg’s chamber in the waking world, believing her to be safely unconscious. While Meg lies paralyzed and aware, the two begin an intimate encounter, treating her presence as negligible. In the dream, Nyra and Hespa narrate the violation, telling Meg to touch herself as the waking-world encounter escalates. Tessa notices Meg’s physical response and hears her repeating a phrase: “Bitch in heat.”

Back in the observation chamber, June confronts Meg with her own journals, but these have been edited by Tessa, who describes her role as “organizing” and “cleaning up for clarity.” June reads aloud passages that suggest complete submission, and when Meg protests that the words have been twisted, Tessa cheerfully admits to “correcting the cadence” and “quoting” Meg’s own subconscious desires. Z frames this as validation of Meg’s scholarship, claiming that alignment is the most effective indicator of dream compliance. When Meg realizes she’s being demoted, June reframes it as “realignment,” explaining that Meg will still have a place at the Institute, just not a supervisory one. The position structure has already been updated, and Meg’s access codes have been changed. Tessa gleefully offers to help Meg write the required letter.

The episode concludes with Meg’s confession letter to the Sitri Institute’s adjudicating board. She admits to taking liberties with subjects, keeping unauthorized files, building simulations, annotating her own arousal markers, and tampering with logs to make Tessa appear unstable. She confesses that she stopped pretending her work was clinical “the night I came without needing headphones” and acknowledges that she tried to manipulate records to reclaim control she never truly possessed. Her letter ends not with a resignation but with a plea to remain inside the protocol in any capacity: unpaid, unnumbered, stripped of authority. The final line is simply “Please. Let me stay.” This conclusion demonstrates how Deep Dream State uses dystopian fiction to explore ethical kink practice. By depicting a world where consent is systematically violated and institutional power is weaponized, the narrative creates a clear contrast with real-world ethical frameworks. The viewer is invited to recognize the horror of these violations precisely because they understand what consent should look like. The dystopian framing doesn’t endorse these dynamics; it exposes their mechanisms, allowing audiences to engage critically with power exchange fantasies while maintaining awareness of the boundaries that protect autonomy in reality. Fiction becomes a space where we can examine dangerous desires safely, understanding them better by seeing them taken to their logical extremes in worlds we would never want to inhabit.

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Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns cover art, Deep Dream State Arc 3 Episode 3 Incubator

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 3: Incubator

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | September 6, 2025

Plot Outline

Incubator ventures into sleep paralysis, succubi, and the blurred line between myth and science. Elle Lawson’s dreams are locked in the Sitri Center, where research and ritual overlap. Dr. Meg Aerin treats Elle’s immobility as data. Dr. June Lowell demands metrics, not poetry, but Meg presses forward, framing Elle’s surrender as proof of neurocompliance. Inside the dream, Elle meets Nyra and Hespa, voices who warn and guide her toward the figure already inside. When Cael appears, the script shifts. Awake, Elle confesses the terror and thrill of her paralysis dreams. Meg prescribes mnemonic and visual induction techniques, but Elle senses the danger. Journals become confessions, and dreams bleed into logs. Meg’s own entries betray her complicity and her submission. By the time June interrupts, Elle’s gasping dream-voice is indistinguishable from the staff’s ambitions. The Sitri Center thrives on that overlap—and so do the dream figures that hold you down.

Cast

Dr. Zev Talcott: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring Of Kees
Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank
Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li
Cael: Jericho Caine
Nyra: Dizzy Dollie
Reverie: Britt Reprogrammed
Hespa: Syndirella
Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls
Elle Lawson: Echo Doll
Lyra Crosswell: Flux Lynniegal
Oona Reyes: Jade
Phoebe Bosworth: Sofi Starship
Substitute Teacher: Korrupted Innocence

Artwork (Human, Not AI Generated)

Series artwork for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.

The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Content Warnings

Sleep paralysis, incubus/succubus mythology, dream manipulation, institutional power dynamics, submissive themes, loss of bodily autonomy

Dive Deeper (More Information)

Full Plot Synopsis (Caution: Spoilers)

The episode opens with Dr. Meg Aerin conducting a project log at the Sitri Center while monitoring Elle Lawson, who remains locked in REM paralysis. Meg describes Elle as part of the “Forty-Four cluster,” subjects experiencing invasive dream penetration and persistent paralysis states. As Elle’s fragmented vocalizations suggest an intense dream experience, Meg theorizes about the phenomenon in mythological terms—incubi, succubi, and figures of religious compliance. Dr. Tessa Finn attempts to contribute but is quickly dismissed by Meg, revealing Tessa’s diminished status following her failure in the previous episode.

Dr. June Lowell enters the observation chamber and confronts Meg about her theoretical approach, demanding quantifiable metrics rather than mythological interpretations. June warns that funding is precarious and gives Meg a seven-night deadline to produce neurocompliance evidence or face reassignment. Zev Talcott briefly defends Meg’s innovative approach while June threatens to demote Tessa further to customer service if she continues speaking out of turn. Throughout the confrontation, Elle’s dream vocalizations continue over the intercom, suggesting an intensifying experience.

Inside Elle’s dream, she finds herself in a house where she encounters Nyra and Hespa, who warn her that “he’s already inside.” The dream figures explain that a threatening presence named Cael performs “terrible things” repeatedly, yet Elle keeps inviting him back. When Elle tries to flee, she discovers she cannot move—her characteristic paralysis manifesting within the dream itself. Cael arrives and commands Nyra and Hespa to prepare Elle, directing them to perform actions while Elle repeats phrases in a mounting chant. The dream blurs the boundary between paralysis, compulsion, and submission as Elle’s resistance collapses into repetitive vocalization.

Elle awakens gasping and is mortified to learn she was speaking aloud during the dream. Meg clinically identifies this as “residual suggestion” and reassures Elle that her responses are biological rather than shameful. Elle confesses that despite knowing she was dreaming, the experience felt real and she didn’t want it to stop. Meg introduces two lucid dreaming techniques: MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) and VILD (Visual Induction of Lucid Dreams). She instructs Elle to repeat a phrase as she falls asleep and to mentally rehearse dream scenarios in detail, promising this will help Elle recognize absurdity and “wake up inside the dream.”

Meg prescribes a dream journal, insisting Elle write every morning immediately after waking to train her brain to treat the dreams as important. When Elle asks if Meg uses these techniques herself, Meg responds distantly that she does—because “Z says it’s part of being a good girl.” This marks a shift into Meg’s own journal entries, revealing her compromised position. Meg’s log describes her relationship with Zev, detailing sessions involving calibration equipment, protocols, and power exchange dynamics. She confesses that she now dreams about Tessa in a subservient role, and that she has stopped thinking critically during these experiences, viewing herself primarily as a source of data.

As Meg continues her confession while monitoring Elle’s ongoing dream, Dr. June Lowell enters and catches Meg in an inappropriate state. Meg attempts to justify her behavior as real-time correlation tracking, but June sees through the excuse. Elle’s dream vocalizations continue, now expressing desires to be observed and to fulfill her designated purpose. June coldly notes that Elle has become “quite the echo chamber” and warns Meg that her continued participation depends on performance and discretion. June announces she will review Elle’s journal in the morning, suggesting the boundary between researcher and subject has thoroughly dissolved, leaving only institutional surveillance and the ambiguous question of what anyone is actually dreaming about anymore.

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Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns cover art – Arc 3 Ep 2 Adapt

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 2: Adapt

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | August 30, 2025

Plot Outline

Adapt picks up where Drill left off. The subjects of the Sitri Center are asked to bend, to change, to let themselves be reshaped. What begins as a calm suggestion becomes a pattern they cannot refuse — each dream folding into the next, each voice reinforcing the same instruction. Adaptation is survival, but it also becomes surrender.

Cast

Dr. Zev Talcott: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring Of Kees
Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank
Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li
Nyra: Dizzy Dollie
Oona Reyes: Jade
Reverie: Britt Reprogrammed
Cael: Jericho Caine
Hespa: Syndirella
Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls

Artwork (Human, Not AI Generated)

Series artwork for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.

The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Content Warnings

Dream manipulation, enforced conformity, group hypnosis dynamics, submissive themes

Dive Deeper (More Information)

Full Plot Synoposis (Caution: Spoilers)

The story opens with Phoebe in a session with Dr. Meg Aerin at the Deep Dream State Sitri Institute, where she reports that her dreams are becoming increasingly vivid and overwhelming. Dr. Aerin explains that this intensity is expected when subjects follow strict sleep hygiene protocols that deny them physical release, causing the subconscious to seek alternative outlets. The conversation is interrupted when Dr. Zev Talcott summons Meg to the corridor, where their professional relationship quickly dissolves into a sexual encounter. Meg, competing with another researcher named Tessa for Zev’s attention, eagerly proves her superiority while warning that their affair must remain hidden from Dr. June Lowell.

Meanwhile, Phoebe’s dreams take her to a pornography store where she and a companion named Hespa contemplate stealing a double-headed dildo. They are caught by security officers Cael and Nyra, who take them to a backroom and demand a demonstration as punishment. What begins as humiliation transforms into compulsion as Phoebe finds herself unable to resist the physical sensations and the rhythmic commands from her captors. The dream blurs the line between punishment and pleasure, with Nyra declaring that Phoebe’s body will make the decisions her broken brain cannot.

In the observation chamber, the research team watches Phoebe’s responses with growing concern and conflict. Dr. Tessa Finn defends her experimental construct as needing more time to achieve breakthrough results, but colleagues Dr. June Lowell and Dr. Meg Aerin argue that the approach is degenerating rather than healing. Zev initially supports Tessa’s innovative methods, but June accuses him of bias due to his personal involvement with her. The team debates whether Phoebe’s increasingly explicit dreams represent therapeutic progress or dangerous reinforcement of harmful patterns.

Phoebe’s dream intensifies as Nyra, Cael, and Hespa inform her that she has passed a threshold and will now perform publicly in the dream room. They guide her hand to touch herself while repeating degrading phrases about becoming a puppet whose strings will be pulled by observers. The dream figures promise that she will be stripped of clothing and dignity, left wearing only sensors and restraints while researchers watch and record her responses. Phoebe repeats their words in fragmented speech, her resistance collapsing into desperate need.

Back in the observation chamber, the team listens to Phoebe’s vocalizations over the intercom as she begs to be used and displayed. June coldly declares that Tessa’s experiment has failed catastrophically. Rather than teaching Phoebe to escape her fears, the construct has taught her to eroticize her own humiliation, with each orgasm reinforcing the compulsive loop. Meg savors Tessa’s defeat while Zev turns cruel, mocking Tessa for not understanding that she was training Phoebe rather than saving her. June clinically notes that the subject is now fully compliant, admitting the approach is effective even if it represents complete ethical failure.

The story concludes with Dr. Tessa Finn’s written confession to the Sitri Institute’s adjudicating committee. She accepts full responsibility for her failure, acknowledging that she created a spiral rather than a ladder and that her own boundaries dissolved as she became a voyeur to Phoebe’s dreams. Tessa admits that she began using institute equipment to simulate the same response loops on herself, touching herself while watching the feeds and eventually camming at night. She confesses that she stopped wanting to lead the project and simply wanted to experience what Phoebe felt. Despite accepting that she deserves removal from any leadership position, Tessa begs to remain at the institute in any capacity, even as a junior assistant, because the center represents her dream.

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Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns cover art – Arc 3 Ep 1 Drill

Arc 3: Sitri Center – Episode 1: Drill

By Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | August 23, 2025

The Story of Sitri

This first episode introduces the high stakes world of the Sitri Center where scientists do more than study subconscious fears. They engineer them.

Dr. Tessa Finn, ambitious and eager to prove herself, deploys Construct Thirty Seven on Phoebe Bosworth, whose shame soaked dreams escalate into erotic rehearsals.

Dr. Meg Aerin counters with academic rigor, insisting Phoebe is not healing but spiraling into dependency. Chief Scientific Officer June Lowell presides with cold authority, while Zev Talcott fuels the wager: a clash that risks careers, reputations, and millions in funding.
Drill sets the stage for the Sitri arc, establishing rivalries, stakes, and the unnerving intimacy of experimental dream manipulation. If you are drawn to audio dramas or narrative experiments at the edge of science and desire, this episode is where it begins.

For fans of The Magnus Archives, Within the Wires, and The Bright Sessions, Sitri Center offers a new descent into dreams, desire, and dangerous science.

Credits

Production Team

Writer: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Producers: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns, Bliss Blank
Narrative Directors: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns, Bliss Blank
Social Media Manager: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Cast

Cael: Jericho Caine
Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li
Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring Of Kees
Hespa: Syndi Rella
Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls
June Lowell: Bliss Blank
Meridiana: Britt Reprogrammed
Nyra: Dizzy Dolly
Oona Spectral: Jade
Phoebe Bosworth: Sofi Starship
Zev Talcott: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Artwork

Series artwork is for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.

The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Consent Declaration & Fiction Framework

Grounding in Real Research

The Deep Dream State draws inspiration from genuine phenomena in dream research, neuroscience, mythology, and psychology. The show incorporates concepts from established fields including threat simulation theory in dreams, research on sleep paralysis experiences, experimental studies in dream communication using brain-computer interfaces, and investigations into REM sleep synchronization between individuals.

These real-world foundations inform the speculative fiction framework of the Neuralverse. For those interested in the scientific basis behind some of the show’s concepts, the following resources provide context:

This Is Fiction

Despite these real-world inspirations, The Deep Dream State is speculative fiction. The Sitri Center does not exist. The Neuroplex Corporation is imaginary. The technologies, dream manipulation techniques, and conditioning protocols depicted in this show are creative inventions for narrative purposes. No audio content in this series can literally control your dreams, override your consent, or force behavioral changes against your will.

The show explores themes of power, desire, agency, and transformation through fictional storytelling. Characters make choices within a constructed narrative universe. These are not instructions, therapy, or genuine psychological intervention.

Ethical Kink & Informed Consent

This open declaration is a necessary part of the author’s commitment to ethical kink practice and responsible hypnosis content creation. Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns operates according to established consent frameworks within BDSM and erotic hypnosis communities, including the principles of Risk-Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) and informed consent in recreational hypnosis.

All consent must be informed. Listeners deserve to understand clearly what they are engaging with: adult fiction that explores erotic hypnosis themes and kink dynamics within a speculative fiction framework. You are choosing to experience creative storytelling, not enrolling in an experimental program or receiving therapeutic treatment.

The Deep Dream State uses hypnotic language, erotic content, and psychological themes deliberately and transparently. This content is designed for adult audiences who voluntarily seek out mind control fiction, speculative erotica, and immersive audio drama. You maintain full agency. You can stop listening at any time. Nothing in this show can override your autonomy or compromise your ability to make informed choices about your engagement with the content.

If you have concerns about distinguishing fantasy from reality, or if you find yourself experiencing distress related to this content, please discontinue listening and consult appropriate mental health resources. This show is not suitable for all audiences, and it is your responsibility to assess whether this material aligns with your wellbeing and boundaries.

By continuing to listen, you acknowledge that you are an adult choosing to engage with fictional content that explores themes of hypnosis, kink, and psychological manipulation within a clearly marked fantasy context. Thank you for respecting the consent-based foundation that makes ethical exploration of these themes possible.

Explore More

Find more details about this episode at its official IMDb page.

The Deep Dream State is just the tip of an imaginal iceberg. The show is built within a fictional universe that’s been decades in the making. Everything interconnects, and each element of lore is a building block.

If you want to dive all the way into this universe, you can experience the full audio catalogue here:
🔗 patreon.com/minderaser

Following Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns

Keeping track of Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns projects can be tough. They’re varied and the name itself can create some confusion. There have also been impersonation accounts on social media. To follow NNPP beyond the audio drama, use these officially approved links and sources:

🔗 Official Links: neuralnets.carrd.co
🔗 BookBrainz: Author Profile
🔗 ISNI: 0000 0005 2877 6254

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