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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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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:
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Production Credits Deep Dream State is written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns, with co-production by Bliss. Sound design, editing, and scoring by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns.
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Your support helps keep the dream alive — and growing stranger.
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Content Advisory This series contains adult themes, identity confusion, and psychological manipulation. Listener discretion is advised.
