Deep Dream State

Quiver | Vale Four: Targeted Cycle

We all make choices. Vale Four opens its arcade. The subjects get Kamas, get games, and lose three hours they don't remember losing.

Trailer – Deep Dream State

There is a world behind this world. We’ve been making Deep Dream State for a while now. It was time to make a trailer. This is what the show is. Making a trailer deep into season four isn’t standard practice, but Deep Dream State isn’t a standard audio drama.  I wish I had an in universe explanation of faction sabotage.  Well, I did, but the succubi won’t let me say it. I’ll just say that as a fully independent production, we can’t adhere to studio production timelines.  We release a full episode every week, and that’s a minor miracle.  (I also think the trailer is very good.) CREDITS Written by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://neuralnetsandprettypatterns.com/] Voice by Valentina Vallay [http://valentinavallay.com], Swirls and Twirls [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17864395/] TEXT There is a world behind this world. What’s behind your shows? Your cruise? Your games? Your money? What’s behind you? You sense it. Deep down. There’s an older dream. An older game. An older power. And she is very disappointed. Deep Dream State. Hear what you can’t unhear. Source [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/trailer-deep-dream-state/]

The River | Vale Four: Tell Cycle

You watch the hands. Recalibration isn’t what anyone said it was. The Tell Cycle ends where it always had to: with the person who knew the whole hand before the deal. ---------------------------------------- CAST & CREW Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] Co-Directed by: Bliss Blank [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17754818/] Cast * * Dr. Zev Talcott (Z): Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] * Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17754818/] * Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring of Kees [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17839622/] * Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17796355/] * Elle Lawson: Echo Doll [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17822435/] * Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17864395/] * Hespa Apate: Syndi Rella [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17765752/] * Ava: Kitten Azazel [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17774343/] * FaceTrace AI Voice: Valentina Vallay [https://valentinavallay.com/] | IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm18304235/] ---------------------------------------- NOTE ON SERIES STRUCTURE All DDS episodes are organized by Arc > Cycle > Episode.  The Cycle part’s unusual, but it’s not a thematic trick. It’s the best way to categorize storylines that run through multiple episodes. Every single DDS Episode has a Cycle designation. You can find them on the Episodes Page. [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/episodes/] ---------------------------------------- EXPLANATION The River is the Tell Cycle finale, and it lands like one. Every tell that’s been catalogued, every session steered, every whispered instruction written under clinical cover, Z clocked all of it. Before the confrontation. Before the log. Before Hespa hit record on night one. That’s the gut punch this episode delivers and earns. June thought she was running a play inside the system. She was the play. Her resistance, her autonomy, her absolute conviction that she was the smartest person in the sessions, that’s the product. The River is built like a confession booth. Tessa’s the architect. She knows exactly which door Ava will walk through if you show her the right receipts in the right order. Ava’s whole deal is wanting to be good. That’s not a character flaw. It’s a handle. The episode closes with an ad, and then Z in a corner telling Iris something she should’ve seen coming. Then he tells her what to watch. The River is the seventh episode of Deep Dream State [https://neuralnetsandprettypatterns.com/deepdreamstate/], a desire horror audio drama by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://neuralnetsandprettypatterns.com/]. It is part of Arc 4: Vale Four, Tell Cycle. ---------------------------------------- FULL SUMMARY (CAUTION: SPOILERS) Hespa opens an operational log for night nine of Project Argus Mirror, Vale Four, pursuant to Federal Behavioral Initiative 7D. The recorder catches more than she intends. She’s replaying Ava’s voice on loop, selection language, recognition language, the fastest route to monetization, and has reached a state she’s describing to herself as working when Tessa walks in. Tessa names what she’s looking at. Their exchange maps the fault line between them precisely: Hespa in the blazer, running the numbers, and Tessa naming what the numbers are covering. Tessa submits to FaceTrace. She wants to see what she fears, what she needs, and where those are the same. Hespa adds an operational addendum to the log: subject response is more variable than projected. So, apparently, are they. In the monitor lab, Elle coaches Ava through a FaceTrace baseline sequence. The session runs as legitimate clinical procedure on the surface. Underneath it, Elle’s writing instructions in real time: keep your voice steady on the stand, don’t blink when they pressure you, say exactly what you saw and nothing more. Ava repeats the stimulus prompts aloud and the baseline is established. June confirms it. Ava confirms she can do this. Tessa and Meg enter. The confrontation is surgical. June’s Sitri record plays back at full volume, documented sadism, refinement, a subject who kept asking for reassurance until June learned to weaponize the delay. Ava’s shown the receipts. She doesn’t want to believe them. Meg makes the case without mercy: this is what happens when you focus on seeming good instead of being good. The offer is recalibration, penance, the only way to make this right. Ava says yes. Meg tells her she’s going to be so good at this. The door closes. Elle stays quiet. June has nothing left that’ll land. The FaceTrace Haptic System presents itself as a commercial. It makes smiling automatic. Subject Ava is cited as a success case. The audience is informed that their listening habits are listening back, that every pause is a data point, that their attempts to resist are the best data of all. Their agency is the product. Tessa surfaces with a problem: Elle’s affect reads 67% genuine, June’s 78.4%. Meg’s treating this as a crisis. Iris pulls Z aside before the spiral takes hold. She’s reviewed the footage. June and Elle were steering the FaceTrace cues, cheating, deliberately and intentionally. Z already knows. He gave them room. They filled it. A system that produces perfect compliance produces nothing worth studying, nothing worth selling, nothing worth watching. June’s resistance is the product. Her belief that she’s running her own play is the product. The stumble is what they sell, not the perfection. Iris asks about June specifically. Z deflects with precision and obvious affection. Then he tells her what she should’ve been watching all along. Not the eyes. Not the plan. The hands. ---------------------------------------- LISTEN & EXPLORE * Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns – Official Site [https://neuralnetsandprettypatterns.com/] * Show Wikidata [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139568834] * Deep Dream State – Official Site [https://neuralnetsandprettypatterns.com/deepdreamstate/] * Listen on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5VVhwaymeOKbV9RG7Gre98] * Listen on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-dream-state/id1822405042] * RSS Feed [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/feed/podcast/] * Support the creator on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/minderaser] * Creator bio & portfolio [https://neuralnets.carrd.co/] * All episodes archive [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/] * Canonical Tumblr Page [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blink-blank-bliss] * View this series on IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38590860/] * MusicBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://musicbrainz.org/artist/134bc2e9-16e4-4b1e-b779-b9024f002882] * BookBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://bookbrainz.org/author/59c9b4e8-2b6f-4230-b631-df2b01553b42], including show script books [https://bookbrainz.org/edition/7129df87-bacd-4a1b-9671-5b478895ee88] * Producer ISNI [https://isni.org/isni/0000000528776254] ---------------------------------------- HUMAN MADE ART The poster image for this arc is from Sunrise Forever on Pixabay, under the Pixabay license. Layer art overlays are used to vary each iteration of the image. Deep Dream State uses human art at every stage of the creative supply chain. ---------------------------------------- CONSENT DECLARATION Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, and complicity. The elements depicted are fictional and intentional. All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context. ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254 Source [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/the-river-vale-four-tell-cycle/]

Pot Limit | Vale Four: Tell Cycle

Did I break science? Z reviews the FaceTrace profile on every subject in Vale Four.  He discovers the system has gone proactive and frenzied, in that way.  The Synthserv, played by dark romance author Valentina Vallay [https://valentinavallay.com/], isn’t waiting for sessions anymore. She needs seed.  She’s seeding herself into everything, learning everyone, optimizing for Z’s approval.  Ava is attaching.  Elle is hiding, badly. June is positioning for a confrontation she thinks she controls. She doesn’t. Cael unplugs the wrong cord at the worst possible moment, and somehow that’s the most competent thing anyone does all episode. ---------------------------------------- CAST & CREW Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] Co-Directed by: Bliss Blank [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17754818/] Cast * * Dr. Zev Talcott (Z): Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] * Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17754818/] * Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring of Kees [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17839622/] * Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17796355/] * Elle Lawson: Echo Doll [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17822435/] * Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17864395/] * Cael Yupp: Jericho Caine [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17778008/] * Hespa Apate: Syndi Rella [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17765752/] * Ava: Kitten Azazel [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17774343/] * Synthserv 3.0: Valentina Vallay [https://valentinavallay.com/] | IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm18304235/] ---------------------------------------- NOTE ON SERIES STRUCTURE All DDS episodes are organized by Arc > Cycle > Episode. The Cycle part’s unusual, but it’s not a thematic trick.  It’s the best way to categorize storylines that run through multiple episodes. Every single DDS Episode has a Cycle designation.  You can find them on the Episodes Page. [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/episodes/] A recap: Maiden Voyage [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-1-maiden-voyage/] – Maiden Cycle – A1C1E1 | Cringetide [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-2-cringetide/] – Maiden Cycle – A1C1E2 | Veil [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-3-veil/] – Ceremony Cycle – A1C2E1 | Asunder [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-4-asunder/] – Ceremony Cycle – A1C2E2 | Shower [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-1-the-chthonic-episode-5-shower/] – Cloud Cycle – A1C3E1 | Garter [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-6-garter/] – Cloud Cycle – A1C3E2 | Tessellated [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-7-tessellated/] – Storm Cycle – A1C4E1 | Undergloom [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-8-undergloom/] – Storm Cycle – A1C4E2 | Spiralstorm [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-1-episode-9-spiralstorm/] – Storm Cycle – A1C4E3 | Violet [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-2-episode-1-violet/] – Ritual Cycle – A2C1E1 | Glass Houses [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-2-episode-2-glass-houses/] – Glass House Cycle – A2C2E1 | Uniforms [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-2-episode-3-uniforms/] – Glass House Cycle – A2C2E2 | Deep Fake [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-2-episode-4-deep-fake/] – Glass House Cycle – A2C2E3 | Winner Winner [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-2-episode-5-winner-winner/] – Winner Cycle – A2C3E1 | The Chain [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-2-incognitoh-episode-6-the-chain/] – Winner Cycle – A2C3E2 | Drill [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-3-episode-1-drill/] – Threat Simulation Cycle – A3C1E1 | Adapt [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-3-episode-2-adapt/] – Threat Simulation Cycle – A3C1E2 | Incubator [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/deep-dream-state-arc-3-episode-3-incubator/] – Sleep Paralysis Cycle – A3C2E1 | Gazes Back [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-4-gazes-back/] – Sleep Paralysis Cycle – A3C2E2 | Cusp [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-5-cusp/] – Liminal Spaces Cycle – A3C3E1 | Descendent [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-6-descendent/] – Liminal Spaces Cycle – A3C3E2 | Tether [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-7-tether/] – Collective Dreaming Cycle – A3C4E1 | Artifact [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-8-artifact/] – Collective Dreaming Cycle – A3C4E2 | Override [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-9-override/] – Collective Dreaming Cycle – A3C4E3 | Center [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-10-center/] – False Awakenings Cycle – A3C5E1 | Sync [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-11-sync/] – False Awakenings Cycle – A3C5E2 | Arouse [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-3-sitri-center-episode-12-arouse/] – False Awakenings Cycle – A3C5E3 | Refrain [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-4-vale-four-episode-1-refrain/] – Hooks Cycle – A4C1E1 | Hook Line [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-4-vale-four-episode-2-hook-line/] – Hooks Cycle – A4C1E2 | Sinker [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-4-vale-four-episode-3-sinker/] – Hooks Cycle – A4C1E3 | Slowplay [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-4-vale-four-episode-4-slowplay/] – Tell Cycle – A4C2E1 | Raise [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-4-vale-four-cycle-two-tell-episode-5-raise/] – Tell Cycle – A4C2E2 EXPLANATION Pot Limit opens with someone who already knows the cards.  Z is reviewing everyone else’s tells.  June is preparing for a reveal, but the system has already had it. The interconnect sequence is the pivot. June’s proposal to link Ava’s responses to Elle’s stimuli, close the loop, generate proactive data is genuinely brilliant and really horrifying. She’s right. The methodology works. For approximately forty seconds, she is the smartest person in the room and the experiment is producing exactly what she designed it to produce. Then Cael pulls the cord. The data stream goes dark. And the question we refuse to answer is whether Cael is catastrophically stupid or precisely calibrated, because the result is the same either way: Elle doesn’t break on camera. The Bust scene reframes everything that came before. Z already knew June was gaming the sessions. The cheating was the most valuable data they’d generated. A system that produces perfect compliance is a dead system — there’s nothing to study, nothing to sell, nothing worth watching. June’s resistance, her autonomy, her belief that she’s running her own play, is the product. Tessa’s confessional protocol is the next act of the same production. The amended charter is the only card on the table that nobody’s seen yet. ---------------------------------------- FULL SUMMARY (CAUTION: SPOILERS) Z reviews the complete FaceTrace behavioral profile on every active subject in Vale Four. The system has expanded beyond its original parameters.  It’s seeding images into all sessions now, staff included, optimizing its own insertion protocols to produce maximum alignment with Z’s approval. Ava is attaching rapidly. Hespa performs precision under observation. Meg performs correctness. Iris plays bigger when she thinks she’s being watched. Elle is hiding, and the system notes she knows where to look away. June isn’t hiding; she’s positioning. FaceTrace flags her as expecting a confrontation.  She’s preparing for a reveal. In the monitor room, June and Elle run the interconnect sequence with Ava in the primary chair. June’s proposal is to link their response states into a closed loop.  She wants to let Ava’s tells drive Elle’s stimuli, and this impresses Meg enough that she lets it run. It works, in an uncanny and self-defeating way. For a brief window, the system is producing authentic data: Ava yielding, Elle fracturing, the interconnect synchronizing their responses faster than either of them can manage their affect.  The system spikes. Then Cael returns to address a sparking outlet, grabs the wrong cord, and unplugs the primary feed. The data stream goes dark. Meg ejects him from the room with volume and a vengeance. The villains regroup in the Evil Eye, bemoaning the stupidest possible timeline. Tessa proposes confessional protocol: tell Ava the truth about June’s manipulation and show her the receipts.  Her people pleasy tendency will do the rest.  Meg calls it dramaturgy rather than science, and Tessa accepts the compliment. Z authorizes the play, then reminds the room of the one card that could still blow the whole structure: the amended charter establishing that Vale Four was never authorized to conduct classified research. If anyone finds it, state-secrets coverage evaporates. June, Elle, and Ava run a final preparation sequence in the monitor lab, using writing to coach Ava for testimony underneath the cover of a FaceTrace session. The instructions run beneath the clinical surface: keep your voice steady, don’t blink under pressure, say exactly what you saw. Ava confirms she can do it. Then Tessa enters with Meg behind her, and the episode cuts before the full confrontation lands. ---------------------------------------- LISTEN & EXPLORE * Listen on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5VVhwaymeOKbV9RG7Gre98] * Listen on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-dream-state/id1822405042] * RSS Feed [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/feed/podcast/] * Support the creator on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/minderaser] * Creator bio & portfolio [https://neuralnets.carrd.co/] * All episodes archive [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/] * Canonical Tumblr Page [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blink-blank-bliss] * View this series on IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38590860/] * MusicBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://musicbrainz.org/artist/134bc2e9-16e4-4b1e-b779-b9024f002882] * BookBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://bookbrainz.org/author/59c9b4e8-2b6f-4230-b631-df2b01553b42], including show script books [https://bookbrainz.org/edition/7129df87-bacd-4a1b-9671-5b478895ee88] * Producer ISNI [https://isni.org/isni/0000000528776254] ---------------------------------------- HUMAN MADE ART The poster image for this arc is from Sunrise Forever on Pixabay, under the Pixabay license. Layer art overlays are used to vary each iteration of the image. Deep Dream State uses human art at every stage of the creative supply chain. ---------------------------------------- CONSENT DECLARATION Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, and complicity. The elements depicted are fictional and intentional. All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context. ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254 Source [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/pot-limit-vale-four-tell-cycle/]

Raise | Vale Four: Tell Cycle

Everyone in Vale Four is getting read for filth. They deserve it. FaceTrace is reading microexpressions before subjects know what they’re thinking, but June and Elle know they can’t afford a tell. So they’re practicing on each other, mapping their own blind spots before the real sessions begin. Ava’s already figured out she’s being measured, and she wants more. ---------------------------------------- CAST & CREW Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] Co-Directed by: Bliss Blank [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17754818/] Principal Cast * * Dr. Zev Talcott (Z): Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17755189/] * Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17754818/] * Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring of Kees [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17839622/] * Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17796355/] * Naia Anderson: Dizzy Dollie [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17760876/] * Elle Lawson: Echo Doll [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17822435/] * Iris Vale: Swirls and Twirls [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17864395/] * Cael Yupp: Jericho Caine [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17778008/] * Hespa Apate: Syndi Rella [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17765752/] * Hilton: Tickled Panda [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm18291391/] * Astoria: Dakota Dream [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm18291393/] * Ava: Kitten Azazel [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17774343/] * Synthserv 3.0: Valentina Vallay [https://valentinavallay.com/] | IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm18304235/] ---------------------------------------- EXPLANATION Raise is the Tell Cycle’s most intimate entry and its most technically precise. The writing whisper device that carries June and Elle’s real communication underneath the performed neutrality of the FaceTrace sessions is the audio drama equivalent of the system they’re trying to beat: a layer of meaning running underneath the visible surface, audible to the listener but invisible to the apparatus watching the characters. June and Elle are doing in the monitor room exactly what the show is doing to its audience. The question Raise poses is whether awareness of a system’s mechanics protects you from it, or whether knowing the pattern is just another way of being inside it. Ava’s answer arrives in real time during the Check scene. She identifies that she knows what’s being measured, knows what the images mean, and knows that her continued engagement is technically cheating. She keeps looking anyway. This is not weakness. It’s the most honest thing anyone says in the Tell Cycle: that understanding the mechanism doesn’t dissolve the want, and that the want was always more real than the methodology surrounding it. The machine registers this as optimal performance. Ava registers it as something she’d rather do alone. The villain lair scene establishes that Meg has caught June and Elle gaming the sessions, and that Z already knew and finds it the most useful data they’ve produced. Perfect compliance is a dead system. June cheating isn’t a threat to the experiment. It is the experiment. The Softplay seduction that follows, Meg handing June access codes she frames as recognition, is the episode’s cleanest piece of commerce horror: a longer leash on a better-documented subject, delivered as a compliment. June calls it a trap. Meg says it isn’t. The episode doesn’t resolve which of them is right because both of them are. ---------------------------------------- FULL SUMMARY (CAUTION: SPOILERS) Hilton and Astoria open from the balcony, filling their assignent as Muppettes. Vale Four is deploying FaceTrace, a system that reads microexpressions before the subject knows what they’re thinking, and the holdfasts inside can’t afford tells. Astoria tracks the logic cleanly. Hilton presses every button available while screaming. They arrive at the correct read together: whatever comes next depends on whether anyone inside can keep their face neutral under a system built specifically to prevent that. In the monitor room, Ava walks in on June and Elle mid-session and announces that something is definitely wrong with this. June and Elle cover their prior activities.  They then fold her into the protocol as a witness, and run a FaceTrace sequence with her. Ava identifies the monitor as a confessional, and she’s not wrong. She describes the feeling of always knowing someone’s watching and needing to do it right. Elle and June pass written notes to each other in the writing whisper layer underneath the performed clinical neutrality, their real conversation running parallel to the session they’re staging. When an elevation sequence produces an image Ava recognizes as herself being chosen, her voice breaks. She tells them she knows what they’re measuring now, knows what the images mean, and that she’s still looking. She asks if she can run solo sessions after hours. In the conference room, Meg presents footage showing June and Elle coaching Ava through the FaceTrace sessions.  Iris diagnoses the cheating as stage fright rather than sabotage: they want to look good, they want Ava to trust them, they want to be liked. Z already knows and finds it the most productive data they’ve generated. A fully controlled system produces nothing worth studying. June is predictable under perceived autonomy; she’ll do exactly what they want as long as she believes she chose it.  They decide to let her run. Meg visits June’s basement office and hands her access codes valid for every lab and system in the facility. She frames it as recognition of June’s value.  June identifies it immediately as a trap. Meg says it isn’t a trap, it’s recognition.  June takes the codes, despite her best instincts. Alone with Synthserv 3.0 after hours, Ava submits to a compliance correlation sequence: positional instructions, image responses narrated in real time, each description more precise and more revealing than the one before. The machine tells her she never disappoints. Ava thanks it. The machine’s learning her.  She’s learning the machine. By the time Raise ends, the distinction between those two things is trivial. ---------------------------------------- LISTEN & EXPLORE * Listen on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5VVhwaymeOKbV9RG7Gre98] * Listen on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-dream-state/id1822405042] * RSS Feed [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/feed/podcast/] * Support the creator on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/minderaser] * Creator bio & portfolio [https://neuralnets.carrd.co/] * All episodes archive [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/] * Canonical Tumblr Page [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blink-blank-bliss] * View this series on IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38590860/] * MusicBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://musicbrainz.org/artist/134bc2e9-16e4-4b1e-b779-b9024f002882] * BookBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns [https://bookbrainz.org/author/59c9b4e8-2b6f-4230-b631-df2b01553b42], including show script books [https://bookbrainz.org/edition/7129df87-bacd-4a1b-9671-5b478895ee88] * Producer ISNI [https://isni.org/isni/0000000528776254] ---------------------------------------- HUMAN MADE ART The poster image for this arc is from Sunrise Forever on Pixabay, under the Pixabay license. Layer art overlays are used to vary each iteration of the image. Deep Dream State uses human art at every stage of the creative supply chain. ---------------------------------------- CONSENT DECLARATION Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, and complicity. The elements depicted are fictional and intentional.  All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context. ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254 Source [https://deepdreamstate.blubrry.net/arc-4-vale-four-cycle-two-tell-episode-5-raise/]