Inside the Sitri Institute, control begins to fracture. “Cusp” explores the moment between awakening and surrender, where observation turns intimate and the researchers become subjects of their own experiment.

When a new assistant, Elle, joins the team, her bright eagerness only deepens the cracks in the hierarchy. Dr. Tessa Finn and Meg Aerin continue monitoring Lyra Crosswell’s dream loops, where corridors stretch forever and climax never arrives. As the team tracks her descent through stations named Sippar, Kutha, Eanna, Ereshkigal, and Ur, it becomes clear that Lyra’s paralysis is ritual, not pathology.

Outside the chamber, whispers of the Institute’s hidden corridors surface, and within them, Tessa confesses that the dream maps aren’t metaphor at all. They’re blueprints. And they lead somewhere real.

“Cusp” bridges the psychic and the physical, continuing Deep Dream State’s descent into erotic hypnosis, dream-tech, and mythic control.

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Staff

Dr. June Lowell – Bliss Blank

Subjects

Lyra Crosswell – Flux

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.

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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