Before the cameras rolled, there was Violet.

In this work of folk horror, the initiation began before she arrived.

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns

Violet Verdier – Flux

The Lady Aurora

Violet Verdier arrives for session 48 with Lilly Ekimmu, a licensed professional at Deep Dream Wellness in New Milford. Violet is anxious, fractured, convinced her past is visible to everyone around her. She keeps referencing a Pink Room she can’t fully describe and a person called Ash she can’t fully explain. Lilly guides her through the 3-3-3 grounding technique. It works.  Lilly sends her outside to touch grass. It’s all part of the process.

Violet follows Lilly’s instructions to a historic stone circle, recording a voice memo as she goes. She’s trying to be normal. The birds sound wrong. She runs the technique on herself and it works again, mostly, until the footsteps start and the drums begin underneath everything and the exercise starts to feel less like a coping mechanism and more like a preparation.

The stone circle is occupied. Bella, the Coven Leader, greets Violet using Lilly’s exact language. The technique now functions as a ritual induction. Violet recognizes Lilly in the circle. The drums build. Violet finds that everything feels right again.

Back in the office, Lilly records an updated progress note.  The session closes with both of them counting together, Lilly and Violet in unison, the same rhythm from the stone circle now fully reframed. Lilly says they’re the offering. They just have to stay grounded.

Violet is the Incognitoh arc’s origin story and its thesis statement delivered in one movement. The arc that follows is built around the machinery of observation, performance, and identity rewriting. Violet establishes where that machinery comes from.

The horror of Violet is that the tool and the ritual induction are formally identical. Lilly and Bella use the same language because they are running the same operation.

The Incognitoh arc will build a much more elaborate architecture of observation and performance on top of this foundation. Violet is where the foundation gets poured.

Series artwork is hand drawn by Echo Doll. Deep Dream State uses human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction. The manipulative elements depicted are fictional and intentional.

Violet depicts the 3-3-3 grounding technique, a real evidence-based anxiety intervention, within a fictional context in which it has been weaponized as a ritual induction tool. This depiction is not clinical guidance, not a critique of grounding techniques, and not a representation of real therapeutic practice. If you are experiencing anxiety or psychological distress, please consult a qualified mental health professional. The fictional frame here is intentional and total.

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

ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254

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