Sitri Center

Sitri Center is a secluded dream research institute. It promises better sleep and better selves, but it’s delivering a lot more.

The researchers think they're running the experiment. Dr. Meg Aerin and Dr. Tessa Finn follow the data deeper into the architecture, session by session, until it closes around them. By the time they recognize the bars, they've already internalized the design.

At Sitri, control systems survive by presenting themselves as liberation. The Sitri Center doesn't bill itself as coercion. On the brochure, it guides participants toward transformations the system requires, and participants report feeling freer than ever. They might be telling the truth, and that’s what’s horrifying.

One question that gets harder to answer the deeper you go: if the wanting itself was engineered, does it matter if it came from you?

Deep Dream State uses human art direction and human creative decision-making throughout the visual and audio supply chain. Sitri Center artwork is curated as part of the Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns archive.