Refrain
S4 E1: Refrain (GE28)
Summary
Naia Anderson hits record and starts testifying for the future.
Once the architect of a controversial neurological research program, Naia watched her work migrate from the academic shadows of Sitri into a sleek corporate project called Vale Four. Officially, Vale Four studies advertising. The sinister agenda might be below the surface. It might BE the surface.
On a remote island facility, paid participants believe they're helping researchers study earworms and musical hooks. The experiment billed as harmless, but Vale Four definitely doesn't practice truth in advertising. The hooks invade sleep and rewrite habits. When one subject, Celeste, suddenly wakes up from the conditioning, she discovers she's trapped in a loop where every time she approaches a solution the music restarts and resets her thinking.
In a separate part of the facility, the silliest employee, Elle, has her rethinking reset in a different way. An unexpected sound jolts her out of the pink fog and back into consciousness.
From the Garden Nest, Naia monitors the facility through hidden cameras and replays a recording of the transformation for her ally, the double agent June. Naia clarifies the stakes. Every employee's a chance to recruit another Holdfast. Every research subject with doubts a potential witness; any one of them might tank the IPO.
They can't tell which one's going to bloom, but they know exactly what they're gardening.
Meet The Cast
| Z | Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns | Recurring Cast |
| June Lowell | Bliss Blank | Recurring Cast |
| Tessa Finn | Ring of Kees | Recurring Cast |
| Meg Aerin | Bun Li | Recurring Cast |
| Naia Anderson | Dizzy Dollie | Recurring Cast |
| Elle Lawson | Echo Doll | Recurring Cast |
| Iris Vale | Swirls and Twirls | Recurring Cast |
| Cael Yupp | Jericho Caine | Recurring Cast |
| Hespa Apate | Syndi Rella | Recurring Cast |
| Astoria | Dakota Dream | Recurring Cast |
| Hilton | Tickled Panda | Recurring Cast |
| Vera | Fallen | Guest Stars |
| Celeste | Panda Moanium | Guest Stars |
More Info
All Vale Four Episodes
GE28 / S4E1: Refrain
GE29 / S4E2: Hook Line
GE30 / S4E3: Sinker
GE31 / S4E4: Slowplay
GE32 / S4E5: Raise
GE33 / S4E6: Pot Limit
GE34 / S4E7: The River
GE35 / S4E8: Quiver
GE36 / S4E9: Nock
GE37 / S4E10: Bullseye
Human Made Art
The poster image for this arc is from Sunrise Forever, under the Pixabay license. Layer art overlays are used to vary each iteration of the image. You can find the original here.
Consent Declaration
Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. The series uses desire horror to explore psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, and complicity. The manipulative elements depicted are fictional and intentional. This is a story about what happens when consent is algorithmically removed, not a celebration of that process. Vale Four explores audio conditioning and behavioral manipulation as horror. The hooks in this episode are fictional. The science behind them is not. All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context.