[bell ringing]
[ringing continues]
-[alarm clock chimes] -[woman] Good morning, Dr. Roberts.
You had 56 minutes of REM sleep.
[alarm clock chimes]
-Good morning, Dr. Roberts. -[breathing heavily]
You had 56 minutes of REM sleep.
[exhales]
-["Ordinary World" playing] -[grunts]
♪ As I try to make my way To the ordinary world ♪
♪ I will learn to survive ♪
[man] Hello and welcome to Modern Psychiatry.
I'm your host, Dr. Michael Westfield.
On today's show, we're going to discuss the rare but fascinating syndrome
that is shared psychotic disorder.
We can define this diagnosis as a delusion that develops in an individual
who is in a close relationship
with someone who already has an established delusion.
For instance, take one couple...
[door opens]
[Hap] Thank you.
[Hap sighs]
Sorry, I wish the jacket wasn't necessary.
[breathes deeply]
Please, sit.
What happened to Homer?
[chuckles]
What happened to Homer?
Prairie, what happened to us?
We traveled into another dimension.
[chuckles] Into other versions of ourselves!
-Selves with completely different lives. -Not completely.
Nina and I have the same birth dates, same birth name,
-same father-- -Yes.
Dr. Percy has the same birthday, same childhood, too. Even has the same...
crazy middle name. But I'm not called Hap here.
That's a nickname I picked up in the ER. He didn't work in the ER.
He never heard the "whoosh,"
never got obsessed with near-death experiences.
He's quite a celebrity.
He wrote a book. He went into psychology of all things.
[chuckles]
When I was in Nina's apartment, I... recognized her childhood photographs
and... they're mine. Up to a point.
-Right. -But...
Nina never went blind.
She got to go to college
-and Paris. -[chuckles]
It's amazing, isn't it?
And I was wrong. Near-death experiences are not glimpses into an afterlife.
They're glimpses into other lives.
A garden of forking paths.
A self that... that encountered
different circumstances or made different choices, and somehow...
-became a different person. -But why doesn't Homer remember me?
That's one of the questions we have to find an answer to.
[sighs]
Here.
It seems...
there's the body,
and there's, uh...
The soul.
Or mind, consciousness, whatever.
And evidently...
it can jump...
into another dimension, leaving the body behind.
Now, my consciousness jumped...
into Doctor Percy.
Yours into Nina Azarova.
And... for some reason I can't work out,
Homer, who did exactly the same as everyone else...
didn't make it into Dr. Roberts.
Describe your jump to me. Tell me everything that happened.
All right. Well, two days after I left you in a manner I'm not proud of...
I... I got everybody out of the cells...
[tongue clicks] ...and I took them... outside.
[Renata grunting]
Sodium pentothal.
Paralysis sets in after 11 minutes.
The heart stops in 13 to 15.
[panting] You've killed us.
It's over for all of us.
Either we do the movements, travel to another dimension together...
or we die here in this field together.
-It's up to you. -[Renata grunting]
[panting]
[sighs deeply]
[Rachel] We’ll get him on the other side.
[all hissing]
[alarm blares]
[gasps]
[groans]
[whimpers]
[panting]
[gasps]
-[alarm blares] -[Renata retching]
-[door opens] -[gasps]
[woman] Carbon monoxide!
Get the rest of those windows open!
[woman 2] Somebody call 911!
[laughing]
[woman 2] And open the windows! Get everyone out!
[gasping, choking]
[laughing]
[Rachel panting]
[Hap laughing]
[alarm blares]
[choking]
-[Scott grunts] -[Hap gasping, choking]
[gasping, choking]
-You okay? -[Hap breathing heavily]
What the fuck are you doing?
-[alarm blares] -[Scott grunting]
Dr. Percy.
-[Scott grunting] -[panting]
[Homer] Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Okay? Okay?
-[muffled laughter] -[Homer panting] Okay.
[laughing]
Okay. Okay.
-Okay. We're okay. We're okay. -Yeah!
[Hap] Like you always said,
same play, different cast.
Across many dimensions through time.
We're bound together, you and I, Prairie.
We're discovering the science of destiny.
[sighs]
Neil Armstrong was a walk in the park compared to this. [sighs]
-I still don't understand why Homer-- -Homer Roberts in this dimension
spent his adult life studying under Dr. Percy. He adores Dr. Percy.
All right? He... he adores me.
Then, my Homer...
That Homer is dead in a field in North Dakota.
[sighs]
No.
No. It can't have been for nothing.
What are you talking about? Of course it wasn't!
The fact that we're here having this conversation is proof that it wasn't.
[Hap sighs]
We have so much to figure out.
You know, how... many dimensions are there?
Are they infinite? Can we affect them?
Is there a perfect dimension, and if so, how do we find it?
How do you control the jump?
Do you understand what we're on the edge of here?
It's godlike, Prairie.
But I jumped into the darkness.
And I could've jumped into a dimension where I was brain-damaged or dead.
[inhales] You know, you...
You knew exactly where you wanted to go and you got here.
Somehow you navigated.
Please.
Just tell me how you did it.
[exhales deeply]
Okay.
[man on phone] Yes, Dr. Percy?
Ms. Azarova is feeling uncooperative. She’s ready to return to her room.
[Prairie] Uncooperative? I'll wake Homer up and break us both out of this prison.
And you’re not a doctor, you’re not even a scientist, you’re a warden.
No matter what dimension you're in.
You’re clouded by the past, Prairie.
[sighs] It's okay.
Maybe one day...
we’ll find a dimension where you can see me with new eyes.
[breathing heavily]
-[grunts] -[exclaims]
[footsteps approaching]
-[man 2] You okay, doctor? -[Hap] Yeah.
Just watch your head.
Meals in the room.
Total isolation until she can recover non-violent behavior.
No, no, no. Look at the clock! He did it to himself!
You're a monster, Hap, and Homer will see that when I expose you.
Homer!
-[groans] Homer! -[door opens]
Homer!
Stop! Stop! Stop! Let her go!
Let her go!
-[Homer] It's okay. It's okay. -[sobbing]
[Homer] Hey.
-It's okay. I'm here. -[panting]
-[breathes deeply] -[Homer] Shh!
[softly] It's okay.
-[Prairie sobs] -Shh!
-[grunts] -[Homer] Shh!
This is gonna help you relax.
-It's a very, very mild sedative. -[moans]
It’s too early to be disturbing the other patients.
-[moaning] -Sleep is essential to their stability.
This is gonna help you get some sleep as well.
You've forgotten.
You’ll remember.
Take her.
[moans]
[sighs]
[engine starts]
[swishing]
[sniffs]
Have a PBR?
Can I have the cap? I wanna know my future.
Y'all planning on a long night?
Are you a reporter? We signed a contract, an NDA.
We get fired if we talk about CURI.
We saw you outside the parking lot, in your orange car.
-Kind of stands out, you know? -[chuckles] Yeah.
-It's always been a problem. -So why don't you paint it?
I like the color.
Okay if I sit down?
Five of hearts. What do you think?
You'll fall in love five times. [sighs]
Well, guess I still have a few left.
[woman 1 chuckles]
I'm not a reporter.
I'm a detective. I'm looking for a missing girl.
A drummer.
No, they don't hire them that young.
Define young. No minors?
[in Spanish] He's cute, but I wouldn't risk my dream job.
See you tomorrow.
[in Spanish] See you tonight.
[Karim sighs deeply]
-[in English] What happened to her? -That's what I'm trying to find out.
Look, she copied the CURI logo in her notes.
What goes on in there?
Just generally, giving away no secrets.
Okay, okay. I ask, you don't have to answer.
It's not a-- It's not a sleep study, it's a dream study.
There's something about you that makes you a particular kind of dreamer.
You got recruited because you're good?
Does this say you're recruited?
[game's theme music plays]
You don't recognize this?
-Are you a mind reader or a detective? -Listen, I just pay attention, okay?
I'm not asking you to risk your dream job,
I don't need to know any Silicon Valley secrets, but if there is something
that you think can help me,
then please, help me.
Okay, look, there is one thing. I just can't tell you here.
Every night,
each of us have four, maybe five dreams.
They wake us up after our REM cycle and record us reciting the dreams.
There's a woman. She's older, British, in a wheelchair.
She listens to our dreams. Hundreds of them every night.
-What for? -I don't know.
She's looking for something.
-But for what? -I don't know.
But some dreams are more important to her than others.
Okay, okay.
Your dream stuff, they analyze it.
How's this connected to the disappearance of Michelle?
-You said you were gonna help. -The woman.
Dr. Marlow Rhodes, the one who listens to the dreams...
she disappeared.
-She quit, or she was fired? -I think she quit.
Pierre Ruskin was in the building,
and when he found out she was gone, he turned over a whole table of computers.
And no one has been able to find her, not even Ruskin.
-And when was this? -Two weeks ago.
That's when Michelle went missing.
I think Dr. Rhodes saw something she wasn't supposed to see.
[line ringing]
-[Mo] What do you need now? -Been trying you all morning.
-I have a life, Karim. -I need an address for Dr. Marlow Rhodes.
-You got anything besides the name? -Female.
Worked at CURI until a couple of weeks ago.
What's CURI?
Pierre Ruskin’s dream factory in Oakland.
Look, someone on the inside just gave me the name.
You on an IP case?
-Missing kid. -Sex worker?
-Tech weirdness. -Why am I not surprised? [sighs]
-How are you, Mo? -I’m with an author
who's about to publish a feminist text.
I'm arming all her accounts so she doesn’t get
hacked, doxxed, terrorized, stalked... you name it.
Right. So the usual. But how are you?
[scoffs] As big as a cow.
Well, here’s one for you then.
What did the sexy brown chicken say to the sexy brown cow?
Brown-chicka-brown-cow.
[chuckles softly]
Fuck you, Karim.
[cell phone ringing]
[indistinct chattering]
Where’s Eichler? He said, "Be here at ten or else."
I don’t know. He’s off somewhere.
So, you gonna take my statement?
[scoffs] I’m taking my son to the Giants.
The game’s at seven. That’s eight hours.
Kid likes to catch batting practice.
[Karim] Fuck!
What about the jumper?
Brain dead.
-And toxicology? -[laughs] Nope.
[Karim] Yo.
I got a missing kid who was squatting in that house.
Now, a second jumps out the window, no one’s fucking interested?
Your kid wasn’t in that house.
[Rob] We checked the last four weeks and saw nobody.
Stop. Go slower.
-It's your little Chinese American. -He’s Vietnamese.
My mistake.
It’s just you and the Vietnamese gentleman.
That's it. You’re the only two we got going into the place.
Hey, go back.
Freeze there.
Then how'd he get in there?
[sighs deeply]
[line ringing]
[Hap] Pierre.
[Pierre] I've been trying to reach you.
I'm sorry. It’s been a difficult day.
How is Nina?
Frankly, not well. She's delusional.
She’s had a serious breakdown.
Did she go to the house by herself?
-I don't know. -She promised me she wouldn’t.
Well, Pierre, you told me she was upset before the episode on the ferry.
We have to face the possibility that...
-when she found out-- -It was too much for her.
-Everyone has their limits. -I need her back.
Are you sure that's best?
-Hunter. -[knocking on door]
What I’m saying is...
uh, maybe...
given her misgivings about you...
it’s fortuitous that she’s here,
where she can concentrate exclusively on her recovery.
I see what you mean.
I'm sending you a new subject.
-Very good. We'll prep in the morning. -Okay.
-So, I need to talk to you about Nina-- -Pierre, I have to cut you off. I'm sorry.
There's something I have to deal with immediately. I'll call you back.
Yes. Homer, speak.
I made a mistake this morning.
I sedated Ms. Azarova because I was
worried about her disturbing the other patients.
Okay.
I don't believe in medicating a patient who is obviously traumatized by it.
That was your choice, and you should have faith in yourself.
I-- I don’t like isolation as punishment. It-- It feels penal, not medical.
Honestly, I've been more of prison guard than a doctor the last two months.
So you're criticizing my methods?
Of course not.
Why don't you take over her treatment?
Me?
Yes. You.
Unless you have reservations.
No. No. No, it’s not that.
It’s just I assumed you’d be handling it.
Well...
Nina thinks I'm some kind of irredeemable monster. I’m making no progress.
-She thinks that you're-- -That I’m her soulmate.
That kind of transference can be useful.
So, follow her lead.
In particular, find out how she thinks she got here from this other dimension.
The others say that we all arrived together.
She thinks she came some other way.
Now, that anomaly could be the key to healing her psychosis.
There’s not a single case of shared psychotic disorder
among complete strangers. Not one.
Until now.
-Let's make history together, Dr. Roberts. -[sighs]
[Homer sighs deeply]
[hip-hop music playing]
[sighs]
[footsteps]
Karim! Fuck!
It's me! [gasps]
Jesus fucking Christ, Mo. Why are you sneaking up on me?
I came to fucking tell you something.
But I... I got nervous you might have company.
So I... I was just gonna listen at the door for a sec, but then...
I tripped because my goddamn center of gravity is off.
[Karim] Why didn’t you just call?
Okay.
-First, I need some crackers. Or bread. -[door closes]
Your houseboat is already making me nauseous.
"Nauseated."
Tell me you found something.
[breathes deeply]
[sighs]
She was MI-5.
-Big data. -Who, Rhodes?
Yeah, for over a decade.
And then in 2010 she got headhunted by--
By Pierre Ruskin.
Uh-huh.
Fourteen days ago, she left CURI.
After that, I’ve got nothing.
She must have called in some favors, Karim, because this is a scrub.
Like the best I’ve ever seen.
No phone, no e-mail.
All day, and the only thing I got was, like, a cache of an old Facebook page.
I don't get it. This Rhodes, she's the only employee
higher than a fucking janitor that’s ever left CURI,
and now it’s like she doesn’t exist.
You didn’t drag yourself and a half onto my houseboat to tell me you got nothing.
What?
She was audited...
in 2013.
You hacked the IRS? [laughs]
You hacked the fucking IRS?
-Help me up. -Jesus Christ, Mo.
[Mo] Oh, God.
[Mo groans]
What did the prostitute say to the sailor? Hmm?
You didn’t get this from me.
I still don't have her address, but most of her receipts are from this bookstore.
Oh, Jesus.
Oh! [sniffs, groans]
-You okay? -[chuckles softly]
She's kicking. You wanna feel?
[Karim sighs deeply]
[sniffs]
-[Prairie] Homer. -[knocking on door]
Wake up, Homer. Wake up, Homer.
-[door opens] -[Prairie] Wake up.
[door creaking]
[man] Ms. Azarova?
Ms. Azarova, you're already late for therapy session with Dr. Roberts.
With Homer?
-Therapy? -It's right here on your chart.
Does Hap watch these sessions?
Hap?
Dr. Percy.
Hunter Aloysius Percy. H-A-P, Hap--
[chuckles]
What he called himself, what we called him in...
before.
Our sessions are confidential.
Unless you tell me you intend to commit a crime
that I have to report by law.
What if someone else has committed a crime? Multiple crimes.
I mean, if it’s in the past, it remains confidential.
[sighs deeply]
Hap told me how he got you all here.
We were in a field.
He injected all of us with poison. He forced us to do the movements.
We woke in the rec room to the carbon monoxide alarm blaring.
You’re just repeating the story the others told you.
That Scott and Renata told me.
Yes. I like Scott.
But... he almost killed Dr. Percy that day.
Doesn’t it seem strange to you that they both remember the same thing?
No. I find it stranger that you don’t.
That your version of arrival to this dimension is unique from theirs.
Why do you think that is?
Hap told you to ask me that... didn’t he?
He’s using you.
Just like he used you to trap Renata.
Only now, you’re not even aware you’re his pawn.
You avoided my question.
You said Scott and Renata told you. What about Rachel?
Is her memory also unique?
Rachel can’t speak.
-What do you mean she can't speak? -Aphasia.
She can’t form or understand words.
Brain damage from a car accident that she had as a teenager.
So she doesn’t... sing?
I’ve been trying to teach her sign language, but it’s challenging.
In group she can nod in agreement.
Anything more complicated than that is beyond her.
[sobs]
She used to sing for us all the time.
Ah, do you remember this?
-You mean jumping jacks? -Yeah.
Stand up, try them. Maybe it will feel familiar to your body.
[Homer] It would.
It would feel very familiar to me.
-I played football in college, but... -Football!
-...I don’t think that-- -You had your NDE on a football field.
How... how could I know that if I don't know you?
I had an NDE?
Yeah.
A Near-Death Experience.
I’ve never had one of those.
It’s natural to be preoccupied with death when you lose someone close.
Your father passed away recently, didn’t he?
No. I lost my father when I was eight.
He sent me to America because a Russian mob was after him.
Nina only lost her father a few months ago.
She was lucky.
This distinction you’re making,
it highlights an aspect of your story that I hadn’t considered.
-Where is Nina? -I don't know. What do you mean?
You say that your consciousness, yours and Hap's,
traveled to this dimension into these bodies.
Okay. Let’s say we accept that as fact.
-What happened to Nina and Dr. Percy? -I don’t care
what happened to Nina and Dr. Percy. [laughs wryly]
I want you to see me.
Remember me.
Not as some therapy thought experiment--
-This is not a thought experiment. -Homer...
I want you to remember that we spent seven years under the ground.
That we used to piss and shit
and drink and bathe from the same stream.
That our clothes were like dish rags and we were cold all the time,
and the only thing we could touch was glass.
But you loved me.
I asked you to believe in impossible things.
You never once looked at me like I was crazy.
That is why I cannot give up on you.
I will not give up on you.
[Prairie blows nose]
[sniffs]
[footsteps]
Oh, my God.
That’s you up there.
What?
NDEs take you into the future.
You said in your NDE that the tunnel was actually the crawl-space of a ceiling,
and there were pipes everywhere.
That’s you up there!
-That's me? -Yes.
-Up there, right now in the ceiling? -Yes!
Nothing up here. See?
You described that exact moment to me.
You said that a hand was reaching out to grab you.
We just didn’t know that the hand was your own.
We have to stop for today.
Please, don’t send me back to the cell. Please, let me be with my friends.
After your recent episodes, we can’t release you into the general population.
I wasn’t violent today, was I?
-Nina, one day isn’t-- -Please.
I’m so lonely.
[alarm blaring]
-[sighs deeply] -[knocking on door]
Dr. Roberts, sorry to interrupt.
A patient in his underwear and a pink coat is running around the halls.
He’s pretty fast. Diego can’t catch him.
Also... we got a bit of a plumbing issue happening.
Wait, wait! You don’t understand what’s happening out there right now.
I’m sorry, Nina. I wish I could let you socialize with the others.
But I have to think of everybody’s safety and well-being.
Stay with Ms. Azarova while I sort this out.
[blaring continues]
[bell dings]
Hello?
Anybody here?
-[woman] Hello. -Hi.
-Welcome. -Thank you.
Um, I’ve been staying with a friend up here.
I wanted to get her a little thank you. I know this is her favorite store.
-It is? -Uh-huh.
-Who is she? -Marlow Rhodes.
-Ah. Of course. -Great. What do you recommend?
Oh, well, there are several ways to go with Dr. Rhodes.
Speculative fiction is always good, although recently, an odd turn to memoir.
Please tell me you deliver. I gotta be back in Oakland in three hours.
-You’ll never make it. -That’s what I told them.
[chuckles]
We deliver to her all the time.
It’s difficult for her in the rainy season.
As soon as Anna gets back, I’ll have her run it out there to her.
How about this, Parable of the Sower? It's a classic.
-It's perfect. -I'll ring you up at the register.
[bell dings]
[engine starts]
[sobbing]
[sobbing continues]
[sighs]
What's your name?
Prairie.
He said,
"I'm your friend.
And my name is...
Homer."
[sobbing]
[sniffles]
[sighs deeply]
[Steve] OA!
Hey, Darmi.
Hey.
Have you seen Dr. Percy? Is he in his office?
No.
Do me a favor.
Let’s release Nina Azarova into the general population for rec room hours.
Didn’t Dr. Percy put a hold on that patient?
He did. He also put me in charge of her care.
-I take full responsibility. -Hmm.
[man 1] Straight ahead.
[Renata speaking in Spanish]
[Renata chuckles]
Renata?
How do you know my name?
You don't recognize me?
Do you...
Where am I from?
Cuba. You were in Havana until Hap kidnapped you.
Oh, yeah.
I remember that story, too.
But it is a lie.
A delusion.
My family immigrated to Miami when I was 12.
You're crazy.
Keep away from me!
[speaking in Spanish]
[laughs]
[both laughing, crying]
-You're so... -[sniffles]
-Clean. -[both laugh]
Healthy.
My body at least. [sniffles]
We’ve never touched.
You’re so much tinier than I thought.
I'm sorry.
[both chuckle]
[Scott] Don’t take Renata personal.
Dr. Roberts has her convinced everything that happened to us before
is a crazy part of her brain talking.
That's a worse cage than the last one Hap had us in.
But we’re alive.
Together.
We're gonna get out of here, all of us.
[chuckles] How did you get here?
The boys.
And Betty.
Betty Broderick Allen. We called her BBA.
I told them everything.
[insects chirping]
[crows cawing]
[birds chirping]
[knocking]
Hello?
[door creaks shut]
Hello?
[fire crackling]
Hello?
[drone whirring nearby]
Marlow Rhodes?
You are not with Ruskin.
And you are not police.
My name is Karim Washington. I’m a private investigator.
I’m looking into the disappearance of a teenage girl,
Michelle Vu.
[crows cawing]
Look, I got one kid missing and another brain dead.
They're both obsessively playing a game that led me to CURI.
[whirring continues]
You quit, you left CURI
right about the same time Michelle stopped texting her grandma.
Look, I think this game lures these kids to CURI and after that...
I don’t know. But I suspect you do, and I suspect that’s why you quit.
Either you had something to do with this, or you found out and couldn’t stomach it.
So which is it? Guilty party or moral defector?
I went through 20 of these drones before I got it right, Mr. Washington.
Crows, you know, defend their nests with numbers.
If a threat enters the area, the whole murder will descend.
Ten, twenty, thirty will unite and torment and circle and swoop.
Tear a drone apart.
[chuckles softly]
But when you learn to fly just like a crow...
the crows stop attacking.
If I did speak about CURI,
it would be violating the terms of my departure.
And Pierre Ruskin is not a man I’m willing to cross.
I’m sorry, Mr. Washington,
that you have come all the way up here, but I cannot help you.
[sighs]
You know, I was an agent at the FBI.
Five years of fieldwork.
I was undercover in Muslim communities all across America.
I was searching for radicals.
[sighs]
You know what I found in those young men, Dr. Rhodes?
They’d do almost anything to be liked by me.
You know, me, who had taken an interest in them,
called and texted them, listened to them,
drove around with them...
went to Friday prayers with them.
You know, when it came time for them
to pick up arms or learn to build a bomb, they did it.
And we arrested them.
But I’m telling you not one of them
knew anything about guns or bombs before they met me.
All right? I taught them all of that.
I too signed a non-disclosure agreement when I left the Bureau.
I... too have broken no constitutional laws.
But I have violated larger moral ones.
There aren’t many chances to atone, Dr. Rhodes. I’m offering you one.
Perhaps you will help me retrieve my aircraft, Mr. Washington.
Nothing happened the way I imagined it would.
But they did the movements there in the cafeteria that day
-and now I’m here with you. -I still don’t understand.
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world,
how the hell did you walk into ours?
Hap asked me the same thing.
I just thought of Homer.
I mean, if I’m here, it’s because he's here, too.
We just have to figure out a way to wake him up.
The first few weeks we were here, I thought the same thing.
But the harder I tried to reach Homer, the harder Dr. Roberts tried to fix me.
Yeah, but look at that tank.
[chuckles softly]
Remember? In Homer's NDE,
he said that he ate a sea anemone from a five-sided tank.
I think we're inside the dimension of Homer's NDE.
He's watching us now, isn't he?
Behind the glass.
[hopeful music playing]
What if instead of trying to wake up Homer,
we try to expose Hap?
If Homer could see who Dr. Percy really is,
it'd shatter his delusion, we could all get outta here.
She’s been in the lab.
Hap forces her to help. God knows what the fuck he’s got going on in there.
You’ve seen what he’s working on.
Could you draw it?
[Scott] OA, she can’t.
She can't.
Not with words or letters or symbols.
It's okay.
Okay.
What’s a way to talk without words?
Overlap specialist, it refers to dream overlap,
and that’s why Ruskin hired me, to find the patterns in their dreams.
-What's this gotta do with Michelle? -[chuckles]
That has everything to do with it, Mr. Washington.
See, CURI was based on a graduate thesis
written by a Russian student at the Sorbonne
about a mystical phenomenon in Germany in the 1920s,
where a few dozen psychoanalysts
discovered their patients were dreaming the same dream.
The rivers of Berlin running red with blood,
men in black shirts, paired snakes.
I mean, this was a decade before the Nazis.
And this really happened?
Books have been published on it.
Yeah, they had nightmares about a war and then there was a war.
-There’s always a war. -[chuckles]
There’s a river of blood right now, whether someone’s dreaming of it or not.
I knew someone would eventually find me.
And I'm glad it's you.
But they did dream it, Mr. Washington.
And it did happen exactly as they’d seen.
See, it was Ruskin’s idea to use the same methods
to harness the predictive power of the "group-liminal" mind.
And that’s how he came up with this game? Through dreams?
No, you designed the game and then when it started luring children, you quit?
No, Mr. Washington. The... the game is not a product of CURI at all.
I did quit because the project crossed a line, but it was not a moral one.
-What's that supposed to mean? -[scoffs]
There is a boundary that must be respected.
I quit because Ruskin crossed that boundary.
Hey, and what boundary is that?
If something from the waking world enters a dream,
it's natural.
If something from a dream enters the waking world...
well, that is unnatural.
I certainly can’t get that.
I’m not wearing a wire.
There are no precautions satisfactory enough for
what I’m about to tell you next.
Uh, Boardwalk hotel!
Um, the clinic? Here? The clinic?
[Prairie] A house?
Yes? [chuckles]
A house. Okay.
A house.
Um...
-People? -Rainbow. Rainbow cellars.
-Skittles! Taste the rainbow! -Children!
Teenagers!
Teenagers? Yes?
A house and teenagers.
Okay. Yeah.
[Lionel] Colonialism!
Uh, th... the world? This dimension?
It's a map.
[Prairie] It's a map.
Hap’s building an inter-dimensional map.
[gate opens]
-[Darmi] Dr. Percy, you're back. -Good afternoon.
Ms. Azarova's out of her room. Where is she?
Look. Rachel's figured out how to communicate.
[Scott] Okay. Uh...
-A flower? -A flower. A garden?
-[Prairie] A greenhouse? -[Scott] Light.
[man 2] A plant?
-Leaves? -A tulip!
[door opens]
Stop!
Stop it now!
A house, children, a map--
I want this group broken up here!
These three, take back to their rooms. No contact between them whatsoever!
I want Ms. Azarova back in isolation!
-Dr. Percy, the system is-- -[Hap] Not now!
Why is he so afraid of us if we’re just patients, huh? Huh?
Hap, you’ll never get to wherever it is you want to go.
None of us will move with you or for you ever again. We’d rather die!
[Prairie groans]
Thank you, Ms. Azarova.
[inhales sharply]
Okay. Sorry, everybody.
Carry on.
[spits]
[grunts]
[panting]
Okay.
No wire.
Here's your aircraft.
Take this.
The dreams we collect are like any large sampling of data.
At first, it's just noise.
Each dreamer undergoes four extended REM sessions per shift.
That’s over 400 dreams to process every day.
No single set would make much sense,
but over a few months, mining thousands of dreams,
translating the words into images, definite patterns emerge.
I dreamt I was crawling down a long tunnel.
[woman voice echoing] It was a double-sided staircase.
[Marlow] Last year, a new pattern began to show itself.
In a weekly set of 2,000 dreams,
the same three images began to appear at a rate just above coincidence.
A week later, so many women were dreaming the same three things
that the coincidence part was gone.
The details of the dreams were very different,
but in each, the same three things emerged:
A tunnel the size of a coffin;
a curved, double-sided staircase,
and a rose stained-glass window.
I mean, there are millions
of each of these things in buildings all over the world.
But there is only one building,
one building in the whole world which contains all three.
A house in San Francisco.
On Nob Hill.
CURI was how Ruskin found ridesharing, blockchain.
Both were cryptic at first, but made sense once analyzed.
The house, though...
[chuckles] ...I don’t know what that house is or what it does.
I don’t think anyone does.
The game was designed to lure them to it.
To prepare them for it.
To help Ruskin figure out what it is.
That's... all I know.
I've been inside that house. It’s...
it's just a regular old house.
Then you have not really been inside that house.
[printer whirring]
[hip hop music playing]
Window.
Staircase.
Where the fuck is this tunnel?
[cell phone vibrating, ringing]
-Mo. -[Mo] I found it,
but it took some serious digging.
The house, 9783 Sutter,
it’s not Ruskin’s but owned by a Russian trust.
That trust belongs to a woman named Nina Azarova.
And I don’t like this one, Karim.
Russian trusts? MI-5?
Can I ask you to just... you know, walk away?
Karim? Karim, you there?
Mo.
Yeah?
Can you find her address for me? Nina Azarova?
That’s what you gave me.
No, where she lives. Can you find out where she lives?
[Mo sighs]
[keyboard clacking]
Wait. What the fuck?
Nina Azarova...
has been committed.
A 5250.
You mean, committed to, like, a mental hospital?
A clinic.
On Treasure Island.
All right. Thank you, Mo.
[man] Mr. Ruskin wants you to know
it's been 60 hours since the subject was in the house.
[Liam] I can see them.
I can hear them.
Forty-seven selves. Don't stare at the staircase.
[Hap] There's a seed inside every brain.
[sighs deeply]
And somehow the house awakens it.
Here she comes.
Come on.
[chuckles softly]
It's remarkable, isn't it?
Every time.
[Hap sighs]
You can't handle what's behind that door, Rachel,
and I can't trust you after today.
[keypad beeps]
[door opens]
[Hap] Please sterilize these for me, Rachel.
Thank you.
[exhales heavily]
She was disoriented. It's understandable.
She's insisting on playing out the same drama.
I don't know how anybody who's been through the experience we had together
can be blinded by such pettiness.
Imagine, Rachel, traveling to a dimension
where you never had a car crash,
where you had your voice back,
or you sang in Carnegie Hall.
We can’t be destined to play out the same roles forever.
There comes a time when we have to go further
than what's just right in front of us.
It's the spirit of exploration. I remember we used to have that spirit.
She probably still does somewhere in there.
Reawaken!
Imagination.
Rachel, I need you to understand something.
What you saw in there is one of the greatest scientific achievements--
[grunts]
[groans]
[groaning]
[panting]
[grunts]
[grunting, panting]
Rachel?
[gasps]
Rachel?
[Hap gasps]
[groans]
[Mrs. Vu] Michelle!
Michelle, you left the front door open again!
My name's not Michelle. It's Buck!