Dream Machine

Though I think religion is total horseshit, I deeply respect the religious experience.

By that I mean that we humans have a peculiar physiology and psychology which can lend itself to certain perceptions which we casually describe as “religious” and, because these perceptions and experiences have yet to be scientifically studied in any significant fashion, we’re left with wholly-inadequate — if not wholly-inaccurate — explanations from the faithful or, more benignly, philosophers and artists.

Sam Harris is one scientist who’s been lobbying strenuously for research into the religious experience, to help explain, scientifically, what’s actually going on when we see an angel or travel down a corridor of light or feel a an irregularly huge rush of empathy and belonging. In The Four Horsemen, a deeply-engaging conversation between Harris, Chris Hitchens, Rich Dawkins and Dan Dennett, he makes his case:

I think there is a range of experience that is rare, and that is only talked about without obvious qualms in religious discourse. And because it’s only talked about in religious discourse, it is just riddled with superstition. And it’s used to cash out various metaphysical schemes which it can’t reasonably do. But clearly people have extraordinary experiences. Whether they have them on LSD, or they have them because they were alone in a cave for a year, or they have them because just happen to have the neurology that is particularly labile that allows for it, but people have self-transcending experiences. And people have the best day of their life where everything seemed, you know, they seemed at one with nature. And for that, because religion seems to be the only game in town in talking about those experiences and dignifying them, that’s one reason why I think it seems to be taboo to criticise it, because you are talking about the most important moments in people’s lives and trashing them, at least from their view.

And, you know, he’s right. Trashing such experiences accomplishes little, but illuminating them… that’s how we can dispell the superstitions and discover some seriously exciting potentials for our evolved minds and brains.

Video: Animated representation of Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine

And speaking of illuminating, I’m currently enjoying, very much, Toronto filmmaker Nik Sheehan’s documentary FLicKeR, about one such way to trigger the ecstatic experience, Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine.

A host of ultracool artists appear in Sheehan’s documentary, too, but I’ll let you visit the official site for that. Certainly, some of the most influential artists of the past 50 years — William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Kenneth Anger, Kurt Cobain and Genesis P-Orridge — are connected with the device. I’ve certainly been fascinated by the idea for over thirty years. Here Marianne Faithfull describes the experience and Gen P-Orridge describes its, um, genesis:

Video: Excerpt from the movie FLicKeR

Instructions for creating a Dream Machine can be found at the movie’s official site (link above). Thirty years of fascination alone is more than enough. Looks like someone’s going to be visiting second-hand audio equipment shops in the next week or so.