Dreaming Life » Film

Manifesting the Mind – film trailer

Ben — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:16:08 +0000

I just found out that Bouncing Bear Botanicals is producing a neat looking film/documentary on psychedelics called Manifesting the Mind.

Below is a preview of the clip, featuring notable figures such as Dr. Rick Strassman, author of the brilliant book DMT: The Spirit Molecule, the infamous Terrence McKenna, and my favorite psychedelic writer and 2012 speculator, Daniel Pinchbeck.

This film is actually just the first of 3 films (!) in a series that will address different aspects shamanism. The offical description states that:

This first film, Manifesting the Mind, is a broad look at psychedelics in general. Why are psychedelics so brutally suppressed in our culture? What exactly are some of the psychedelic plants and chemicals and how can they benefit us?

Very cool!

Evidently this is out in select cities already and will be available on DVD soon.

Check out the trailer below.

LSD, the Dreammachine, and Aging Hippies in India : 3 New Documentaries from Alive Media Coming Out This Summer

Ben — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:12:17 +0000

Er, I meant to post this last month – it’s pretty neat, check it out:

Alive Mind Media is releasing 3 films this summer, dubbing the release “The Trippy Trilogy – Alive Mind’s Altered Consciousness Collection”.

Flicker
DVD release Date: July 15

Documentary on the 1961 invention of Brion Gysin’s “Dreammachine”, described as “a hypnotic light device with the power to induce hallucinations.” (Is this a precursor to the Sound and Light Machine?)

Hofmann’s Potion
DVD release Date: June 15

Documentary on LSD featuring Albert Hofmann, Timonthy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Ram Dass, Ralph Metzner Stanisav Grof, and more.
Preview:

Hofmann’s Potion – 9 Minute Preview

Hippie Masala
DVD Release Date: August 8, 2008

Official Description:

“In the 1960s and 1970s thousands of hippies journeyed East in the search for enlightenment, free drugs or a ‘pure’ life. Indian peasants assumed that a severe drought in the West was the reason for their migration. India’s holy men saw it, more accurately, as a search for spirituality. Most moved back to their home countries after a few months or years. Some stayed for good. Hippie Masala shows aging flower children who, after fleeing Western civilization, found a new home in India.”

Hippie Masala Trailer:

Check out the Alive Mind Media site for complete info, including links to buying any of these DVD’s.

I really hope Hippie Masala comes to my local indie theatre, because it looks super fascinating!

What happens when you combine mindblowing psychedelics with a sensory deprivation tank? A look at the film ALTERED STATES.

Ben — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:29:43 +0000

Official ALTERED STATES movie trailer:
Plot Summary: A scientist takes drugs inside a sensory deprivation chamber, has crazy intense psychedelic trips, then genetically regresses into a primordial pre-human, ultimately regressing into the void of existence itself.

The story revolves around a young scientist named Eddie Jessup, whose interest in his work overshadows everything else, including not only his marriage to but even his own well-being.

I read that the actors experimented with ketamine while making this film. I thought this was strange but awesome of them. Later on I discovered why they did it; ALTERED STATES is based on the life and work of scientist, writer, and ketamine-enthusiast John Lilly.

I did some searching and found an incredibly fascinating interview with John Lily interview on the Erowid archives, originally appearing in Omni magazine, about his life and his work and a bit on the film Altered States.

Learning more about Lily’s personality, life, and work made me appreciate this film even more. He, just like the character in Altered States, was driven nearly to madness, and almost to his death, for his passionate and all-consuming interest in exploring his own mind with drugs. This was no joke to him. I was astonished to learn that Lily once spent 100 days straight on ketamine.

Despite the fact that this makes him sound like a crackpot, he was a real scientist with a number of mainstream accomplishments under his belt. He is credited with inventing the sensory deprivation tank in order to learn if the brain needed external stimuli to “stay awake.” He also devoted much research into inventing a technique for communication between humans and dolphins. (I would very much like to know where this research went; in the interview, nearly 25 years ago, he states that we’re about five years away from breaking the language barrier between humans and dolphins.) He also published many books over the years on his own experiences and scientific research.

….

I loved ALTERED STATES from the very beginning – the sense deprivation tank, the crazy drug trips, the religious nature of his hallucinations (including burning crosses, visions of hell, and scenes from the Book of Revelations). I also enjoyed spotting the side references to Charles Tart, Timothy Leary, and amanita muscaria. (And being that I was born in 1980, I’m sure I missed quite a few other things key to 60′s and 70′s drug culture.)

The plot moves along pretty quickly and goes something like this:

After attending a shamanic religious ritual and tripping with a bunch of Indians, Eddie brings back a few grams of the drug for scientific analysis.

Once he combines this unknown drug with the sensory deprivation tank, the movie really kicks up it’s psychedelic heels and takes you for a crazy ride.

At this point, these trips in the tank have become much more than just journeys of the mind. The combination of the sensory deprivation tank with this unknown drug allow him to tap into the genetic history contained within every cell of his body. First he regresses into a primal, pre-human ape-like creature. Ultimately, by the end of the film, he regresses back to the very beginning of existence itself, terrified by the overwhelming nothing that he becomes one with, and saved from it only by his love for his wife, Emily.

Some of the imagery is fitting for a horror film and I certainly don’t recommend anyone trip while watching this fun. Ultimately this film is a throwback to a post-60’s scientific culture when scientists were allowed to experiment with mind-altering substances in the lab. If you’ll excuse some of the cheesy dialogue and the under-developed romance between Eddie and Emily, you’ll find a fascinating film about drugs, the brain, and the nature of reality.

Sidenote: I’ve not had the chance to get inside a sensory deprivation tank but would really enjoy doing so. I would love to hear from you if you’ve had a chance to use one. I’d also be curious to know where it is and how you were able to use it. Maybe you’d want to write something about your experience and we can post it on the blog?

In closing check out this short clip from Altered States
showing Eddie tripping about god and the death of his father.

Dreaming While Awake: Thoughts on the film Waking Life

Ben — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:57:50 +0000

My thoughts after seeing Waking Life:

“Holy shit – this movie really is all about lucid dreaming!”

“What the fuck was that guy talking about?”

“This is really awesome and yet sometimes really boring.”

“This guy talking about how turning on or off a light in a dream and how it won’t work – I love this scene. And 360 vision – hell yea!”

“This crazy animation style is going to give me a headache!”

“I need to watch this movie again and take notes.”

This isn’t a normal movie with character development, a climax, and so on – it’s more like a philosophical look at dreams, waking life, and reality. It’s about a guy seemingly lost in a dreamworld, wondering from dream to dream, sometimes thinking he’s awake, and sometimes knowing he’s in a dream. He meets different people everywhere he goes, and the ensuing conversations leave you confused, intrigued, and excited.

These conversations cover a lot of ground. For those interested in spending some time with the themes of the movie, the Waking Life script is online here.

This is a rare type of film, both in content and technique, whose shortcomings are made up for it’s ability to get you thinking about something you’ve probably never thought before.

My Favorite Scene

Some Quotes

Doesn’t it make sense that death too would be wrapped in a dream? That after death, your conscious life would continue in what might be called a dream body?”

“There’s only one instant, and it’s right now, and it’s eternity.”

“They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?”

“Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize… that the whole day at work had been a dream. It’s bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free. “

(More Waking Life quotes)

PS. It is purely a coincidence that this film is called Waking Life and then I come out with a blog called Dreaming Life. I actually came to this name while writing down my dreams and found it to be an efficient term to designate something that happened while sleeping. I wasn’t aware of the film Waking Life at the time.