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Dreamachine -- To Create Space-Out

Introduction

Space-out is a feeling that people can never tell exactly what is by themselves which can be seen as the soul leaving the body. The views that people see in front of them when their minds escape from their bodies, are diverse and different from the others and difficult to tell clearly. However, the trigger points of space-out are quite similar, drugs, alcohol even some specific visuals, for example. Dreamachine, as one of the most critical patent of triggering space-out, also known as a piece of art work, is a good example to explore the phenomenon of space-out. In this essay, I will give my research on how dreamachine make efforts on people and why people get the feeling of space-out.

Flicker

“Flicker” is a long-standing term of art in experimental psychology, referring to visual effects induced by flickering lights. In 1945, Dr. W. Grey Walter applied flicker into his EEG research, in the end an electronic stroboscope was invented. After an experiment in a big range of people, Dr Walt got the feedbacks (strange feelings) from samples he chose, which were:" faintness or swimming in the head"; "unresponsive or unconscious for a few moments"; "the limbs jerked in rhythm with the flashes of light."

Most of the feedback pointed into epileptic symptoms.A feedback apparatus was built in order to figure out how the flicker trigger works on our brain.

As shown in the diagram on the right, eyes receive the lights from the strobes (lamp) as an subjective experienced signal which is transmitted to our brain, then, the signal (brainwave) goes through the recorder make efforts on the trigger.This loop can be seen as the basic prototype of how the visual flicker we look at works on our brain.

" We all noticed a peculiar effect . . . a vivid illusion of moving patterns whenever one closed one’s eyes and allowed the flicker to shine through the eyelids. The illusion . . . takes a variety of forms. Usually it is a sort of pulsating check or mosaic, often in bright colours. At certain frequencies—around 10 per second—some subjects see whirling spirals, whirlpools, explosions, Catherine wheels. " Dr Walter noted after experimented with strobes on himself.

However, those illusions are similar to the hallucinogenic effects of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and mescaline, which is one of the most important reason why it becomes popular in 1960s and led to the invention of dreamachine.

Dreamachine

In the post-World War II era, the Beat Generation rediscovered the drug-like strobe machine by reading Dr Walt's book The Living Brain. It starts with an experience of Brion Gysin, a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire. In his dairy he wrote:
" Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseilles. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright colors exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was out in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees. Was that a vision? What happened to me? "

After reading Dr Walt's book The Living Brain which is lent by William S. Burroughs, Gysin found the answer and built the Dreamachine in the early 1960's by putting a cylinder with holes onto a record player turntable, a light bulb was put in the middle of the cylinder, when the record player being set to spin at 78 round per minute. The strobes turns into the visual of sitting in a bus and passing shades of leaves under the sun, which makes the light flickers at a frequency of about 20 Hz Alpha brainwaves which are associated with subconsciousness.

Space-out

Brainwaves

Visual Speed

Nosebleed - to create space-out

Conclusion

Reference

Nic Sheehan, Flicker, 1997, Documentary, 1:12:02
B.C. ter Meulen D. Tavy B.C. Jacobs, From Stroboscope to Dream Machine: A History of Flicker-Induced Hallucinations, Eur Neurol 2009 pp316–320
Thomas Budzynski, Ph. D., The Clinical Guide to Sound and Light, 2006
David Siever The Application of Audio-Visual Entrainment for the Treatment of Seniors 2004
Luciana Haill ICT & Art Connect : Revelations by Flicker, Dreamachines and Electroencephalographic Signals in Art
http://www.permuted.org.uk/Flickers.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/holcombea/uws-june2013for-slideshare
http://briongysin.com/