Brion Gysin's Dream Machine

Presented by: Rev. Dr. David Brown and Cherie Sink

As part of: Surreal SubUrban|Thursday (11/17/2005)

On December 21, 1958, Brion Gysin was riding on a bus to an artist's

colony in Marseille at sunset. Sunlight was flickering through the trees that
lined the street. Brion closed his eyes and relaxed. Suddenly, he was
overcome with "a transcendental storm of color visions." He later recorded
the experience in his journal, "An overwhelming flood of intensely bright
patterns in supernatural colours exploded behind my eyelids: a
multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out
of time. I was out in the world of infinite number. The vision stopped
abruptly as we left the trees."

Gysin wrote of the experience in a correspondence to his artistic and occult

collaborator, William S. Burroughs. Burroughs shared with Gysin a book
called "The Living Brain" which described the effect of flickering light on
the brain. Realizing the potential occult implications of Gysin's experience,
Burroughs replied ominously, “We must storm the citadels of enlightenment.
The means are at hand.”

Gysin also corresponded with a friend of Burroughs, a mathematics student at Cambridge University named Ian
Sommerville. On February 15, 1960, Sommerville described to Gysin “a simple flicker machine” made from a slotted
cardboard cylinder, a 100-watt light bulb and a 78 RPM turntable that was able to alter consciousness, though he warned
that the experience was not universal, "The intensity of the effect varies with the individual; melancholics tend to be
irritated, some see nothing."

Gyson described the resulting Dream Machine as "the first art object to be seen with the eyes closed."

In April 1961, at his residence in the Beat Hotel in Paris, Brion met Allen
Ginsberg through their mutual friend W. S. Burroughs, and demonstrated the
Dream Machine. Ginsberg had experienced psilocybin in December of 1960
under the supervision of Harvard University psychologist Dr. Timothy Leary and
became convinced that psychedelics were a tool that could be used to enlighten
the world. He and Leary then began to "turn on" the Beat poets: Jack Kerouac,
Neal Cassady, Charles Olson, and Burroughs.

Gysin always saw the Dream Machine as a safe alternative to psychedelics.

Brion spent the rest of his life attempting unsuccessfully to market the Dream Machine. We built the machine on display
from plans described on the Internet. It is the embodiment of Brion Gysin's dream to “make the ghosts walk in public.”

References:
"Making Ghosts Walk in Public" - http://johngeiger.net/arthur.html
"Chapel of Extreme Experience – A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine" by John Geiger
"Brion Gysin and His Wonderful Dream Machine" - http://www.legendsmagazine.net/105/brion.htm
"Dream Machine Plans of Brion Gysin" - http://www.noah.org/science/dreamachine
"HeadPress 25 – The Journal of Sex, Religion and Death" – "Dream On" and "Waking up to the Dream Machine"
"RESearch #4/5" – "Brion Gysin" by Terry Wilson