Meditate with Brion Gysin

The process is quite simple. Sit near a cylindrical tube pierced with different slits through which light emanating from a bulb suspended inside passes. The cylinder itself is placed on a phonograph which rotates at 45 or 78 revolutions per minute. Then close your eyes. In a few moments, light pulses will pass through your eyelids and stimulate your optic nerve until different color patterns appear in your mind. The two friends at the origin of this strange invention are, as we will have understood, very representative of their time: that of the 1950s and 1960s and the Beat Generation’s research into the inner workings of the psyche.

But here, no use of hallucinogenic mushrooms or LSD. The American-Canadian Brion Gysin realized the impact of these flashes of light while taking a bus towards Marseille in 1958. Through the trees lining the road, the light of the setting sun suddenly produced in his brain a shocking kaleidoscope of colors. It was his friend Ian Sommerville who helped him reproduce the effect by tinkering with this strange “dream machine” two years later.

In an interview dating from 1977, Gysin, who was also a multifaceted and curious artist, explains: “The machine that we invented is the first art object in the history of the world in front of which we close our eyes rather than opening them. We were playing in another dimension of the mind, having taken the right to want to put a finger in the gears of inner forces. An experience that resembles what we read in the Gospel for what happened to Saint Paul, who was on his way to Damascus. » The comparison is bold but also revealing of a sincere quest. His colorful and dynamic drawing attempts to convey what he witnessed. It is not yet the illumination of Damascus or Mount Tabor. But, already, grace is at work.

Warning: This “dream machine” may be dangerous for people with epilepsy and other neurological disorders.