# Dreamachine
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{{short description|Stroboscopic light art designed by Ian Somnerville & Brion Gysin}}
{{redirect|Dream machine|3=Dream Machine (disambiguation)}}
{{about|the stroboscopic device|the album by John Zorn|Dreamachines|the psychedelic rock band|Matthew Melton}}
thumb|An anonymous example of a makeshift Dreamachine
The '''Dreamachine''' (a contraction of '''Dream Machine'''), invented in 1959 by [Brion Gysin](/source/Brion_Gysin) and [Ian Sommerville](/source/Ian_Sommerville_(technician)), is a [stroboscopic](/source/Stroboscope) flickering [light art](/source/light_art) device that produces eidetic visual stimuli.
==Description==
In its original form, a Dreamachine is a work of [light art](/source/light_art) made from a cylinder with regularly spaced shapes cut out of its sides. The cylinder is then placed on a [record turntable](/source/phonograph) and rotated, depending on the scale, at either 78 or 45 [revolutions per minute](/source/revolutions_per_minute). A light bulb is suspended in the center of the cylinder with the rotation speed making light emanate from the holes at a consistently pulsating frequency range of 8–13 flickers per second. It is meant to be looked at through closed eyelids, upon which moving [yantra](/source/yantra)-like mandala visual patterns emerge, and an [alpha wave](/source/alpha_wave) mental state is induced. The frequency of the pulsations corresponds to the electrical [oscillation](/source/oscillation)s normally present in the human brain while [relaxing](/source/relaxing).
In 1996, the ''[Los Angeles Times](/source/Los_Angeles_Times)'' deemed [David Woodard](/source/David_Woodard)'s iteration of the Dreamachine "the most interesting object" in [William Burroughs](/source/William_Burroughs)' major visual retrospective ''Ports of Entry'' at [LACMA](/source/Los_Angeles_County_Museum_of_Art).[[Knight, C.](/source/Christopher_Knight_(art_critic)), [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-08-01-ca-29922-story.html "The Art of Randomness"], ''[Los Angeles Times](/source/Los_Angeles_Times)'', August 1, 1996. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328003326/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-08-01-ca-29922-story.html |date=2022-03-28}}.][[Bolles, D.](/source/Don_Bolles_(musician)), [https://juniperhills.net/w.pdf "Dream Weaver"], ''[LA Weekly](/source/LA_Weekly)'', July 26–August 1, 1996.] In a 2019 critical study, [Raj Chandarlapaty](/source/Raj_Chandarlapaty), a scholar of the [Beat movement](/source/Beat_movement), revisits and examines Woodard's "idea-shattering" approach to the Dreamachine.[Chandarlapaty, R., "Woodard and Renewed Intellectual Possibilities", in ''Seeing the Beat Generation'' ([Jefferson, NC](/source/Jefferson%2C_North_Carolina): [McFarland & Company](/source/McFarland_%26_Company), 2019), [https://books.google.com/books?id=bzOXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT142&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false pp. 142–146].]
The same flickering light effect is used in modern electronic devices known as [mind machine](/source/mind_machine)s.
==Use==
thumb|Man during a Dreamachine session
A Dreamachine is "viewed" with the eyes closed: the pulsating light stimulates the [optic nerve](/source/optic_nerve) and thus alters the brain's electrical oscillations. As users adjust to the experience, they see increasingly complex animated [yantra](/source/yantra)-like patterns of color behind their closed eyelids (similar effects may be seen when travelling as a passenger in a car or bus; close your eyes as the vehicle passes through the flickering shadows cast by regularly spaced roadside trees, streetlights or tunnel striplights—these were the [hypnagogic](/source/Hypnagogia) effects Brion Gysin said he sought to recreate with the device). It is claimed that by using a Dreamachine meditatively, users enter an [alpha wave](/source/alpha_wave), or [hypnagogic state](/source/hypnagogic).[{{cite book | last =Kerekes |first =David|title =Headpress 25: William Burroughs & the Flicker Machine |publisher =Headpress |year =2003 |isbn =1-900486-26-1
|page =[https://books.google.com/books?id=pq_o5ky6MiYC&pg=PA13 13]}}] This experience may sometimes be quite intense, but to escape from it, one needs only to open one's eyes.[{{cite web | url=http://www.permuted.org.uk/dream1.htm | first=Paul | last=Cecil | title=Everything is Permuted | work=Flickers of the Dreamachine | date=March 2000 | access-date=2007-03-27 | archive-date=2007-04-15 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070415220531/http://www.permuted.org.uk/dream1.htm | url-status=live }}] The Dreamachine may be dangerous for persons with [photosensitive epilepsy](/source/photosensitive_epilepsy) or other [nervous disorders](/source/anxiety_disorder).
It is thought that one out of 10,000 adults will experience a seizure while viewing the device; about twice as many children will have a similar ill effect.[{{cite news|first=Mark|last=Allen|title=Décor by Timothy Leary|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/garden/decor-by-timothy-leary.html|work=[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)|date=January 20, 2005|access-date=2007-03-27|archive-date=2011-08-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110826164506/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/garden/20mach.html|url-status=live}}.]
==Legacy==
After a period of relative art-historical neglect, a Dreamachine was included in the UK touring exhibition, 'Dream Machines' curated by the artist [Susan Hiller](/source/Susan_Hiller) in 2000, which presented a survey of artworks intended to induce altered states of consciousness. In the accompanying catalogue, Hiller – who had been introduced to the Dreamachine by Sommerville in the late 1960s – described it as a "germinal work" within Western art concerned with the psychology of consciousness, hailing its capacity to "kick-start the visionary capacities of spectators".[{{Cite book |title=Dream Machines: ... a National Touring Exhibition org. by the Hayward Gallery, London ...; exhibition tour: Dundee Contemporary Arts, 5 February - 26 March 2000; Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, 8 July - 20 August 2000; Camden Arts Centre, London, 7 September - 20 October 2000 |date=2000 |publisher=Hayward Gallery Publishing |isbn=978-1-85332-202-0 |editor-last=Hiller |editor-first=Susan |location=London |editor-last2=Hayward Gallery}}]
Artworks titled Dreamachine or Dream Machine and based on or made in homage to Gysin and Sommerville's invention have subsequently been produced by several different artists, including [Shezad Dawood](/source/Shezad_Dawood) and [Haroon Mirza](/source/Haroon_Mirza).
In 2010, the landmark retrospective, '[Brion Gysin: Dream Machine](/source/Brion_Gysin%3A_Dream_Machine)', was held at the [New Museum](/source/New_Museum) in New York and featured an original working Dreamachine.
In 2022, the touring festival, [Unboxed: Creativity in the UK](/source/Unboxed%3A_Creativity_in_the_UK), included a Dreamachine project involving a series of microcontroller-controlled lights rather than a rotating cylinder, and a surround-sound soundtrack by [Jon Hopkins](/source/Jon_Hopkins). The experience was scaled up to use an octagonal facility two storeys high with a capacity of about 20 people at once in a circular seating arrangement.[{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221005-how-to-hallucinate-without-drugs-and-learn-about-your-brain |title=The life-changing effects of hallucinations |date=6 October 2022 |first=William |last=Park |work=[BBC](/source/BBC) }}] It was praised by a reviewer in ''[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian)'' as "as close to state-funded psychedelic drugs as you can get".[{{Cite web |last= Jones |first= Jonathan |date=2022-05-09 |title=Dreamachine review – as close to state-funded psychedelic drugs as you can get |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/may/09/dreamachine-review-as-close-to-state-funded-psychedelic-drugs-as-you-can-get |access-date=2022-05-23 |newspaper=[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian) |language=en}}]
==See also==
* [Brainwave entrainment](/source/Brainwave_entrainment)
* [Jan E. Purkyně](/source/Jan_Evangelista_Purkyn%C4%9B)
* [Mind machine](/source/Mind_machine)
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
*Cecil, Paul. (2000). [http://www.permuted.org.uk/Flickers.htm ''Flickers of the Dreamachine'']. {{ISBN|1-899598-03-0}} [http://www.permuted.org.uk/dmpdown.htm Download excerpts.]
==Further reading==
*{{cite web | last=McKenzie | first=Andrew M. |author-link=Hafler Trio| title=The Hafler Trio & Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth - Present Brion Gysin's Dreamachine | publisher=KK records | location=Belgium | year=1989 | url=https://www.discogs.com/release/582394 | access-date=2010-10-21}}
*{{cite book | last=Cecil | first=Paul | title=Flickers of the Dreamachine | year=1996 | publisher=Codex | isbn=1-899598-03-0}}
*{{cite book | last=Geiger | first=John |author-link=John G. Geiger| title=The Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine | year=2003 | publisher=Soft Skull Press | isbn=1-932360-01-8 | url=https://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-01-8 | access-date=2005-07-29 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050408161539/http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-01-8 | archive-date=2005-04-08 | url-status=dead }}
*{{cite book | last=Vale | first=V | title=Re-Search: William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Throbbing Gristle | year=1982 | publisher=RE/Search | isbn=0-940642-05-0 | url=https://www.researchpubs.com/Blog/?page_id=13&product_id=54 | access-date=2008-06-25 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080519001020/http://www.researchpubs.com/Blog/?page_id=13&product_id=54 | archive-date=2008-05-19 | url-status=dead }}
*{{cite book | last=Gysin | first=Brion | title=Dreamachine Plans | year=1992 | publisher=Temple Press | isbn=1-871744-50-4 | url=http://www.permuted.org.uk/dmplan.htm | access-date=2006-03-10 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060909164928/http://www.permuted.org.uk/dmplan.htm | archive-date=2006-09-09 | url-status=dead }}
==External links==
{{wikimedia|d=no|wikt=no|c=Category:Dreamachine|s=no|v=no|b=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no|n=no}}
*[William S. Burroughs](/source/William_S._Burroughs)' [https://spencerartapps.ku.edu/collection-search#/Object/27956 personal Dreamachine] at [Spencer Museum of Art](/source/Spencer_Museum_of_Art) ([Lawrence, Kansas](/source/Lawrence%2C_Kansas))
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303222313/http://www.cabaretvoltaire.ch/haus/archiv/archiveintrag/dreamachine-david-woodard-sheila-birnstiel-christian-kracht-2008.html Dreamachine exhibition] at [Cabaret Voltaire](/source/Cabaret_Voltaire_(Z%C3%BCrich)) ([Zürich](/source/Z%C3%BCrich))
*[https://www.kerouac.com/the-dreamachine/ Dreamachine] in permanent collection at [Beat Museum](/source/Beat_Museum) ([San Francisco](/source/San_Francisco))
*Khoroshylova, O. A., [https://www.timeout.ru/spb/feature/1661 "Demonstration unit"] at [Freud's Dreams Museum](/source/%3Aru%3A%D0%9C%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B9%D0%B4%D0%B0) (in Russian), [''TimeOut St. Petersburg''](/source/Time_Out_(magazine)), Sept. 20, 2007.
*{{in lang|fr}} [http://www.inter-zone.org/dm.html Interzone: Dreamachine – Machine à rêver]
*[https://no-labs.com/demos/dreamachines/index.html Online Dreamachine application]
*[https://www.webnovelty.net/dreamachine.html JavaScript Dreamachine]
*[https://dreamachine.co/ Info on Dreamachine iOS and Android app]
*[https://quitsmokingwithhypnosis.com/dreamachine An open-source mobile-friendly Dreamachine App]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2jbZgxR1jI Dreamachine Simulator on YouTube, using Gysin's original frequency and cut out specifications.]
Category:Beat Generation
Category:Devices to alter consciousness
Category:Psychedelia
Category:William S. Burroughs
Category:Products introduced in 1959
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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Dreamachine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.