“Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine” by John Geiger

"The true story of how the discovery of flicker potentials, and scientific observations about strange patterns, organised hallucinations, and even displacement of time derived from stroboscopic light, very nearly resulted in a Dream Machine in every suburban living room.

Chapel of Extreme Experience is an engrossing look at flicker potentials — a visual phenomenon which became the basis of scientific studies into how the visual brain works. In the 1960s the Dream Machine was developed to reproduce this phenomenon, emitting pulses of light and projecting patterns that produced kaleidoscopic images and even hallucinations. This book follows the interest in flicker, from its scientific underpinnings to its role in the countercultural art scene. This is a fascinating look at the Dream Machine and its influence on major cultural figures like William S. Burroughs, Aldous Huxley, and Allen Ginsberg who all experienced and wrote about the "flicker effect." Photographs are featured. "

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