366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens
FEATURING: Voice of Chloë Sevigny
PLOT: A biography of pioneering cetologist and “psychonaut” Dr. John C. Lilly.
COMMENTS: John Lilly may best be known to readers of this site as the inspiration behind the canonically weird Altered States. The real Lilly seems to have lived a life that actually was “stranger than fiction.” A neurophysiologist by training, Lilly began his research career during the height of Cold War paranoia. The term “brainwashing” was first coined in the 1950s, when Lilly’s initial studies of mammal brains were designed to achieve “push-button control of animals and people.” In the 1960s he embraced the use of psychedelic drugs, leaving behind military research in favor of the counterculture. He described his moment of enlightenment as a “very bizarre and weird feeling.”
Almereyda and Stephens’ documentary traces the gamut of Lilly’s life-long research interests, from his early days hooking monkey brains up to cathode ray TVs to a daily self-experimentation regimen involving hourly doses of ketamine. What comes across is a portrait in contrasts. Though he came to see himself as living outside the bounds of mainstream “consensus reality,” American culture readily absorbed Lilly’s ideas.
Lilly is responsible for our belief that dolphins are intelligent creatures, and inspired the Greenpeace effort to “Save the Whales,” igniting an interest in environmentalism. He popularized the analogy likening the human mind to a “biocomputer”; he believed that only through the perception of other realities can we break free from our “programming.”
Lilly’s “feeling of weirdness” resulted from the realization that the animals he had been researching were not just test subjects but thinking, feeling creatures, whose intelligence and sense of consciousness could equal that of humans and, in some cases, even exceed us. After studying the brains of cats, monkeys, and dolphins, he decided to focus on dolphins, convinced they would have some ancient wisdom to impart to human beings.
The film’s makers present all facets of Lilly’s research and impart his intense curiosity regarding the mind and how it works. His evolution from straight-laced government scientist to drugged-out psychonaut proceeds without judgment. In the beginning, Lilly comes across as eccentric even when appearing on ’60s talk shows, likening inter-species communication to an alien encounter. In one episode the host is quick to point out that Lilly is a real doctor and not “some nut!”
The narration touches on important ethical issues regarding animal research, but never delves too deeply. Lilly’s personal fortune gets a
Continue reading CAPSULE: JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025)