Faces:

• William Hurt
• his first role
• ( _Until The End Of The World_ (vhs/ntsc))
• Blair Brown
• television series: _The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd_
• Drew Barrymore
• Bob Balaban
  • (_Close Encounters Of The Third Kind_)
• John Larroquette

_Altered States_ (vhs/pal/ntsc) (1980)

Directed by
Ken Russell

Writing credits
Paddy Chayefsky

Genre: Drama / Sci-Fi

Cast overview, first billed only:

William Hurt   ....  Eddie Jessup

• american underground track _Jessup's Diary_ by Sun City Girls off of _Dante's Disneyland Inferno_ on Abduction (1996)

Blair Brown  ....  Emily Jessup
Bob Balaban    ....  Arthur Rosenberg

• (catographer/translator David Laughlin in _Close Encounters Of The Third Kind_ DVDx2 )

Deborah Baltzell  .... Schizophrenic Patient

Runtime: USA:102 / UK:99 / Germany:97
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color (Technicolor)
Sound Mix: Dolby
Certification: USA:R / UK:18 / France:-12 / Germany:16 / Sweden:15

Story is based on real life experiments by John Lilly, who invented the isolation tank method.  He is also famous for experiments in interspecies communication, especially dolphins.

• track _Alien Love Song (Salt Tank Isolation mix)_ MP3 by Astralasia

• Author Paddy Chayefsky disowned this movie.
• they got the Huichol Indians wrong. they don't wear dreads, and they take peyote as a sacrament, not mushrooms.
• "truth is what's transient, it's human life that is real..." - Dr. Jessup

_Soundtrack To The Film Altered States_ 12"John Corigliano on RCA (1981)

• _main title and first hallucination (ritual sacrifice and religious memories)_
• _second hallucination (hinchi mushroom rite and love theme trio)_
• _first transformation (primordial regression)_
• _primeval landscape (in the isolation chamber)_

• _second transformation - the ape man sequence (escape from the laboratory, stalking the dogs and the fight, the zoo, and final hunt)_
• _religious memories and father's death_
• _transformation, collapse of the laboratory, the whirlpool and journey to another dimension, return to reality_
• _the final transformation_

604 track _Alien Pets (free tibet mix)_ by Prana off of _Let It Rip_ 12"x3     on Matsuri Productions (1997)

• samples: "the beginning of life..."; "there is no final truth..." - William Hurt as Dr. Jessup 

 
 

techno track _Altered States_ MP3 (160k) by Ron Trent off of _Altered States ep_ 12"x2 on  Djax Up Beats (1992)

track _Altered States_ by Pitch Black off of _Futureproof_ CD on Kog Transmissions

604 track _Shamanix_ MP3 (192k) by Hallucinogen - _Shamanix_ off of _Twisted_ CD on Dragonfly (1995)

• sample: "The way I feel I don't expect to go to sleep for a year. I'm on fucking fire!"  by Bob Balaban as Arthur Rosenberg

• 604 track _Between The Nothing_ MP3 by Shakta & Ping Pong
• sample: "First you will see a spot.    The spot will become a crack.  This is the crack between the nothing...   and out of this nothing will come  your unborn soul." 
• techno track _Altered States_ MP3 (192k)(mixed) by Mark Williams

• IDM glitch track _Altered Bios_ MP3 (vK) by Plasmalamp off of _Void Travelling_ CD on Worm Interface #018
• William Hurt's dialogue describing hallucination  sampled in Symbiosis - _Audio Images_ Side A MP3 (48:52) (at the very beginning)

• track _track _Project80_ by Cabaret Voltaire off of _The Conversation_

• samples: "A protohuman, the first truly human form" ;   "Sensory deprivation, isolation studies." ;  "Put out your hand, palm up."   [Aaaggh!] 

An Egyptian hieroglyph, called the Horus eye, for the eye of the sun god Horus, was in the 1960s taken up by subcultures in Western countries using chemicals like LSD. They used it as a general symbol for altered or higher states of awareness.   The original Egyptian hieroglyph was often distorted graphically, as this variation shows, the real hieroglyph depicting the left eye.   Compare with  for find from a US computer technology context, and with from the same context, indicating that a symbol has been found.

The Simpsons:

_El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer (aka The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)_   [Aired January 5, 1997] Season 8/Episode 24
Consuming too may hot peppers gives Homer visions, which tell him to seek out his "soulmate". Johnny Cash guest stars.
references _Altered States_  - a South American plant (mushroom) causes hallucinations; the hero's wife appears in his vision, then blows away like sand

Altered States is the only novel (ISBN 0060107278) and last film written by Paddy Chayefsky. Both novel and film are based on Dr. John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks and sometimes under the influence of drugs like LSD. Although Chayefsky never contacted Lilly directly, he liked the film version, and noted the following in an _Omni_ magazine interview published in January 1983:

The scene in which the scientist becomes cosmic energy and his wife grabs him and brings him back to human form is straight out of my Dyadic Cyclone (1976, ISBN 067122218X).

As for the scientist's regression into an ape-like being, the late Dr. Craig Enright, who started me on K (ketamine) while taking a trip with me here by the isolation tank, suddenly "became" a chimp, jumping up and down and hollering for twenty-five minutes. Watching him, I was frightened. I asked him later, "Where the hell were you?" He said, "I became a pre-hominid, and I was in a tree. A leopard was trying to get me. So I was trying to scare him away."

The manuscript of The Scientist (1978 ISBN 0397012748, updated in 1988 and reissued in 1996, ISBN 0914171720) was in the hands of Bantam, the publishers. The head of Bantam called and said, "Paddy Chayefsky would like to read your manuscript. Will you give him your permission? I said, "Only if he calls me and asks permission." He didn't call. But he probably read the manuscript.

The film was directed by Ken Russell, after Arthur Penn resigned in a dispute with Chayefsky. It starred Blair Brown and William Hurt in his screen debut. It was also the film debut of Drew Barrymore.

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