John C. Lilly's 80th Birthday Party by Michael Dare I'm pretty sure it was Doug who burst into my house that day to share a gram of something or other when he casually mentioned that he was on his way to John C. Lilly's 80th birthday party and did I want to come along. Stupid question. Did Doug know I'd read every one of Lilly's books? I don't think so. In his quest for a partying companion, he had somehow mysteriously zeroed in on the one human he knew who REALLY wanted to meet John C. Lilly. Why was I so interested? Lilly is the scientist who had the strange fortune to witness his serious research in two completely different areas get turned into horror films.  He discovered that dolphins were intelligent, writing about it in a book called The Mind of the Dolphin. Novelist Robert Merle took Lilly's research, added a ridiculous fictional plot, and came up with the best-selling book Day of the Dolphin, which in turn became Mike Nichols' film Day of the Dolphin starring George C. Scott as a man very much like John C. Lilly only more blustery. One day Lilly decided to explore inner space by turning off all five of his senses, all the better to do research into the nature of the relationship between the soul and the body. In order to do this, he was obliged to invent the isolation tank, a devise constructed specifically to deprive the subject of their senses of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. He then called up his old bud Timothy Leary, scored some pure LSD, dosed himself, got in the tank, left his body, and immediately became the world's foremost authority on the effects of isolation upon the human brain. Paddy Chayefsky apparently read Lilly's amazing book about the experience, The Center of the Cyclone - An Autobiography of Inner Space, added a ridiculous fictional plot, and came up with the best-selling book Altered States, which in turn became Ken Russell's film Altered States, starring William Hurt as a man very much like John C. Lilly only more blustery. But his masterpiece, the book that has influenced everything from The Lawnmower Man to The Matrix to the entire concept of the Internet, is Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer. Written, amazingly enough, in 1967, many years before anybody ever conceived of the home personal computer, Lilly's book explains the nature of hardware and software in perfect human terms. Put simply, Lilly said that computers are artificial brains designed by human brains and patterned after the workings of the human brain. Understand how artificial brains work and you'll come close to understanding how your own brain works. Learn how to program computers and you'll soon know how to program your own brain. At least that's how I remember it. I do know that it inspired me to conduct some of my own experiments in the same direction, including but not limited to wandering through Central Park on LSD on the very first Earth Day in 1970. The house was large and rambling above the hills of Malibu, the food was those nutty cheeseballs with crackers, and Lilly was nowhere around. Turned out Lilly liked to sit in his living room all day and night doing nothing but watching videos of dolphins, whose constant chattering he could apparently understand. He couldn't be bothered with little things like birthday parties. Since he refused to come out, I decided to go in. There he was, sitting alone in a comfy chair, staring at the screen like it was Traci Lords disabling her gag reflex, completely fixated, oblivious to my presence. If he wasn't a vegetable, he was doing a good imitation of one. My long awaited conversation with John C. Lilly was very much not to be. I'm lucky I got him to turn towards me to take his picture, and look at the look he gave me. Could the Buddha exude more wisdom and humor? I didn't know anyone there and the food sucked so I just started wandering around the house when somewhere in back near the garage I stumbled across the original article, John C. Lilly's own personal isolation tank. No one was around. This was my chance. I took off my clothes, got in, and closed the door.  Total darkness, and eventually, once I stopped splashing, total silence. I discovered the tank was like the Salton Sea. In order for you to float, the water is saturated with salt, which burns like hell if you've got the smallest cut, so I was deprived of all my senses except for total pain in a tiny paper cut on my left hand. I tried to ignore it but couldn't. Maybe I needed to be on acid, or at least valium. I considered getting up and traipsing back to the living room naked and demanding that Lilly give me some LSD. Maybe I did. Who knows? Not Lilly. Bored shitless. Here I was at a birthday party trying to lose contact with my physical body. What a party pooper. Where's Dare? Oh, he's in back trying to discombobulate himself. Totally frustrated, I got out of the tank after what felt like five minutes, but looked at a clock and discovered I'd actually been in there for an hour. I was indeed relaxed, though salt encrusted like a carnival pretzel. I took a quick shower and headed back to the party to rediscover my physical body with domestic beer and bad cheese dip.

 

 

Emulsional Problems