The Dreamachine has come to the Edinburgh International Festival! Touted as “a new, one of a kind, immersive experience,” Dreamachine has been created by a collaboration of artists, musicians and scientists and claims to allow you to “explore the extraordinary potential of your own mind!” Needless to say I couldn’t let this go amiss so on Saturday evening I took myself along to Murrayfield Ice Rink to participate in this touring experiment.
For this high sensory experience, you are led into a pod type room that blocks out all sights and sounds from the outside world. You cosy down with your blanket, get real comfortable and close your eyes before the lights go down and the experience begins. What follows is a series of flashing lights and music and the rest is done by your brain!
The word “psychedelic” comes from the Greek meaning “mind manifesting,” and there really couldn’t be a better description for what happens in this room. What you see behind closed eyelids will be uniquely personal to you but I think it’s fair to say that the majority experience some form of colours and shapes.
I was especially keen to try this as I believe myself to have aphantasia. That’s a topic for a whole other blog but basically this means that I cannot see images in my minds eye. I find it hugely frustrating not being able to “visualise” imagery so I was excited to see if this machine would finally allow me to see dream like mirages.
The result: well I didn’t see images of specific objects or people or places but I was awestruck by a whole kaleidoscope of colours and shapes!
The explanation offered for this experience is that the flickering lights and sounds stimulates “alpha” brain wave rhythms. This is the rhythm that is “normally present when we are relaxed but awake, and is also prominent in visual parts of the brain.”1
I think the most profound effect of this experience for me was that I felt so incredibly relaxed when I came out the other side. I definitely entered a trance like / meditative state when I was in there and for the first time in a while, I truly forgot the outside world for the duration. Considering I practice meditation daily, this was truly powerful for me.
I wonder if this is what others experience when they can practice visualisations in their meditation practice? I wonder if this is what people experience in a psychedelic drug trip? And I wonder what the future therapeutic implications could be… Who knows!?
What I do know is that I will be going back to try this again before it leaves Edinburgh.
Photo credit:
Dreamachine. Photograph by David Levene
1https://dreamachine.world/2022/05/23/the-science-and-philosophy-behind-the-dreamachine/