

January 31, 2025
1h 29m
EN
Michael Almereyda
The daring experimenter Dr. John C. Lilly dedicated his life to radical self-investigation and unlocking the mysteries of consciousness and communication. “My body is my laboratory” was the motto, and his research on the language of dolphins and whales – as well as psychedelics and sensory deprivation – assured his own cult status in 20th-century pop culture as the basis for Ken Russel’s Altered States and Mike Nichols’s The Day of the Dolphin. Directors Michael Almareyda and Courtney Stephens, along with narrator Chloë Sevigny, explore the life of a determined scientist and his experiments into the psychonautical unknown.

Chloë Sevigny
Narrator (voice)

Alejandro Jodorowsky
Self

Allen Ginsberg
Self (archive footage)


Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens
3

Timothy Leary
Self (archive footage)

Scott McVay
Self

Hella McVay
Self

Diana Reiss
Self

Gigi Coyle
Self

John Cunningham Lilly
Himself (archive footage)
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Production Grant
N/A