Altered StatesΩ
Experimental 1980 body horror film starring William Hurt as Edward Jessup, a psychopathologist studying schizophrenia and its relationship to subsumed states of consciousness AKA "alters" or "alts". Over the course of the film, Jessup becomes convinced that through sensory deprivation and the use of ceremonial narcotics and psychedelics he can bring such suppressed alters to the surface and integrate them into a healthy, holistic system of being. Lacking proper human test subjects, Jessup submits himself to a series of increasingly disorienting experiments. Recklessly pushing further into the void, Jessup eventually experiences biological devolution and emerges from his makeshift sensory deprivation tank as a feral light-skinned troglodyte [1]. The film culminates with Jessup's regression into a maelstrom of primordial ooze that subsequently dissolves into non-physical proto-consciousness. Only a kiss from his estranged wife can save him [2].
Ωref#[I, Antichrist] :: Wisconsin, Yr So Brutalist.
- ↑ Caveman, Iceman, Neanderthal. Also, very small in stature.
- ↑ The him most associated with Jessup's primary "public" alter. A fringe but sensical counter-interpretation of the film's ending posits its supposed resolution instead as tragic cliffhanger - Jessup's transcendence into a state of permanent Nirvana thwarted by a misguided and simple-minded shrew.