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Depictions of Altered States in Cinema

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narmz

narmz

Rising Star
I was thinking about how many times movies have attempted to depict altered perceptions while on drugs, or as a result of exhaustion or what have you, the point is that they took a subjective experience and tried to depict it in film.

I was wondering if anybody remembers any scenes from movies or television shows that showed this happening.

One that comes to mind for me is the acid trip scene in the movie 'Taking Woodstock', and I think they did a pretty good job of relaying the experience of having visuals while under the influence of psychedelics.

Also, if you have any ideas about how one could manipulate video or individual frames of film to depict the visual experience of psychedelics, this is very welcome. I would like to experiment with video to achieve related effects, and so am looking for any good examples you can think of.
 
Blueberry's ayahuasca trip too... And Into The Void's dmt portrayal. And Fear and Loathing too (the scene where the carpet is moving for example)

Then there is the cheap old graphics like 'Altered States' movie.

Im sure plenty more. Good luck finding what you want and do show us if you get to make some visuals yourself
 
i concur with endless, the carpet scene in fear and loathing is the most accurate psychedelic movie effects ive seen to date.
 
olympus mon said:
i concur with endless, the carpet scene in fear and loathing is the most accurate psychedelic movie effects ive seen to date.
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That's a very acurate scene indeed, very much like LSD visuals.

The blueberry clip comes very close to chaliponga visuals, though. If somebody asks what ayahuasca with chaliponga is like, i just say: "watch the blueberry clip", because it realy gives a very accurate picture of what it's like.

'natural born killers' also has some scenes that are quite peculiar.
Maybe not even visually, but the whole atmosphere when they got bitten by snakes after taking shrooms, is that of a bad-trip on acid.

And there's a scene in 'flatliners', where one of the guys has come back from a NDE and he's lying in his bed, seeing everything in a stroboscope-like manner. Both LSD and high doses of cannabis give me that effect often.
 
You'll probably laugh, but all of the movie Speed Racer reminds me of an acid/dmt trip. The continuous cutaways to memories, garish colors and influence of imagination on everything.
 
I found a much larger sense of similarity in the Taking Woodstock clip than the Blueberry Ayahuasca trip, but that's just me.
 
polytrip said:
'natural born killers' also has some scenes that are quite peculiar.
Maybe not even visually, but the whole atmosphere when they got bitten by snakes after taking shrooms, is that of a bad-trip on acid.
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That scene is great. I really like the display of confusion after Woody Harrelson shoots the old man.
 
blue_velvet said:
polytrip said:
'natural born killers' also has some scenes that are quite peculiar.
Maybe not even visually, but the whole atmosphere when they got bitten by snakes after taking shrooms, is that of a bad-trip on acid.
Click to expand...

That scene is great. I really like the display of confusion after Woody Harrelson shoots the old man.
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There is the 'can DMT rub-off on animals' thread. But here the trippyness realy rub's-off on the sober person watching the movie. I always feel a bit like on acid, watching it.
 
A movie I saw recently that had the best visual depiction of a dmt (or any psychedelic) trip I've ever seen is called "Entering the void". Its a bit heavy movie with heavy themes but the beginning scene the main character is tripping and its really awesome. I'd recommend the movie even just for that scene.

Fear and loathing does a good job at capturing not just visually but the "frenzy" of psychedelics. Easy rider did a nice job with the acid in grave yard scene but the cinematic technology just wasn't there but they captured an essence of a trip without all the flashy colors.

Most movies fail miserably at it.
 
I have no clue of the pcp depiction In training day was authentic or not but there's one.

Also I was under the impression that the final scene in blueberry was not ayahuasca but rather peyote. They were Indians not amazonians. Though it does look a lot more like aya than cactus.
 
Morbiddoctor said:
I have no clue of the pcp depiction In training day was authentic or not
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not really.

FME, PCP is more like 8 mm film @ 12 FPS, with a rotating field of view (nystagmus).
also, eyes tend to be wide open, not sleepy-looking.
that scene looked more like a salvia sub-breakthrough (sans sleepy-eyed/drunken stupor appearance)


some of the scenes from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were very reminiscent of psychedelics
 
Morbiddoctor said:
I have no clue of the pcp depiction In training day was authentic or not but there's one.

Also I was under the impression that the final scene in blueberry was not ayahuasca but rather peyote. They were Indians not amazonians. Though it does look a lot more like aya than cactus.
Click to expand...
Peyote is very much like ayahuasca with chaliponga, in some perspectives, although it's much warmer. One of the main differences is that chaliponga visions are very pale. Just like the ones in the blueberry clip.
 
I really didn't think training day had it spot on. So many Hollywood movies have such a generic set of ideas when it comes to what drug effects look like. Quite boring IMO.

I have no experience with chaliponga so I would have no clue what that's like. I will get to it one day. Interesting the visuals can be described as pale. I've never thought to use that word to describe it.
 
Like said before, "Enter The Void" by Gaspar Noe had very intriguing visuals when the main character smoked DMT. Fairly accurate representation. You could tell he did his research ;)
 
I recall that a reference I came up with when attempting to explain my first psilocybin trip was a scene from Martyrs.

*minor spoilers*
Not, thankfully, the whole horrendous-unending-torture or stalked-by-a-murderous-zombie-contortionist bits, but the beautiful long tracking shot that dives into the pupil of the eye towards the empyreal cosmos within. The visual is only a minute or so in duration, but achingly potent.
*spoilers end*

Similar to Altered States, '80's techno-spiritual thriller Brainstorm has some fine scenes of bardic transcendence. The angelic flight towards the galactic core is very well done. And I've always had a fixation on the very brief and unique shots of "hell" in that movie: a roiling plenum of throbbing meat and gore, as if from inside the stomach of some vast monster, in which the faces of the dead scream in agony. Since it's in my head, I expect I'll have to work my way through that place at some point.
 
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