Home Sweet Home (1982), a television film directed by Mike Leigh, part of the BBC’s Play for Today series, is one of Leigh’s bleakest films. In it, the last of his contributions to this series, Leigh portrays the lives and dysfunctional relationships of three postal workers living on a housing estate in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. I’d…
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I’m a big fan of horror, as well as the subgenre of ‘psychedelic horror’, in which the psychedelic experience or ‘psychedelic’ aesthetic is used to unsettle and terrify viewers. I’m also interested in the future of psychedelic horror: What aspects of the psychedelic experience, or what trippy effects, could be realised on screen that have…
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In a blog post from a couple of years ago, I described my first experience with high ventilation breathwork – a form known as Psychedelic Breath, based on the principles of Holotropic Breathwork, developed by the Czech psychiatrist and LSD researcher Stan Grof. In that post, I also detailed some of the research on high…
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Yoga nidra (or yogic sleep) is a technique for inducing a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. I often use it when I’m sleep-deprived, either as a way to (hopefully) have a nap, or at least to feel more rested, which can happen without needing to sleep. Research is also emerging on the benefits…
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I recently rewatched Arrival (2016, Denis Villeneuve), adapted from Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life, having first watched it five years ago. My experience, based on what I can remember, was different this time around. There were some elements I understood and appreciated more, whereas others somewhat stood out as weak points. On second…
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