Altered States

From Aldous Huxley to cat pictures by Louis Wain: altered states of consciousness can be induced by taking drugs, but they also include dreams, tiredness, grief, and various states of mental illness. Matthew Sweet is joined by Turner Prize winning artist Tai Shani, whose recent work Neon Hieroglyphs explores the history and culture of the hallucinogenic fungus ergot; Sarah Shin, editor of an anthology Altered States; Gary Lachman, historian of the occult whose most recent book Dreaming Ahead of Time explores precognitive dreams; and David Luck, archivist at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, currently staging an exhibition of Louis Wain's cat pictures which are often described as being psychedelic.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find Tai Shani's artwork online at the Serpentine Gallery https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/tai-shani-untitled-hieroglyphs/

Animal Therapy: The Cats of Louis Wain runs at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind until April 14th and there's also an online version https://museumofthemind.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/animal-therapy-the-cats-of-louis-wain

Altered States edited by Sarah Shin and Dreaming Ahead of Time by Gary Lachman are out now.

In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew Sweet discussing Drugs and Consciousness with guests including David Nutt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nll

And David Nutt shared his musical choices with Michael Berkley on Radio 3's Private Passions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3

Image: Louis Wain's painting Kaleidoscope Cats. Image credit: By permission of Bethlem Museum of the Mind