FT261

As the Sun set on 21 December 1958, the artist and poet Brion Gysin experienced a vivid hallucinat­ion while on a bus driving through rural France. In his journal he wrote:

“Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseilles. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright patterns in supernatural colours exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was out in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees.” [1]

Although he was initially unaware of what had happened, Gysin had experi­enced the visionary, consciousness-changing effect created by rapidly flickering light.