The daring experimenter Dr. John C. Lilly dedicated his life to radical self-investigation and unlocking the mysteries of consciousness and communication. “My body is my laboratory” was the motto, and his research on the language of dolphins and whales – as well as psychedelics and sensory deprivation – assured his own cult status in 20th-century pop culture as the basis for Ken Russel’s Altered States and Mike Nichols’s The Day of the Dolphin. Directors Michael Almareyda and Courtney Stephens, along with narrator Chloë Sevigny, explore the life of a determined scientist and his experiments into the psychonautical unknown.
Michael Almereyda
Director, Writer
Courtney Stephens
Director, Writer
Chloë Sevigny
Narrator (voice)
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Self
Allen Ginsberg
Self (archive footage)
Timothy Leary
Self (archive footage)
Scott McVay
Self
Hella McVay
Self
Diana Reiss
Self
Gigi Coyle
Self
John Cunningham Lilly
Himself (archive footage)
180° South72%
Everybody’s Everything84%
Inside Deep Throat64%
My Octopus Teacher78%
Blackfish78%
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story62%
Ghost Elephants77%
Seduced and Abandoned62%
The Captains63%
Love, Antosha74%
Night Will Fall76%
Lionel Messi: Destiny78%
In the Realms of the Unreal71%
Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds75%
Earth76%
Being Eddie67%
John Candy: I Like Me78%
A Plastic Ocean75%
Directed by John Ford70%
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert82%
