| abstract | - Warning: This Synopsis is spoiler-heavy. Altered States is a 1980 film (which some have called a vicarious LSD Experience) by directed by Ken Russell (who took up the project of adapting Paddy Chayefsky's novel for the screen after the first director quit due to creative differences with Chayefsky). The film takes places over several years, following the life of Eddie Jessup (William Hurt), a brilliant research scientist who believes that altered states of consciousness are as real as every day reality, and investigates the religious experience in schizophrenics. He and his friend and fellow scientist Arthur, played by Bob Balaban, experiment with altered states of consciousness using isolation tank studies. Jessup marries a Hot Scientist (hot physical anthropologist, actually), Emily, played by Blair Brown. They have a child together, but the marriage is strained by her groundedness and his wild, out-there intellectual passions. During a marital separation, she travels to Africa to study baboons while he goes to Mexico and participates in a mushroom ceremony with a tribe of natives called the Hinchi Indians. On the mushroom drug, Eddie experiences a kind of jumbled psychological regression to the first soul- that spark of consciousness which he believes gave rise to all creation, from the Big Bang to the origin of life on Earth. He takes the drug back to the United States for testing, where he intensifies the effects of the mushroom chemicals with sensory deprivation. He emerges from one test mentally regressed, unable to speak except for primitive grunts and clicks. An X-ray reveals Simian characteristics. Jessup is convinced that he de-differentiated his genetic structure, that the altered state of his more primitive consciousness physically manifested. Ignoring the warnings of all concerned parties, he tries it again... and emerges as a fur-covered, vicious ape-man, presumably a manifestation of the primitive hominid consciousness he contacts inside the isolation tank. He breaks out of the basement of the medical school where the isolation tank is kept, attacks a security guard, and chases a pack of wild dogs to the local zoo, where he kills and eats a raw sheep. When his humanity returns, he convinces his concerned friends to monitor one last isolation tank trip. During the study, something happens, and the primordial consciousness of Jessup's obsession nearly destroys the laboratory. Inside the tank, Jessup regresses in a mass of primordial matter. He is only brought back to reality/modernity/whatever by his love for Emily, with whom he is last seen in bed with... both of them switching back and forth between their cognitive selves and masses of sexually ecstatic, fiery, oozy, lumpy, swirling blobs of proto-matter, while their friends argue about the validity of Jessup's experience, the scientific ramifications, and how to cover up their own foolishness. The ending is an extended metaphysical and evolutionary apocalyptic event that forces the characters and the viewer to question their own subjective experience of reality.
- Altered States is a 1980 American science fiction-horror film adaptation of a novel by the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. It was the only novel that Chayefsky ever wrote, as well as his final film. Both the novel and the film are based on John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks under the influence of psychoactive drugs like ketamine and LSD. The film was directed by Ken Russell and featured William Hurt in his screen debut. It also featured Blair Brown (as Emily Jessup), Charles Haid and Bob Balaban. It additionally featured the film debut of Drew Barrymore. The film score was composed by classical composer John Corigliano (with Christopher Keene conducting) and was nominated for an Academy Award. The film also received an Oscar nomination for Sound, losing to The Empire Strikes Back.
- thumb|257px Altered States (América Latina: Estados alterados, España: Un viaje alucinante (al fondo de la mente)) es una película de ciencia ficción de 1980 basada en una novela homónima escrita por Paddy Chayefsky. Fue dirigida por Stuart Baird y Ken Russell.
- Altered States is a promotional-only compilation album featuring Duran Duran, released in the USA by The Factory.
- Altered States es una cancion compuesta por Ron Trent en 1992 con su estilo Hard Trance y aparece fisicamente en Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories desde la radio Rise FM.
- "Altered States" is the twentieth episode of series 25 and the 754th episode of Casualty overall.
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