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John Cunningham Lilly ( January 6 1915 - September 30 2001) was a pioneer researcher into the nature of consciousness using as his principal tools the Isolation tank, dolphin communication and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination. He was a prominent member of the Californian counterculture of scientists, mystics and thinkers that arose in the late 1960’s and early 70’s . Ram Dass, Werner Erhard and Timothy Leary were all frequent visitors to his home.
John Lilly was a qualified physician and psychoanalyst. He made contributions in the fields of biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, computer science, and neuroanatomyNeuroanatomy is the anatomy of the nervous system. In vertebrate animals, the routes that the myriad nerves take from the brain to the rest of the body (or "periphery") and the internal structure of the brain in particular are both extremely elaborate.. He invented and promoted the use of the Isolation Tank. He was also a pioneer in attempting interspecies communication between humans and dolphinThis article is about the dolphin mammal. For other uses of the term, please see dolphin (disambiguation). See article below. Dolphins are certain aquatic mammals related to whales and porpoises. The word is used in a few different ways. It can mean: #anys.
His eclectic career began as a conventional scientist doing research for universities and government and increasingly progressed as he followed his enquiries, into what mainstream science considers fringe areas. An able publicist he published many books and had two Hollywood movies based loosely on his work. His reputation enabled him to attract private funding for his more unconventional later work.
He progressed ethically during his career from conventional and often invasive research in which the mind under study was seen as a complex object, into increasingly consensual peer to peer interactions with other beings especially dolphins.
John Lilly was born on Jan. 6, 1915, in St. Paul, Minn and showed an early interest in scientific experiment.
He studied physics and biology at the California Institute of Technology, graduating in 1938Events January -June January 3 The March of Dimes is established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. January 11 Frances Moulton is the first woman to become president of a US national bank. January 20 Wedding of king Farouk I of Egypt and Farida Zulficar in Cai. He studied medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942Events January January 1 World War II: The word " United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact. January 2 World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. January 5 Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary ass.
During World War II, he researched the physiology of high-altitude flying and invented instruments for measuring gas pressure.
After the war he trained in psychoanalysis and at the University of Pennsylvania he begun researching the physical structures of the brainFor other articles about other subjects named brain see brain (disambiguation). In the anatomy of animals, the brain or encephalon is the supervisory center of the nervous system. Although the brain is usually cited as the supervisory center of vertebrate and of its consciousnessConsciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. In common parlance, consciousness denotes bein. In 1951 he published a paper showing how he could display patterns of brain electrical activity on a cathode ray display screen using electrodes he specially devised for insertion into a living brain.
In 1953, he took a post studying neurophysiology with the US Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Corps. In 1954, following the desire to strip away outside stimuli from the mind/brain, he devised the first isolation tank , a dark soundproof tank of warm salt water in which subjects could float for long periods in sensory isolation. Dr. Lilly himself and a research colleague were the first to act as subjects in this research.
His quest next took him to ask questions about the minds of other large brained mammals and in the late 1950's he established a centre devoted to fostering human- dolphin communication; the Communication Research Institute on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. In the early 1960's, Dr. Lilly and co-workers published several papers reporting that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns. Subsequent investigations of dolphin cognition have however in general found it difficult to replicate his results.
In the early sixties he was introduced to LSD and began a series of experiments in which he took the psychedelic in an isolation tank and/or in the company of dolphins. These events are described in his books "Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments" and "The Centre of the Cyclone," both published in 1972.
His career then took the turn of becoming something of a mix between scientist, mystic and writer publishing 19 books in all, including notably Man and Dolphin and The Mind of the Dolphin.
In the 1980s he led a project which attempted to teach dolphins a computer-synthesised language.