I was able to see my films Letitia and Free on the big screen at the Genesis Cinema, as part of the Raindance Film Festival, which was exciting and a learning experience.

I also finally produced a trailer for my very first film Raw Vision, its filming was interrupted by the first coronavirus lockdown, causing huge problems.

The film shows a hallucinatory/ghost experience in a positive problem-solving light. There already exists the ultimate positive ghost film: Ghost (1990), although in my film the protagonist unintentionally accesses the ‘ghost’ via an alternate reality.

Reality may be perceived differently in altered states of consciousness: any conscious state other than a usual waking state, such as in hypnosis and dreaming. Historically, communing with the ‘dead’ involved altered states of consciousness in shamanic practices. Modern day mediums or spiritualists may evoke such altered states, known as ‘trance mediumship’.  This became popular in the 19th/early 20th centuries, as wars led people to seek comfort after the death of their loved ones.

Medically, voices and visions have been termed ‘hallucinations’ (perceptions without external stimulation) and often viewed as a sign of mental disorder. Before this medical negativity, summoning the dead, known as necromancy, was banned by the Church and punishable by death. In earliest Western literature, however, the ancient Greek epic poem Odyssey describes seeking the dead as problem-solving, whereby a king receives advice from the ghost of a wise prophet. The low budget film Odyssey: Journey to the Underworld (2008) abandons the original story, and presents contact with the dead as grotesque and evil, as with medieval religious interpretations.

The Church seemed more sympathetic to such experiences if they involved saints (who are nevertheless deceased persons) and if occurring unintentionally, such as Joan of Arc visited by voices and visions of saints, herself later canonised as a saint.

Those who experience ‘hallucinations’ (whether involving the dead or not) have been fighting negative cultural perceptions for some time, via the Hearing Voices Movement, which is coordinated by the registered charity Intervoice. 

As voices’ onset may be linked to a traumatic event such as bereavement, or in victims of abuse, some scientists believe they are an outcome of a process called dissociation: where unwanted or painful aspects of the mind are walled off from its main self, but may be triggered to return e.g. as a hallucination, when exposed to a trauma reminder.

Voices have been variously described then, as products of a fractured mind, manifestations of a higher guiding awareness, or a normal neuropsychological variation.

‘Clairaudient’ means ‘clear hearing’, and is regarded in psychic circles as a ‘gift’. Researchers at Yale University compared psychics who reported daily messages, to voices involved in persons with psychotic breakdown. People with breakdowns were found to have had a negative reaction when discussing voices with other people for the first time, and this was subsequently more disruptive to their social relationships. The psychics had experienced voices from a much younger age (around seven years old) and the first time they admitted to voice-hearing, the reception was much more likely to be positive. It may be that people reacting more positively (perhaps more likely in a child), helped create more positive outcomes, as mentioned in my previous post, the relationship with voices can mirror the person’s relationships. The psychics also had more control over the voices, this control appeared to have developed over time with intentional practice.

I think Raw Vision reached its goal of showing such experiences in a more positive light, but unless I start filming again with a child actress to replace the copyrighted book cover, the full film will have to remain private for now. 

References

Anonymous authors (1500). The First Biography of Joan of Arc. Translated and annotated by Daniel Rankin and Claire Quintal (1964). University of Pittsburgh Press.

Jones SM (2012) Hearing Voices: The Histories, Causes and Meaning of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations. Cambridge University Press.

Longden E, Madill A, Watermann MG (2012). Dissociation, trauma, and the role of lived experience: toward a new conceptualisation of voice hearing. Psychological Bulletin 138(1): 28-76

Powers AR, Kelley MS, Corlett PR (2017). Varieties of Voice-Hearing: Psychics and the Psychosis Continuum. Schizophrenia Bulletin 43(1): 84-98