The Hypnogogic Mind Machine: Our 90s Festival Brain Trip

Goggles with flashing lights, a pair of headphones, a big sofa and an Axminster carpet. For a few years in the 90s, the Hypnogogic Mind Machine was one of the strangest things you could do at a UK festival, and we ran it.

Buying it off Blue

We bought the mind machine off a guy called Blue. Beautiful guy. Part of the chaos years. We’re still friends on Facebook. He’s a cool cat.

We did the deal, then met up at Helter Skelter at the Sanctuary on a beautiful summer’s evening. Blue set it up and showed us how to run it. We had to lift the block paving to fit the old stall in.

The machines themselves were hand-built by a doctor in Scotland. It was quite a serious piece of kit, all running off 12 volt.

What it actually was

If you’ve never heard of one: a mind machine, also called a light and sound machine, uses flashing lights and pulsing sound to nudge your brainwaves towards the hypnagogic state, the drifting, half-awake bit between being awake and asleep. With your eyes shut, people see vivid colours, geometric patterns and trance-like imagery. The idea goes back to the Dreamachine of the late 1950s.

You sat down on the sofa, we put the goggles and headphones on you, and for about ten minutes the lights flashed and the sound pulsed.

Some people had an amazing journey on it. You’d see colours that don’t exist. You could see films you’d watched. You’d feel like you were rolling around. It was a very, very strange thing to do.

We used to do late-night sessions too. Once the sound systems went off and it was quiet, the people who’d really got into it, and usually the staff, would come back for a super-long session. You could have a proper trip on it.

There was a serious side. Flashing lights and epilepsy don’t mix, so the sign on the front was clear: nobody with epilepsy, nobody under 16.

Making the NME

At Glastonbury ’99, the NME’s Johnny Cigarettes paid his £3 and wrote it up for their festival review. Within ten minutes he was “swimming in absinthe, the green river of doom”, and he reckoned he might need to see a doctor. We’ll take that as a five-star review.

The end of the machines

We worked all the festivals with it for a while, then they banned them. A couple of other people were doing something very similar, there were a few problems, and I’ve no idea what. Eventually we sold the machines.

Did you have a go on the Mind Machine? What did you see? Let us know.

More from the last 30-odd years: 21 Glastonburys · B.A.S.H. and Baby Bash · The Willy Banjo Story