Strobe effects were consciously designed to mimic drug states

Evidence

Conrad’s ideas were further crystalized by William Burroughs’s article “Points of Distinction Between Sedative and Consciousness-Expanding Drugs,” published in the December 1964 Evergreen Review. “Anything that can be done chemically can be done in other ways, given sufficient knowledge of the mechanisms involved,” Burroughs wrote, citing the research of the British neurophysiologist William Grey Walter, who suggested that the rapid light flashes broke down barriers to stimulate other regions of the brain, noting that this overflow (“hearing colors, seeing sounds and even odors”) was characteristic of consciousness-expanding drugs. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 825

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core thesis about conditions producing invention: the strobe aesthetic was seeded by Burroughs’ drug theory and early-60s neurophysiology, showing cross-pollination between art, science, and drug culture.