In the film From Beyond (watch it on Hulu here), Dr. Edward Pretorius pioneered use of the Resonator, a device that expands human perceptions of reality via wave manipulation of the pineal gland.
As the photos illustrate, things didn’t work out all that well. Pretorius lost his corporeal form and crossed over into an alternate dimension of amorphous hedonism. Mistakes were made. Brains were eaten. Things got a bit sticky.
The Science
Pretorius mutated substantially during the course of his studies, but the most telling mutation affected his pineal gland.
Typically, this pine cone-shaped organ grows no longer than a .8 centimeters and remains buried in the skull on the brain’s midline. Here, it produces several important hormones, including melatonin in response to environmental lighting. That’s why we sometimes call the pineal a “third eye”—and in lower vertebrates such as fish and lizards it actually stems into a parietal eye.
Parietal eyes typically appear as a grey oval on the foreheads of certain burrowing lizards (among other creatures). While the animal doesn’t quite see out of this structure, the parietal eye is photosensitive and influences circadian rhythm.
Pretorius’ mutated pineal gland (or perhaps a true parietal eye) actually bursts from his forehead. It even wiggles about. What a charmer! The purpose of this mutation, however, seems to have little to do with circadian rhythm. Instead, we turn our attention to the pineal gland’s possible role as “a potential biological locus for spiritual experiences.”
That quote comes from Rick Strassman MD, who researched the hypothetical—and as yet unproven—connection between the pineal gland and the production of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine or DMT. A University of New Mexico psychiatrist, Strassman supervised more than 400 DMT sessions between 1990 and 1995. As author John Horgan relates in this Scientific American article, Strassman’s test subjects dissolved into light, met God-like beings and sometimes freaked out in the presence of alien lizards.
Strassman shut down his studies in ’95 out of concern for these “bad trips,” but in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule, he entertains the notion that DMT actually affects the brain’s ability to RECEIVE information—not just interpret or generate it—allowing us to perceive dark matter and parallel universes otherwise hidden to us.
As you might imagine, mainstream science isn’t quite behind the whole invisible realms theory. Dr. Edward Pretorius, however, was totally on board. He utilized his Resonator to supercharge his pineal gland, crank up his DMT production and glimpsed all the squishy, gross-out stuff happening beyond the veil of human perception.
So there you have it! The science behind yet another monster. If you want to learn more about the real science of DMT, be sure to check out the Stuff to Blow Your Mind episodes: The Scientist and the Shaman: My Egoic Mind and The Scientist and the Shaman: Hallucinations.
Monster of the Week is a—you guessed it—regular look at the denizens of our monster-haunted world. In some of these, we’ll look at the possible science behind a creature of myth, movie or legend. Other times, we’ll just wax philosophic about the monster’s underlying meaning. After all, the word “monstrosity” originates from the Latin monstrare, which meant to show or illustrate a point.
Image courtesy Mark Shostrom
Originally Published at HSW: Monster of the Week: Dr. Edward Pretorius (From Beyond)
Robert Lamb is a senior staff writer at HowStuffWorks.com and co-host of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast and blog. He is also a regular contributor to Discovery News. Follow him on Twitter @blowthemind.
