After a researcher records her own death from a heart attack, her colleagues join forces to retrieve the information and play it back.

When Michael plays the tape back, the group realizes that emotional experiences are also recorded.

One team member, Gordy, has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with colleagues, including Hal.

Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm, which results in sensory overload, leading to his forced retirement.

Michael decides to play Lillian's recording, but nearly dies when his body relives her heart attack.

Michael and Karen's son Chris inadvertently views the tape, causing a psychotic break that requires hospitalization.

Hal and his wife, Wendy, send the last of Karen's commands to the company computers, shutting down the plant.

Michael bears witness to the afterlife, experiencing a vision of hell, then traveling from Earth and through the universe, even after the tape ends.

Awakening, weeping with joy, Michael points up and whispers, “Look at the stars!” Their embrace, enclosed in a memory bubble, floats into the night.

To prepare for the film, Trumbull took most of the key cast and crew to the Esalen Institute, an experimental research facility in Northern California known for its new-age classes and workshops.

In September 1981, the cast and crew traveled to North Carolina to begin six weeks of shooting at locations[2] including the Elion-Hitchings Building in Research Triangle Park[3] and Duke University,[2] then returned to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City, California in November to film interior scenes.

"[4] Trumbull believed that financially strapped MGM simply got cold feet about providing the remainder of the funds to complete Brainstorm.

"MGM's problem was that insurance institution Lloyd's of London, when it took depositions from me and other people, realized that the film could be finished.

"MGM decided to allow Lloyd's of London to offer the film to many of the major studios in town," said Trumbull.

And the studio suddenly realized that a lot of other people in this town were excited about Brainstorm, and were ready to put up millions of dollars.

So they finally decided to work out this deal where Lloyd's of London would put up the remaining money and become a profit participant.

"In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled.

[9] Christopher John reviewed Brainstorm in Ares Magazine Special Edition #2 and commented that "For those looking for nothing more than the same old spaceships and monsters, well, this one probably isn't for you – but then again, you've got all the movies you need this year.

"[10] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a mixed 2 stars out of a possible 4, describing the premise as "a good idea for a movie" and credited Trumbull with providing "intriguing" special effects.