John Cunningham Lilly (January 6, 1915 – September 30, 2001)[1] was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer, and inventor.

He was a member of a group of counterculture thinkers that included Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and Werner Erhard, all frequent visitors to the Lilly home.

At thirteen years old, he was an avid chemistry hobbyist, supplementing his makeshift basement laboratory with chemicals given to him by a pharmacist friend.

Students at his parochial Catholic grade school called him "Einstein Jr."[5] At age 14 he enrolled at St. Paul Academy (SPA), a college preparatory academy for boys, where his teachers encouraged him to pursue science further and conduct his experiments in the school laboratory after hours.

[6] After his first year, Caltech learned that Lilly was from a wealthy family and cancelled his scholarship, forcing him to go to his father for help.

Months before their wedding, he took a job with a lumber company in the Northwest to soothe a bout of "nervous exhaustion" brought on by the pressures of academia and his upcoming marriage.

[4] During the summer after his first year at Dartmouth, Lilly returned to Pasadena to participate in an experiment with his former Caltech biochemistry professor Henry Borsook.

The purpose of the experiment was to study the creation of glycocyamine, a major source of muscle power in the human body.

The experiments pushed Lilly to extreme physical and mental limits; he became increasingly weak and delirious as the weeks went on.

The results of the experiment confirmed Borsook's hypothesis and Lilly's name was included among the authors, making it the first published research paper of his career.

Bazett took a liking to the young, enthusiastic graduate student, and set Lilly up with his own research laboratory.

While working under Bazett, Lilly created his first invention, the electrical capacitance diaphragm manometer, a device for measuring blood pressure.

[4] While finishing his degree at the University of Pennsylvania, Lilly enrolled in a class entitled "How to Build an Atomic Bomb."

He designed a future "communications laboratory" that would be a floating living room where humans and dolphins could chat as equals and develop a common language.

[citation needed] During World War II, Lilly researched the physiology of high-altitude flying and invented instruments for measuring gas pressure.

After the war, he trained in psychoanalysis at the University of Pennsylvania, where he began researching the physical structures of the brain and consciousness.

[4] In 1953, Lilly began a job studying neurophysiology with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Corps.

During the early 1960s, Lilly and coworkers published several papers reporting that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns.

In 1961 a group of scientists including Lilly gathered at the Green Bank Observatory to discuss the possibility of using the techniques of radio astronomy to detect evidence of intelligent life outside the solar system.

According to Lilly, the network of computation-capable solid state systems (electronics) engineered by humans will eventually develop into an autonomous "bioform."

Since the optimal survival conditions for this bioform (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those humans need (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply), Lilly predicted a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence.

[27][28] In 1974, Lilly's research using various psychoactive drugs led him to believe in the existence of a certain hierarchical group of cosmic entities, the lowest of which he later dubbed Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.)

Lilly and Lena formed a romantic as well as a spiritual relationship which later inspired the writing of their book The Dyadic Cyclone (1974).

[citation needed] During the subsequent years, Lilly adopted two more daughters, including Lisa Lyon.

[citation needed] Lilly died of heart failure at age 86 in Los Angeles on September 30, 2001.

[citation needed] Lilly's work with dolphins and the development of the sensory deprivation tank have been referenced in movies, music and television productions.

[37] The 1967 French science fiction thriller Un animal doué de raison by Robert Merle (translated into English as The Day of the Dolphin in 1969) features a central character who is a government scientist with similar ideas to those of Lilly.

[39] The 1980 movie Altered States, based on Paddy Chayefsky's novel of the same name, features actor William Hurt regressing to a simian form by ingesting psychoactive substances and then experiencing the effects of prolonged occupation of a sensory deprivation chamber.

[47] On June 15, 2014, comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds published an episode of their podcast The Dollop about Lilly, where they detail his life, research, and drug use.