Amanda Feilding

Take an animated journey into the depths of the human mind, exploring three psychedelic trips that changed Western culture forever. Sixty years later we sit down with twelve leading current thinkers to ask: "What can expanded states of mind teach us about ourselves, the world and our place in it?"

In the early 1970’s, 23 year old Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, drilled a hole in her head — that is she trepanned herself. Now 74, Amanda is a leader of the renaissance in scientific psychedelic research.

Through interviews with leading psychologists and scientists, Neurons to Nirvana explores the history of four powerful psychedelic substances (LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA and Ayahuasca) and their previously established medicinal potential. Strictly focusing on the science and medicinal properties of these drugs, Neurons to Nirvana looks into why our society has created such a social and political bias against even allowing research to continue the exploration of any possible positive effects they can present in treating some of today's most challenging afflictions.

A Hole In The Head examines the development of modern trepanation as used by people in the UK, the US, and the Netherlands for the purpose of attaining a higher level of consciousness. This procedure, used by the ancient Egyptians, Incas and others, is believed by the voluntarily trepanned to allow for renewed brain pulsations that increase brain blood volume and thereby improve brain function. Interviews regarding the history and efficacy of the procedure are also held with some of the world's most respected neurosurgeons and anthropologists.

A documentary produced and directed by Amanda Feilding, an advocate of trepanation. In the film, Feilding, a 27-year-old student at the time, drills a hole in her forehead with a dentist's drill. In the documentary, surgical scenes alternate with motion studies of Feilding's pet pigeon Birdie.