Director Douglas Trumbull's movie Brainstorm is explicitly based on recent state-of-consciousness and transpersonal research. Although it is not the first of recent consciousness films, by drawing heavily on the work of Grof, Moody, and other researchers from these psychologies, it is the most sophisticated of a new consciousness genre. The hero of the movie explores near-death states. In recentyears other popular movies and books have portrayed similar state-of-consciousness themes, possibly indicating a broad cultural trend, the exploration of inner space and the emergence of a new, contemporary view of the hero archetype, the Hero as Consciousness Explorer.
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