Rings

"I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation; long rows sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke..." - Friedrich August Kekulé

Did Kekulé invent the benzene ring in a dream? Or could it have been a vision induced through use of the flicker effect 100 years before Gysin popularized it with his Dreamachine?

Pulsating light, check--flames in a dark room. Seeing through closed-eyes, check. Practiced ability to discern form in the vision, check. Presence of archetypal symbols, check.

Wonder if this theory's been proposed before...

Scan from my sketchbook, 1999--strange how occasionally work comes full circle.

Via Boing Boing