Man who ‘transformed himself into a lizard’ reveals he could ‘taste and smell his own tongue’

A man has revealed how he transformed himself into a lizard by covering himself in green tattoos and splitting his tongue in half.

The 50-year-old revealed he could taste and smell his own burning flesh as the laser went through his tongue and he started ‘hallucinated’ and ‘vomiting’ from the pain of getting implants in his forehead. ‘You have the serpent in the garden of Eden, reptiles occupy a very special place in human consciousness and as an artist it was something that I felt like I could exploit.’

Speaking about getting his tongue lasered to resemble that of a lizards he revealed he ‘designed the procedure.’

Erik explained: ‘The doctor who did it wanted to do it on me as a guinea pig, this was back in 1997, at the time he only charged me the cost of the use of his surgical theatre, which was $600 at the time.

‘My tongue being split wasn’t actually that painful because they gave me a shot of Lidocaine [local anaesthetic].