In 1868, Laura Jernegan, a 6 year old girl from Massachusetts, USA set out on a three year whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean. During this voyage Laura wrote a journal about her life on the whale ship. She mainly notes banal daily events but occasionally describes the slaughter of whales in great detail. I took Laura’s diary and the idea that, as a 6 year old seeing whales being slaughtered, may cause a huge psychological trauma in later years. ELECTRIC OIL tells the story of Laura, through the eyes of her psychologist, who lived with the rare disease of being allergic to oil. In this film, her physiologist discovers the moment Laura remembered the stimulus for her disease - during her 3 years aboard her father’s whaling ship.