Frank and drugs

[TMA_1]

Frank knew what he was talking about with drugs. Either he was experianced himself, or he learned it through university with classes like psychopharmococonnetics. I have taken it actually, and chemical dependancy. I like to think I knoww hat I am talking about with that stuff, plus I had some issues involving it. If you read what he talked about, the specific way he describes highs for each drug. it is pretty odd.

In almost every book, there is experamenting with drugs. From LSD, to cannabis and Jaspers. To semuta and spice. the list is pretty large. Each ofthem has it's own uses.

Semuta for example sounds like a powerful depressent and anesthetic. People on it are often in their own world, glazed eyes, destracted set of mind. They are prone to lack of attention because of the pleasure they recieve. It also talks about being able to enter trance states through music. There are indeed drugs of this sort where you can enter trance states through any sort of repetitive action. One that pops up to mind is Soma, or fly ageric. The steriotypical mushroom with a red cap and white warts on top.

Verite is another example. It seems actually to be a hypnotic. It doesnt really destroy will as much as it destroys the inhebitions of somebody who is on it. PCP or the "truthtelling" drugs have the same type of qualities. They often as well give a similar feeling of a body high like depressents. a certain amount of euphoria like semuta would. What it does is it takes away any sort of sense of responsibility or personal safty. As I said the inhebitions are gone so taht you could tell a person heavily induced with verite something like "if you jump off that cliff, the angels will pick you up because they protect everybody. They might even dance with you in the sky." A person that is heavily drugged on that sort of chemical could potentially believe the person if he had a low personal sense of willpower.

Spice is somewhat of a hellucinegenic, and a stimulant, and some other classes as well. It races the mind, enabling it to think at higher levels and with great speed. it also can have the tendancy to make one ramble, both verbally and in the mind as well. It also can make one hellucenate, as well as "think on different plains of existance". The typical drug enduced spiritual adventure. The thing is though, this drug actually does create quasi spiritual trips. The reason being is it actually effects the part of the brain that deals with time-space. This is why it is in a class all on it's own. with hints of other classes, but cant be pinned down on those classes.

These are just a few of the Drugs listed in Dune that I thought I would go into depth with my opinion. remember it is just how I see them. What do you guys think about it? agree with my ideas? dont you agree as well that frank really enjoyed going into man's relationships with drugs? Have any good opinions as to why he did this?

[Tio_Holtzmann]

I dunno. I think though he was trying to make a point with spice, I don't think it can be compared exactly to any drugs of ours, I think Darwi Odrade says that spice is the only drug in humanity's history that actually benefits mankind, or something along those lines.

But yeah I see where you're coming from.

Sapho=very definitely speed.

Elacca=any drugs make you go psycho?

Sorry, can't help much, haven't been there. Wouldn't you just kill to visit Ecaz for a day!

[Egeides]

Man's relationship with drugs is very important. Throughout history, you can see the rise of religions in parallel to drug consumption. You can also see that it changed many people's life (cigarette, pot, alcool...) and is present in EVERY society. When it is not present somewhere, well it's simply given a bigger importance: it's prohibited. Opium was sent to China by England to thrash their whole system and bring importations in. Some countries have huge problems because everyone is on drugs, thus totally controllable and inactive. Which drugs you find in a society and its level of propagation in this society changes many things about this society, should it be politically, culturally, economically or socially. I think all this is why Frank Herbert had a vision of which drugs should be in the Duniverse's society.

If you want to know more about it, should it be drugs vs society, drugs vs spirituality, drugs vs senses, drugs vs history or anything else, perhaps you would be very interested in a book called Moksha. It was out of print but recently they made a reedition. In there you can find everything Aldous Huxley wrote on the subject, including his conferences, personal letters and notes (all in chronological order). Aldous Huxley wrote The Doors of Perception which was a cult book for the whole hippy movement, Brave New World where a whole society is defenseless because of soma, and more.

[TMA_1]

sounds cool, but I like to get my own non biased information about the direct effect of Drugs, and historical accounts of their use. I am more interested in studying every drug and their exact effects. What humanity does with them is the same in every culture. Ill look into the book though. thanks :)

Forgot to mention Sapho. It isnt speed at all, as a matter of fact many question that it even does anything. If there are effects though, it seems to make the mind race much like cocaine or speed. The sound of it is more familiar to cocaine though. It comes from a certain plant from ecaz.

Also elacca wood is where they get semuta, I forgot where they recieve verite. A funny story comes from the DE. It says that an expedition one night lost power in their prefabricated building. THey had to go out with some essensials to sleep so that they could make a fire to keep warm. They got some branches from a certain tree, and when it was lit, the smoke started to intoxicate them. most of them were killed because of their complete lack of self protection. one guy bled to death by cutting himself. Reports on verite were made and obviously the empire could find some evil use for it.lol

[Tio_Holtzmann]

Actually yeah I shouldn't really have said speed. Are pep-pills like a mild form of speed?

[Duncan_ghola]

of course he had his experience with drugs, it even said so in his biography, dreamer of dune i think he experienced drugs 3 times?

[NeoDevilbane]

Oh, Frank was a hippie. No question about it.

As for Melange, I compare it to Methamphetamine/Crank/Speed (or,in Diet Crank form, perhaps Cocaine). I know when I was a little bit younger I did MAD amounts of crank and coke (though coke had the same high as crank it never lasted as long or was *Quite* as creatively potent) and was able to churn out the most AMAZING works of fiction, fanfiction, and screenplays I've since been unable to replicate since going clean (aside from alcolhol, of course).

- Neo