A story where almost nothing happens (and that’s why it matters)
Much of the literature on altered states seeks the spectacular: geometries, synesthesia, ego dissolution. The text we review here goes in the opposite direction. It is the chronicle of a Sunday afternoon in the mid-eighties, in which a person ingests an experimental substance and discovers that what is disturbing is not seeing too much, but feeling too little.
The story belongs to the universe of the Shulgins, the couple of American researchers who documented dozens of phenethylamines in an autobiographical key. In their books, Ann and Alexander Shulgin appear under the names “Alice” and “Shura.” The narrator here is Alice; the substance is DESOXY (3,5-dimethoxy-4-methylphenethylamine).
What the testimony tells us
The scene starts with something very unglamorous: the narrator tries to organize a pile of clothes and accumulated objects she detests, dealing with that mixture of laziness and self-reproach that is so recognizable. From his office, Shura suggests she collaborate as a volunteer in a test. He has already taken an amount of DESOXY without noticing anything and wants to check what happens one step higher. His forecast is blunt: it is most likely that there will be no effect at all; at most, a threshold.
That forecast is based on a technical idea that the story itself explains: the dose-response curve. For many phenethylamines of this type, the Shulgins say, the slope is not very steep; if one amount produces nothing, doubling it rarely changes the picture. The narrator also points out a good practice of early self-experimentation: large jumps in dosage are generally not made with new compounds.
Reality contradicts the theory. After forty minutes, Alice notices that “something has changed,” although she cannot define it. There is no clear body load, no ripples on the walls, and no movement in the curtains—the markers she and Shura usually look for. What appears is something else: the mountain seen through the window takes on an unsettling appearance, and above all, a lack of emotion sets in.
The center of the experience: the dampened emotion
The core of the text is that affective detachment. Alice goes out into the garden at Shura’s suggestion and describes a state in which there is no fear, no euphoria, and no sadness: only a slight irritability and the realization that the landscape “exists very intensely, but not in relation to me.” Everything seems cold, transparent, and distant to her.
From there arises the most interesting reflection of the story, formulated by the narrator herself: what if that coldness is not a defect of the substance, but a way of seeing nature “as it is,” stripped of the emotional projection that humans pour onto rivers, trees, and mountains? It is a speculative hypothesis—not a pharmacological truth—but it captures the texture of the state well: the mind continues to function, observe, and reason, and yet the emotional bond with what is observed remains suspended.
There is a revealing detail. At some point, Alice thinks “damn drug” and realizes that this expression implies, paradoxically, a feeling: somewhere there is anger, even if she cannot “connect” with it. She knows it is there, she knows she will be able to experience it the next day, but in that present, she only recognizes it abstractly. It is a remarkably fine description of what clinically approaches affective blunting or phenomena of depersonalization.
The conclusion: discomfort, not wonder
The evening ends with tomato soup, bread, and a sober conclusion from both: “a surprising experiment,” yes, but not a pleasant one. The effect subsides toward the night, leaving a residue of emotional flatness. Once in bed, small neurological discomforts appear—a sudden jerk when falling asleep, a sharp tinnitus that the narrator recognizes as recurring—which she notes as a sign that the body’s “wiring” is sensitive to the substance. There is no epiphany, no enthusiastic recommendation: there is observation.
Critical reading and harm reduction
It is advisable to read this text for what it is: a literary and autobiographical testimony, written by its protagonists, not a study. Some cautions:
- It is not a guide. The amounts and procedures that appear belong to a context of self-experimentation from decades ago, without the controls of current research. Do not reproduce them; you will not find instructions for obtaining, preparing, or consuming here.
- “I didn’t notice anything” is not equivalent to “it is harmless.” The story itself shows that a compound can seem inactive at one dose and produce marked effects just a little higher, with individual sensitivity that is difficult to predict. The dose-response curve is a conceptual tool, not a guarantee.
- Emotional flattening is an effect, not an anecdote. Affective anesthesia and detachment can be experienced as neutral or even interesting during the episode, but they are conditions that in other contexts (medications, dissociative disorders) are considered clinically relevant. Romanticizing them does not help.
- Context and support matter. What makes the episode “manageable” in the story is not the substance, but the safe environment and the presence of a trusted person attentive to physical and mental progress.
- Research chemicals carry legal and health uncertainty. The scarcity of toxicological data on many understudied phenethylamines is, in itself, a risk to consider.
About the sources: the material comes from the Shulgins’ autobiographical corpus. For those who want to go to the source, there are educational resources associated with their work in Spanish (the publishing project known as “Libros de Shulgin” and the site shulgin.es). We cite those references by name, without endorsing specific claims: the value of the text is testimonial, and as such, it must be cross-referenced.
