An Account Where Almost Nothing Happens (and Why That Matters)
Much of the literature on altered states gravitates toward the spectacular: intricate geometries, synesthesia, ego dissolution. The account reviewed here heads in the exact opposite direction. It chronicles a Sunday afternoon in the mid-1980s when a subject ingests an experimental compound, only to discover that what is truly unsettling is not seeing too much, but feeling too little.
The account comes from the Shulgin archives, the American research couple who chronicled dozens of phenethylamines through an autobiographical lens. In their books, Ann and Alexander Shulgin appear under the pseudonyms “Alice” and “Shura.” The narrator here is Alice; the substance is DESOXY (3,5-dimethoxy-4-methylphenethylamine).
What the Account Describes
The scene opens without a trace of glamour: the narrator is trying to sort through a detested pile of accumulated clothes and clutter, wrestling with that all-too-familiar blend of procrastination and self-reproach. From his office, Shura asks if she would be willing to volunteer for an assay. He has already taken a modest amount of DESOXY without feeling anything and wants to see what happens one step higher. His prediction is unequivocal: most likely nothing will happen; at best, a bare threshold.
That prediction rests on a technical concept the text itself outlines: the dose-response curve. For many phenethylamines of this class, the Shulgins note, the slope is gentle; if a given amount produces nothing, doubling it rarely shifts the picture dramatically. The narrator also highlights a sound principle of early self-experimentation: one does not make large dosage jumps with novel compounds.
Reality defied the theory. Forty minutes in, Alice notices that “something has changed,” though she cannot pin it down. There is no marked body load, no rippling on the walls, no movement in the curtains—the sensory benchmarks she and Shura typically look for. What emerges is entirely different: the hillside outside the window takes on an unsettling cast, and above all, a profound absence of emotion sets in.
The Core of the Experience: Quenched Emotion
The heart of the text is this affective detachment. Alice steps out into the garden at Shura’s suggestion and describes a state devoid of fear, euphoria, or sadness: only mild irritability and the realization that the landscape “exists very intensely, but not in relation to me.” Everything appears cold, transparent, and remote.
From this comes the most intriguing reflection in the narrative, posed by Alice herself: what if this coolness is not a flaw of the drug, but a way of seeing nature “as it is,” stripped of the emotional projection humans cast onto rivers, trees, and mountains? It is a speculative hypothesis—not a pharmacological fact—yet it captures the texture of the state: the mind continues to operate, observe, and reason, while the affective bond with what is observed remains suspended.
There is a telling detail. At one point, Alice thinks “damn drug” and realizes that the phrase paradoxically implies feeling: somewhere beneath the surface there is anger, even if she cannot “connect” with it. She knows it is there, knows she will be able to feel it the next day, but in that moment she can only register it in the abstract. It is a remarkably sharp description of what clinical psychiatry identifies as emotional blunting or depersonalization phenomena.
The Aftermath: Discomfort, Not Wonder
The evening winds down with tomato soup, bread, and a sober verdict from both: “a surprising experiment,” certainly, but not an enjoyable one. The effects subside into the night, leaving behind a lingering emotional flatness. Once in bed, minor neurological discomforts appear—a sudden hypnic jerk while drifting off, a high-pitched tinnitus the narrator recognizes as familiar—which she logs as evidence that the body’s “wiring” is sensitive to the compound. There is no epiphany, no glowing recommendation: only objective observation.
Critical Reading and Harm Reduction
This account should be approached for what it is: a literary and autobiographical account written by its subjects, not a formal study. A few critical caveats:
- This is not a guide. The quantities and procedures described belong to a self-experimentation context from decades ago, conducted without modern research controls. Do not attempt to replicate them; you will not find sourcing, preparation, or consumption instructions here.
- “I felt nothing” does not equal “it is harmless.” The account itself demonstrates that a compound can seem inactive at one dose and trigger pronounced effects slightly higher up, with individual sensitivity being notoriously difficult to predict. The dose-response curve is a conceptual model, not a safety guarantee.
- Emotional blunting is an adverse effect, not a harmless curiosity. Affective anesthesia and detachment may feel neutral or even intriguing during the experience, but in other settings (such as pharmaceuticals or dissociative disorders) they are considered clinically significant. Romanticizing them is counterproductive.
- Set, setting, and support matter. What made the episode “manageable” in this narrative was not the drug, but a secure environment and the presence of a trusted partner tracking physical and mental states.
- Research chemicals carry legal and health uncertainties. The dearth of toxicological data on obscure phenethylamines represents a substantial risk in its own right.
Source note: The material originates from the Shulgins’ autobiographical writings. For readers interested in primary sources, various educational resources document their work (including the Spanish-language publishing initiative Libros de Shulgin and the site shulgin.es). We cite these references by name without endorsing specific claims: the text’s value is historical and testimonial, and must be evaluated critically.
