In preparing this study of drug themes in science fiction, I have employed the following categorical designations:
Drugs as Euphorics: Drugs that give pleasure in simple unstructured ways, through release from depression and tension, much as alcohol does in our society (though alcohol is not strictly speaking a euphoric, of course).
Drugs as Mind Expanders: Drugs that provide "psychedelic" visions of other times or places or that offer a sensation of oneness with the cosmos as a whole; analogous to LSD in our society.
Drugs as Panaceas: Drugs which, through tranquilizing or neutralizing effects, calm the mind without necessarily inducing euphoria.
Drugs as Mind Controllers: Drugs that enable one entity to limit or direct the activities or desires of another; analogous to brain-washing, and generally associated with totalitarian activities.
Drugs as Intelligence-Enhancers: Drugs which have the specific property of extending or amplifying the rational processes of the mind.
Drugs as Sensation-Enhancers: Drugs whose effects are achieved through amplified or extended bodily sensation-response, perhaps analogous to marijuana in our society.
Drugs as Reality-Testers: Drugs which permit the user to penetrate the "real" realities beyond the surface manifestations of daily life.
Drugs as Mind-Injurers: Drugs used as weapons in biochemical warfare, aimed at the mind.
Drugs as Means of Communication: Drugs that have the specific property of opening hitherto unknown channels of communication between minds.
Two distinct attitudes toward the use of mind-related drugs have manifested themselves in science fiction. One is cautionary: that any extraordinary indulgence in extraordinary drugs is likely to rot the moral fiber of the user, leading to lassitude and general decay of the individual or of society, and ultimately, perhaps, aiding the establishment of a totalitarian order. The other is visionary and utopian: that through the employment of drugs mankind can attain spiritual or psychological powers not ordinarily available, and by so doing can enter into a new and higher phase of existence.
This latter attitude has become far more widespread since 1965, when middle-class use of hallucinogenic and euphoric drugs in western industrial civilization first began to take on the aspect of a major cultural shift. The cultural assumption of science fiction as a whole can clearly be seen to follow, rather than to lead, public opinion: most science fiction published in the twentieth century has been mass-
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