The Pleasures and Pains of Opium

Eli's View:

Synopsis: (Extract from Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821) A young Thomas De Quincey started taking opium in 1804 and - big surprise - he kinda liked it. By 1813, De Quincey was using the "panacea for all human woes" every day, but he was otherwise happy and functional up until 1817, when he found himself wracked by depression, lethargy and some truly fucked-up nightmares.

What I learned: Opium can be a part of this nutritious breakfast for a surprisingly long time (provided you don't overuse it.) Oh - and apparently John Dryden and Henry Fuseli sometimes ate raw meat in order to obtain "splendid dreams".

Memorable Line: "I ran into pagodas: and was fixed, for centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid in wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried, for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles; and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud." (De Quincey describing some of his later dreams)

You might like this book if: you want to know more about drug addiction, but somehow found The Wire to be intellectually lowbrow.

Life Lesson: If your subconscious mind is fucking wth you that badly, it might be trying to tell you something.