Digital Drugs: Stupid Kid Fad or the Real Deal?

I can’t be the only one amused by the news stories that surfaced last week about kids i-dosing on “digital drugs.” Silly kids! The newscasters, as per usual, overreacted to a stupid kid trend and ran with the alarmist news stories that only cause even more kids to seek out “digital drugs.”

I never even knew such a thing existed until the video clips of some Oklahoma newscast warning about the dangers of digital drugs recently hit the internet. Digital drugs? What the hell is that? The story explained that digital drugs are monotonous binaural beats that you listen to with headphones, lying down in a relaxed state, with your eyes closed. You mean kids are…meditating?! Oh, sweet Jesus! The slippery slope is upon us! What will they do next? Yoga?

A quick Google search of “digital drugs” brought me straight to i-Doser.com—the George Jung of digital crack dealers. They have an i-Doser application available for the PC, Mac, and iPhone that plays their digital drug, hallucinogenic, self-help, and relaxation tracks. I decided to go ahead and drop $5 on the iPhone app, which comes with some full-length tracks and previews of other tracks to buy once you’ve become a junkie. The tracks themselves run from $3 to $5. For the true marks, there are two premium tracks, Hand of God and Gates of Hades, that run $200 a piece. Just so you know, Hand of God is free on the iPhone app. In other words, you can buy an iPod and then download the $5 app containing Hand of God for roughly the same price as the track alone. Zenestex.com: Helping Fools Part With Their Money Since 2007.

I was in tears laughing at the YouTube videos of silly band wearing kids tripping while sporting headphones and mom’s sleeping mask. I had to try these things out for myself. I knew exactly what to expect. Not that I’m an aficionado of illegal narcotics. I’ve never tried drugs in my life unless you count alcohol and caffeine as drugs. Let’s rephrase that: I’ve never tried illegal drugs in my life and never will. See Nancy Reagan? All your Say No To Drugs and Me-ology bullshit from the 80’s worked on someone. I’m still terrified of the word “peer” to this day. I avoid its usage at all costs because, as a child, I was brainwashed into fearing the heinous peer pressure. The cartoons of cigarette smoking kids with leather jackets giving out drugs, which would hook me for all eternity, were etched in my brain. Peer is Satan. So, I have no basis for comparison when I try listening to a track labeled LSD to see how it fares against the real deal.

The description of the 30 minute LSD track said that I can expect an “increase in energy (stimulation), increase in associative and creative thinking, mood lift, increased awareness and appreciation, increased awareness of senses, closed and open eye visuals, and a profound life-changing spiritual experience.” For this experiment, I dove all in. I read the instructions and researched how to use these things. I saw a video of another test with some middle-aged weirdo sitting at his computer desk, eyes wide open, drinking Mountain Dew, and fidgeting the entire time like 5 year-old on a sugar-rush who was just scolded by his parents and told to sit in the corner. Unlike him, I was determined to give these things a fair chance.

While reading the usage instructions, I realized that I have seen this shit before. Yup, this is almost exactly how you meditate and prepare yourself for astral projection—just with sound instead of dead silence. Confession time: I had a phase during my freshman year in college where I wanted to induce an out of body experience, float to Mars, and see if there really was a giant face and pyramids. Oh, and you’re so normal? I-dosing is basically meditating with white noise. Nevertheless, I threw on my headphones, turned off the lights, laid back, closed my eyes and loaded up the LSD track.

The tracks seem to consist of three parts: random sound bites such as astronauts on the moon or generic music, static, and binaural beats. The binaural sounds are similar to the tones in a hearing test, but they are much more audible and quickly alternate from left ear to right ear. The effect is a little dizzying at first, but not a big deal.

If the effects of LSD are anything like that track, then drug addicts are bigger tools than I ever imagined. No, I’m not that naïve. I realize that real LSD must have more than a placebo effect—the CIA doesn’t fart around when it develops a drug to control a social uprising. The LSD i-Doser track, however, had no more effect than an average meditation. While listening to it, I achieved a state of full relaxation, cleared my mind, and then fell asleep about ¾ of the way through the track. I’ll admit it, I had some fucked up dreams when I fell asleep. I chalk that up to having bizarre noises being shot straight into my eardrums. It’s the same thing as sleeping with the television turned on. That scammer who looks like Daniel Larusso and tries to sell you a DVD about flipping houses also sneaks into my dreams every time that infomercial is on in the middle of the night. I hate that guy.

Listening to the LSD track wasn’t some spiritual journey through the depths of my soul. It was just a weird dream. Most are. I won’t go into the details of the dream. I hate dream sequences in fiction stories and I hate listening to people’s real dreams even more. So I would never subject you to that. People are always trying to derive some sort of sage wisdom or hidden prophetic message from their dreams. Basically, they are giving a vague self-psychic reading that can mean almost anything. Astrological masturbation.

I wasn’t about to try all the tracks that came with i-Doser, but I did try a few others including the Hand of God, Astral Projection, Out of Body Experience, and Marijuana. Like the LSD track, none of these tracks had any more effect than your average meditation. Not even the Premium, $200 Hand of God track did anything more than relax me. I did not experience “fluttering eyelids, great and almost supernatural clairvoyance, rings of light, and great insight.” Just 15 minutes of chill time. For the different tracks, the i-Doser elves just vary the sounds, the volume, and frequency of the binaural beats.

Parents, fear not! “Digital drugs” are bullshit. I really wanted these things to work, too. It would’ve made a much better article if I could have scribed an ode to How I Got High Listening to my iPhone. Instead, they just took binaural beats, which have been used for years for relaxation and meditation, and slapped drug names on them to get attention. The fact that I am writing this article is proof that their evil plan worked. You know, I can’t blame the parents for being concerned. If I had a kid and they were listening to a track entitled Cocaine that wasn’t made by Eric Clapton, then I’d be pissed, too. Kids, if you must participate in this ridiculous fad, save your money, download Gnaural, and roll your own tracks.