I have always been a fan of science fiction, not necessarily for its action-packed space battles or for having horrible monsters wreak havoc on innocent bystanders, but for the slight moral interjections offered below the surface of every story. Recently, I started wondering if the projected ideas of science fiction are becoming a reality.

One day, while I was sitting in my residence hall room, typing away on my computer, my roommate came in and asked, “Have you ever heard of I-drugs?” At that time, I had neither heard of, nor could I even guess what an I-drug was. My ignorance was soon washed away when I learned the name “I-Doser.”

I-Doser Labs claims on its Web site, I-Doser.com, to be “the industry leader in binaural brainwave technology.” The company offers audio technology which allows a listener to induce a “state of mood lift, euphoria, sedation and hallucination.” When I checked the Web site on April 16, I-Doser was offering doses of marijuana, peyote, opium and cocaine. However, it looks as if those specific drugs have now been removed from I-Doser’s main Web page.

Freshman English major Luke Holm has tried some of the I-drugs with mixed results.

“I’ve done a couple,” he says, “cocaine, marijuana, French roast and nitrous.”

Some of the tracks seemed to have no effect at all, but after using simulated cocaine, he was able to stay awake from 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. without ever growing tired. Even when he woke up at 7 a.m., with only an hour-and-a-half of sleep, he still felt “refreshed.”

It seems odd to think that plugging a set of headphones into your computer can cause such a profound result, but perhaps there is some fact to this new scientific myth.

Whether you take this as scientific fact or science fiction, I-Doser could be gaining ground among users. I remember watching news specials about college students using sleeping pills or Ritalin to stay awake, but now the reality might become students pumping up the volume instead of popping pills. Either way, it all seems dangerous to me.

People should always ask what purpose every leap in technology offers. I-Doser offers a possibility for people to feel the effects of recreational drugs without the feared side effects of addiction or physical harm. Because of this, and because I-Doser is selling a product, I only see the company attempting to make money from people’s desire to escape reality. What is worse is the possible shift from a culture of drug users to a culture of technology addicts.

I understand the inevitable reluctance to accept this story as more than myth, but with every myth there is a dose of reality. If people ignore the trends of their time, they will regret the results of their future.