Melange (), often referred to as "the spice", is the fictional psychedelic drug central to the Dune series of science fiction novels by Frank Herbert and derivative works.
In the series, the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe is melange, a drug that gives the user a longer life span, greater vitality, and heightened awareness. In some humans, the spice can also unlock prescience, a form of precognition based in genetics but made possible by use of the drug in larger dosages. By far the most important of prescience’s functions is that it makes safe and accurate interstellar travel possible. However, melange is also highly addictive, and withdrawal is fatal. Harvesting melange is also hazardous in the extreme, as its only known source is the harsh desert planet Arrakis, where its deposits are guarded by giant sandworms.
Description
Properties
Melange is a drug that prolongs life and bestows heightened vitality and awareness, and in some humans unlocks prescience, a form of precognition based in genetics but made possible by use of the spice. In the story, the Spacing Guild uses humans mutated by excessive consumption of melange, and thereby endowed with limited prescience, to safely navigate heighliner starships through folded space. In larger quantities, the spice possesses intense psychotropic effects and is used as a powerful entheogen by both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen people of Arrakis to initiate clairvoyant and precognitive trances, access genetic memory, and heighten other abilities. Melange can be mixed with food, and it is used to make beverages such as spice coffee, spice beer, and spice liquor. which is something of a source of pride among the Fremen and a symbol of their tribal bond. In Dune, Paul initially has green eyes, but after several years on Arrakis they begin to take on the deep, uniform blue of the Fremen. On other planets, the addicted often use tinted contact lenses to hide this discoloration. In Dune, Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV notes of two Guildsmen: and withdrawal means certain death. Herbert also indicates fluorescence in God Emperor of Dune (1981) when the character Moneo notes: "Great bins of melange lay all around in a gigantic room cut from native rock and illuminated by glowglobes ... The spice had glowed radiant blue in the dim silver light. And the smell—bitter cinnamon, unmistakable." Herbert writes repeatedly, starting in Dune (1965), that melange smells like cinnamon. In Dune, Lady Jessica notes that her first taste of spice "tasted like cinnamon". and millennia later called simply "Rakis". the "half-plant–half-animal deep-sand vector of the Arrakis sandworm". Gases are produced which result in "a characteristic 'blow', exchanging the material from deep underground for the matter on the surface above it."
Although Tleilaxu Master Hidar Fen Ajidica manages to create an artificial melange (called "ajidamal", or "amal") that seems to have the original's properties, it does not work properly. Test-sandtrout explode when exposed to it, and Fenring's test of its use by Guild Navigators ends in catastrophe as one heighliner and its passengers are destroyed and the Navigator of a second heighliner dies. When Duke Leto Atreides invades Xuttuh in 10,175 A.G. and reestablishes Prince Rhombur of House Vernius as ruler of Ix, all the records of Project Amal are destroyed by Fenring. When the news hits the Landsraad, Shaddam denies all participation, claiming never to have heard of it. He maintains that it had probably been something his senile father Elrood had done in his last days. The Tleilaxu Masters involved are ultimately executed. Ajidica himself dies from the side effects of ajidamal: his body literally falls apart as the synthetic melange eats its way from the inside out.
Analysis
In Mycelium Running, mycologist Paul Stamets argues that Herbert's creation of melange was related in part to his own personal experiences with psilocybin mushrooms. Carol Hart analyzes the concept of the drug in the essay "Melange" in The Science of Dune (2008). Also in Science of Dune,
Csilla Csori analyzes the concept of prescience in the essay "Prescience and Prophecy".
See also
- Nootropics
- Synthetic cannabinoids, a real-life class of drugs sometimes called "spice"
- Psilocybin mushrooms
- Psilocybin
- Soma, fictional drug from the 1932 novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley