Mice on Acid

In the bowels of an animal research facility at Oxford University, mice are stirring in cages. Half of them have been given an injection of saline solution and behave like the docile house pet of your local fifth-grader. The other half have been given DOI, a drug chemically similar to LSD, and are, as the term of art would have it, tripping balls.

What exactly a mouse sees when she’s tripping on DOI—whether the plexiglass walls of her cage begin to melt, or whether the wood chips begin to crawl around like caterpillars—is tied up in the private mysteries of what it’s like to be a mouse. We can’t ask her directly, and, even if we did, her answer probably wouldn’t be of much help.

There was just nothing left except this non-self experiencing this icy light of unbearable intensity.

But the signals that the tectonic plates of a mouse’s reality are shifting beneath her feet are well-documented. Those are the signals that Merima Sabanovic, a