If you got the chance to feel like you were on cocaine without actually consuming it, would you? In 2008 Idoser.com sold over 10,000 “doses” of recreational drugs, without shipping a single thing. How? Like I-tunes, I-Doser is a music database, except for digital drugs. The company claims that by listening to the “binaural” beats pumping through high-quality headphones, the user’s brainwaves become synchronized in ways normally associated with recreational drug use.
These beats are able to cause a state of mood lift, euphoria, sedation, and hallucination. This is a considerably safe experience as long as you lay in bed, close your eyes and don’t play with the frequencies – leave that to the professionals. According to the company, their professionals are tonal experts, programmers, testers, researchers and administrators.
The Dangers In Using Digital Drugs Like iDoser
Digital doses can also instill a sensual sensation as well as mood changes. Allegedly, it is able to enhance “recreational drug taking with doses supplied with I-Doser.” Essentially they say their digital drugs are the perfect complement to the real thing.
If Idoser’s claims are true, then just like any other drug their offerings can be just as harmful. I-Dosing while driving would be just as dangerous as getting high from the actual drug, with all the motor and cognitive impairments that come along. These effects change the user’s perception of reality. I-Doser continues to enforce the use of drug inducing sensations whether digitally or through “legal” buds. The company advertises on its website for “legal” buds of marijuana and hash promoting the use of drugs that alter the client’s mood and perception.
In a society with rampant recreational drug use, I-Doser is an especially creative entry into the crowded field of recreational drugs. Odorless, undetectable, and, thanks to the era of the personal media player, always accesssible. This accessibility is dangerous and allows listeners to legally get high virtually anywhere. Imagine this in the classroom; with students occupied by getting high legally, they would pay less attention during class.
Does iDoser work?
Users of I-Doser voice their opinions on forums on Idoser.com and other internet sites to explain their own unique experiences with digital drugs. It’s unclear that digital doses can work for everyone, or will work as quickly and efficiently for everyone. I-Doser.com states that its users “fall into one of 3 categories: Susceptible to Binaural Beats, Originally Unsusceptible to Binuaral Beats, and Immune to Binaural Beats,” with the chance that the I-Doser binaural beat experience won’t affect some people. I-Doser offers free doses so customers can see how the digital drugs affect them. Allegedly, some users have reported that it may take several repeated uses over a period of time before a client is able to see results.
Those that wrote their experiences on the I-Doser website are mostly positive. One wrote that a dose let her hallucinate that she was on train tracks and helpless; “The train hit me and I saw my body fly into the air like a rag doll.” Youtubers have posted their experiences with certain doses like “Gate of Hades,” which looks frightening to the eye because of the user’s heavy breathing and rapid heartbeat. On a forum on the I-Doser website, one person wrote about his terrifying gates of hades experience. He claims he felt like he was going to die. His friend took the earphones off for him because he was screaming really loud. The user described that after the headphones were off every time his friend would talk to try to calm him down “he sounded like a demon.”
These terrifying, quasi-mystical experiences are best left to the risk takers. Maybe these digital doses can turn someone away from taking the actual drug, maybe digital doses is the safe way to feel a high from drugs, or maybe digital doses elicit a placebo effect. It is hard to say for sure, but an awful lot of people believe they are having real experiences. Individuals won’t find out until they try digital doses for themselves, just like they won’t find out the effects of consuming cocaine, crystal meth, or marijuana the illegal way.
The Future of iDoser
While this all sounds like a plot device from a bad sci-fi movie, at least one company is banking on its reality in a big way, and plenty of digital dopers are playing along. Digital doping could be a good thing, steering people away from drugs with bad physiological effects, and viewed by responsible society as the lesser of two evils.
On the other hand, a few well-publicized accidents by Idoser’s clientele could create a media firestorm, complete with hysterical parent groups and congressional action. Digital doses could possibly be deemed illegal or controlled substances because of the growing awareness of teenagers using I-Doser during school. There could be yet unrevealed dangers of using binaural tones to change brain activity. Whatever happens, Idoser could be a preview of a world where getting high is just a consequence-free button press away.