A Scanner Darkly

I haven't read the book yet, but I loved the movie. What I want to know, is what is substance D supposed to be? I know he was making reference to something. Originally, I thought it was meth (and other amphetamines), because of the bug scene in the beginning. Then I later had thought it to be heroin, because of all the deaths mentioned in the end and the little flower being grown among crops. I mean, vascular damage and pancreas damage (as mentioned in the end) along with all the deaths mentioned in the end credits... it seems like it would be. I know going through withdrawl and from strong opium you can hallucinate, but I've never heard of psychosis. Then, I later thought cocaine. That could be it? But this was in the 60/70's when it was written. So through process of elimination, I can say with certainty it isn't coke. I think what it really is in reference to, is the drug culture in general. Or PCP. But PCP just doesn't seem to fit the plot... The charectors seem too intelligent. Any thoughts or facts to be shared?

Maybe it would be like an LSD trip you could never come out of.

It's a made up drug. The story takes place in the future, and this new drug is introduced into society.

I dont believe it's a reference to any specific drug in any way.

The movie was awesome, I just saw it for the first time last week. I definately plan on buying the book and reading it, I only wish I'd read the book first.

a shit that movie was trippy son. but it took me 5 times to get through it if your smoking and its late at nite you will fall asleep and if your really high u wont even know what going on. great watch though.

dud its the dank that im growing in my garage.

crazy movie

Lets all keep in mind that Philip K DIck was a speed freak of the highest order...


A Scanner Darkly was written in under 36 hours while Phil was mainlining meth, writing around the clock.

genkisan said:

Lets all keep in mind that Philip K DIck was a speed freak of the highest order...


A Scanner Darkly was written in under 36 hours while Phil was mainlining meth, writing around the clock.

Click to expand...

o rly?

I believe its a metaphor for 'D'eath.

I think somewhere in the movie they even call it the slow death.

Theres a line at the end "I saw death rising from the ground"

GREAT movie nonetheless....almost got a tear out of me at the end.

Well, obviously substance D was made up. But, I guess it would make sense if it were in comparisson to speed. Then again... I saw death rising out of the ground... that's why I thought it was poppies.

I loved this movie I had to go see it twice in the theatres! Waking LIfe now that is my FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIMEEEEEEEEEEE

Verite said:

I believe its a metaphor for 'D'eath.

I think somewhere in the movie they even call it the slow death.

Click to expand...

yep they do.


very trippy movie..

it was kind of funny i guess.. i was high when i saw it, and it just didnt appeal to me.

but if i could sum up that drug, it would probably be coke or speed, acid and bottle of whiskey rolled in one. not really one in particular.

I liked the animation! it was trippy..

I CANT BELIVENE NONE OF YOU KNOW WHAT SUBSTANCE D IS.

i know im not in a drug forum but chemicals like < DOI,DOB,DOC,ALD,dom,and a few others> are the chemicals most like substance D and fairly easy to get right now in the usa , but usually you will be told its acid or "doses" ouch huh

if you dont agree im sure i could find a few people to help change your mind or better yet you can go be a human guinea pig and try some of these chemicals

great movie though

No Blue flowers but this stuff is it EphedraD, todays death


Substance D can be anything, I think in the wrong hands.

As Phillip K Dick writes....

AUTHOR'S NOTE





This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each.

Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.

There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in the newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.

If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all. Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love:



To Gaylene deceased

To Ray deceased

To Francy permanent psychosis

To Kathy permanent brain damage

To Jim deceased

To Val massive permanent brain damage

To Nancy permanent psychosis

To Joanne permanent brain damage

To Maren deceased

To Nick deceased

To Terry deceased

To Dennis deceased

To Phil permanent pancreatic damage

To Sue permanent vascular damage

To Jerri permanent psychosis and vascular damage



. . . and so forth.

In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.