...of opium

The doctor came, with his beard three hand's-breadths long, and prescribed opium to me. What a marvellous remedy for the pains of my existence! Whenever I smoked opium my ideas acquired grandeur, subtlety, magic and sublimity and I moved into another sphere beyond the boundaries of the ordinary world. My thoughts were freed from the weight of material reality and soared towards an empyrean of tranquility and silence. I felt as though I was borne on the wings of a golden bat and ranged through a radiant, empty world with no obstacle to block my progress. So profound and delicious was the sensation I experienced that the delight it gave me was stronger than death itself.

[The Blind Owl, Hedayat, S.]