Melange (Dune)

Melange (/meɪˈlɑːnʒ/), 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.

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. The Fremen also use the spice to make, among other things, paper, plastics, and chemical explosives, and the existence of "spice-cloth" and "spice-fiber" rugs are noted in Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune (1976). Melange can be mixed with food, and it is used to make beverages such as spice coffee, spice beer, and spice liquor.

By the events of Dune, the spice is used all over the universe and is a sign of wealth. Duke Leto Atreides notes that of every valuable commodity known to mankind, "all fades before melange. A handful of spice will buy a home on Tupile." Jon Michaud of The New Yorker wrote: "Imagine a substance with the combined worldwide value of cocaine and petroleum and you will have some idea of the power of melange." Due to the rarity and value of melange and its necessity as a catalyst for interstellar travel, the Padishah Emperor's power at the outset of Dune is secured by his control of Arrakis, which puts him on equal footing with both the assembly of noble families called the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild, which monopolizes interstellar travel. Seizing control of the planet, Paul Atreides intensifies this form of hydraulic despotism by asserting control over both the Landsraad and Spacing Guild, as well as other factions in the universe. Paul's sister Alia says in Children of Dune, "The spice often called 'the secret coinage'. Without melange, the Spacing Guild's heighliners could not move ... Without melange and its amplification of the human immunogenic system, life expectancy for the very rich degenerated by a factor of at least four. Even the vast middle class of the Imperium ate diluted melange in small sprinklings with at least one meal a day."

Extensive use of the drug tints the sclera, cornea, and iris of the user to a dark shade of blue, called "blue-in-blue" or "the Eyes of Ibad", 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:

The taller of the two, though, held a hand to his left eye. As the Emperor watched, someone jostled the Guildsman's arm, the hand moved, and the eye was revealed. The man had lost one of his masking contact lenses, and the eye stared out a total blue so dark as to be almost black.

Melange is also highly addictive, and withdrawal means certain death. Paul Atreides notes in Dune that the spice is "[a] poison—so subtle, so insidious... so irreversible. It won't even kill you unless you stop taking it." When aerosolized and used as an inhalant in extremely high dosages—the standard practice for Guild Navigators—the drug alters the physiology of its user. In the first chapter of Dune Messiah, Guild Navigator Edric is described in his tank of spice gas as "an elongated figure, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands—a fish in a strange sea."

In Children of Dune, the term "spice trance" is used to describe the effects of an overdose of spice. Alia had previously subjected herself to such an overdose late in Dune Messiah, hoping to enhance her prescient visions. She achieves some success, but in Children of Dune, Leto II and Ghanima blame the trance for Alia's descent into Abomination. Fearful of the same fate, they resist Alia's urgings to undergo the spice trance themselves. The trial is later forced upon Leto at Jacurutu when it is suspected that he too is an Abomination. Leto survives the challenge and escapes, but is left changed. Unlike Alia, however, he remains in control, and the spice trance opens his eyes to the Golden Path that will ultimately save humanity.