Dylar

Dylar is a fictional psychoactive drug that appears in Don DeLillo's novel White Noise and is intended to remove the fear of death. However, the drug does not work properly and extended use sometimes results in insanity. Extended users interpret spoken words and metaphor as actual actions and events. In an instance presented in the novel, the spoken phrase "hail of bullets" causes a Dylar-using character to panic, drop to the floor and crawl to shelter.

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The drug is only produced on an experimental, highly secretive basis and comes in the form of a small white pill with an insoluble polymer coating containing only a minute hole. During digestion water enters through the polymer coating and the active ingredients begin to dissolve, but can only leave the polymer coating through the tiny laser drilled hole, creating a highly controlled release of the chemical. When empty, the coating collapses in on itself and passes through the remaining digestive tract harmlessly.

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Don DeLillo: Don DeLillo (born November 20 1936) is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He currently lives in New York City....

White Noise: White noise is a random signal (or process) with a flat power spectral density. In other words, the signal's power spectral density has equal power in any band, at any centre frequency, having a given bandwidth....

Metaphor: In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Typically, a first object is described as being or having the properties of a second object. In this way, the first object can be economically described because implicit and explici...