” Altered States” by Paddy Chayefsky is a science fiction / horror novel originally published in 1978 . I have a hardback which has 184 pages .

A scientist conducts an expirement on himself using isolation tanks and a drug he got from a nativ tribe in order to get in touch with a more primative form of man . Well, um , it works but turns out to have violent repercussions .

Reading online , I know a lot of people love this book . Hell , it had a fairly popular movie made from it . So I’m going to put this in a polite way … I found this novel to be both dull and pretentious . This book feels like a rejected Michael Crichton first draft .