"Why would I want to make myself dumber?" Ashley asked her friend Jane.

"No, you don't get it. The thing Rachel made doesn't just make you dumber, it's... it's kind of hard to explain. It does something to your brain - makes more and more of it be involved in some really trippy stuff. Trust me, I've done drugs, and this stuff is better," Jane said.

Ashley looked around the college cafeteria. She had always been a little adventurous - a little weed on weekends to deal with the stress of keeping up with classes, that sort of thing. But this.... She had seen the video from last week, and some of the girls seemed practically catatonic.

"Don't worry," Jane said. "It's completely safe and reversible. I don't know all the details, but Rachel has been doing MRIs before and after on everyone, and she's been amazed by how little changes once you reverse the setting."

"I still don't know..." Ashley said. "It still seems dangerous. Altering my brain chemistry with targeted electrical shocks?"

"Rachel has figured everything out. I'm telling you, come on over to our party on Saturday. Try the lowest setting, and I bet you won't be able to stop."

Ashley sighed. She finally relented and agreed to go to the party.

"But no promises on actually wanting to use the device. I just want to see it in action."

"Sure," Jane said winking. "I'm sure you'll leave it entirely alone."

* * *

It was the night of the party, and Ashley was fashionably late. She walked up to Rachel's dorm room, and knocked on the door. She could hear muffled psychedelic music playing through the door.

A girl she didn't recognize answered. The pleasant smell of incense filled the air. Ashley could see a bunch of girls around the room. She didn't see Jane or Rachel there, just scanning the room.

"Um, where's Rachel?" Ashley asked.

The girl giggled. She had a blank look in her eyes, but she still seemed to have most of her wits about her. "She's over there."

Ashley looked over in the corner, and saw Rachel sitting on the ground grinning like an idiot, and laughing and guffawing at everything around her. Her movements were clumsy, and it was clear she was sometimes trying to stand up, but lacked the dexterity to do so.

"She's gone further than I've ever seen anyone go," the girl said admiringly. "I'm still only on the first setting. I agreed to be the trip sitter, but I couldn't resist." She twirled her hair and it was clear she was rocking a little back and forth, enjoying some sort of sensuous energy inside of herself. She almost seemed to be humping the air, although her movements were slow enough to create some plausible deniability.

Ashley walked up to Rachel.

"Rachel?" she asked.

Rachel's eyes slowly swung in the direction of Ashley's voice. She smiled a big goofy smile at Ashley, and clumsily clapped her hands. Rachel opened her mouth, but all that came out was some unintelligible gurgles.

"I think she's trying to speak, but, like, the parts of her brain involved in speech are part of the trip now," the girl said following her. "She's probably experiencing things most humans couldn't dream of."

"She looks severely mentally disabled," Ashley said.

"Hey, that's mean!" the girl said. "She's super smart, she just blissed out right now, that's all."

Ashley was prepared to argue. She obviously knew that Rachel was smart - she had invented the device that had all these girls stumbling around the dorm all blissed out. But she realized her effort would be wasted on the girl in front of her.

"What's your name, by the way," Ashley said.

"Oh, geez," the girl giggled. "I totally forgot to, like, introduce myself. I'm Ginger."

"Ginger," Ashley said. "Good to meet you, where is the device right now?"

"I think Eve had it," Ginger said, pointing to the corner.

The girls there seemed more capable than Rachel at least. They had plates of food in front of them, and were eating them with their spoons. Their movements were a bit clumsy, but they seemed to still have the manual dexterity to get them into their mouths without issue. All except for one girl, who seemed to have a helmet on her head.

"Eve, that's too much, you can, like, barely speak!" said one girl.

"Feels good!" Eve grunted, her mouth barely cooperating with forming words, and sounding a bit elongated and distorted. She had a spaced out look about her, and seemed to be reacting to many things in the room, both real and imagined. "Tastes good," she said, picking up her spoon and managing to get a little bit of food into her mouth, the rest falling to the floor.

"Shit, I think we should, like, take it away from her," another girl said.

Eve looked displeased when they tried to take the helmet and the attached control away from her.

"No," she said in her garbled way. "Want more! Higher!"

The girls around her frowned, but one of them said. "Okay, one more level, but no more than that. You don't want to end up like Rachel."

Eve smiled a big stupid smile, and twisted the dial in front of her, until it clicked one more time. For a moment, her arms went limp and she fell gently to her side, and she started moaning with intense pleasure. Ashley realized she must be having an orgasm. Eventually, Eve sat back up, but it was clear her movements were even more unsteady than before.

"Fun!" she said, the word barely intelligible. "Fun, fun, fun!" She clapped her hands, and it seemed like her face was a little droopy, like not all the muscles were cooperating in ordering their movement.

"That's enough," the girls said, taking the helmet off of Eve's head.

She couldn't have stopped them if she wanted to, so far gone were her mental faculties.

"Mind if I join you three?" Ashley asked.

Eve looked over at Ashley and nodded, almost throwing herself off balance. "Friend!" she said happily. She tried to get up to say 'hi' to Ashley, but seemed to have trouble with that, so she crawled over on all fours and hugged Ashley's legs. Ashley sat down to join the circle - figuring that had been a welcome.

"Um, hi, Eve," Ashley said.

"Oh, you know her?" one of the girls said.

"Yeah, she was the TA for my organic chemistry class," Ashley said.

"Well, there's not much organic chemistry in her head at the moment!" the other girl said, giggling at her joke.

Ashley looked over at Eve, and had to agree. Ashley had seen kids in special ed who were more coherent than Eve was now.

"You remember organic chemistry, Eve?" Ashley asked.

Eve looked at her with fuzzy understanding. She reached her hand shakily out, and touched Ashley's face. She seemed utterly mesmerized by something.

"Chemistry?" Ashley said.

"Chem-eee? Chem-eee, uh," Eve giggled, as she tried to say the difficult word. "Chem-chem! Chem-chem." Her garbled pronunciation had an out of tune, sing-songy quality to it.

"Let the poor girl enjoy herself," the girl next to Ashley said. "Besides, you still need to take your turn with the device."

Ashley was distracted, watching Eve try to eat now. She picked up her spoon like a Kindergartner, with all four fingers and no thumb involved and started sloppily trying to put the pudding in front of her into her mouth, without much success. More of it got on her shirt than in her mouth.

"Um, sorry," Ashley said turning her attention to the girl. "I, uh, just wanted to watch. I don't want to make myself dumber."

"Suit yourself," the girl said. "I'm Melody."

"Uh, hi, Melody," Ashley said. "I think I've seen you around the engineering building."

"Oh, yeah," Melody said giggling. "I'm, like, the tutor for differential equations."

"Oh, wow," Ashley said. "Maybe you could help me with a problem I had recently. I can-"

Melody put a finger on Ashley's lips.

"I can already, like, tell you my brain is too far gone for any of that. Right now, if I look at a math thingy it's just like, gibberish, to me. Rachel's helmet is marve-, uh, it's really cool!"

Ashley nodded. It did seem that way. Seeing all these intelligent young women, the brightest minds of their generation, reduced to giggling, barely coherent morons was certainly something. She didn't understand why they would do this though. It just seemed so... pathetic.

"What's the, uh, what the appeal here?" Ashley said. "I'm sure I'm missing something."

"Well, whoever invited you told you about the trip, right?" Melody asked.

"A little," Ashley said. "It feels really good or something?"

Melody giggled. "Good? Fuck, it's better than good." She straightened up, and put her hands on her hips. "I used to be so, like, unkind to myself. In my head, it was, like, constant: you can never do anything right, you're a failure, they're going to find out you're not really smart enough to be here. Rachel put that thingy on my head, and woooosh!" She danced a little at the movement, feeling the music and smelling the incense and clearly just feeling alive. "It was like the mean little gremlin in my head went bye-bye. Now all I feel is, ugh, the words... it's like, um, having sex and listening to your favorite song and being on a really fun roller coaster and seeing a really great movie and solving a really hard math problem all rolled into one."

Ashley couldn't help but be a little impressed by that description. It did sound pretty damn good. Melody's starting point sounded so similar to her now. Ashley just constantly felt inadequate - she was nervous around people, always second guessing herself. Heck, she had had to smoke a bit of marijuana before coming here to take the edge off of her extreme social anxiety. But Melody looked so blissed out, almost like an enlightened being - if enlightened beings were the kind of beings who never graduated middle school.

"Okay, I'm warming up to this," Ashley said. "Can I do the lowest setting?"

Melody smiled. "Okie dokie!" She handed Ashley the device. "Just put this on your head, and turn the lever."

Ashley put it on, and examined the lever. It had 100 notches.

"What do they mean?" she asked.

"Well, for con-, conte-, uh, to give you a little background," Melody said. "Eve is currently at 60, Rachel is at 73, and I'm at 10 right now."

Ashley nodded. She looked over at the trip sitter, Ginger. She was only on the first setting, and seemed to be having a grand old time.

"Well, let's start small," Ashley said. She clicked the controller one notch over.

A wave of pleasure washed over her body. It was like nothing she had ever experienced. It was sexual, yes, but also spiritual, deep, profound, intellectual, all the most satisfying, experiences rolled into one. She realized she was on the ground a moment afterwards, and it took her a few seconds to get her bearings back and sit back up.

Her body just felt so good. Everything felt so good! So yummy.

"Wow," she said, smiling from ear to ear. "That thing packs a punch!" Then she noticed the extra sounds and sights and smells now filling the room. They were only slight now, but she enjoyed watching them - it was like watching fish swim in a fish tank, or listening to a sound bath. She was so relaxed by the strange hallucinations.

"What, uh, why are those things there again?" Ashley asked pointing at one of the slight swirlies in the air next to her.

Melody giggled. "Oh, geez. You're gonna make me try and remember. I, uh, I think Rachel said something about temp-, tempor-, uh, only for a little bit of time rewiring your whole brain to generate pleasant exp-, uh, you know, like, sights and sounds and feelings and touching for the rest of your brain? You become stupider because less and less of your brain is being used for the things it's supposed to be doing, like helping you move your body, or thinking about math thingys or reading."

"Wait, can you read?" Ashley asked.

"Yeah-huh!" Melody said, proudly. "At 10, I can totally still read."

Ashley searched around, and picked up a neuroscience book for Melody. "Okay, try this."

Melody pouted, looking at the book. "No fair! You picked a boring book. Go get one of the fun books from the other girls, and I'll read that to you."

Ashley smiled. She got up, and her whole body felt so relaxed. Every muscle, just seemed to have a pleasant, perky energy in it. She walked over to the girls in the corner, and saw a bunch of children's books next to them. She picked up a colorful one, and brought it back to Melody.

Melody smiled, and started reading aloud.

Ashley had to admit, she could read - although Melody read slowly, falteringly, often sounding out words.

"What is your major again?" Ashley asked.

"Oh, I'm, like, an English major," Melody said. "That's why I can totally still read at 10. You should see Eve at 10, she's hopeless!"

Ashley looked over at Eve, who seemed to be lying down, moving her hands slowly and sensuously over her body. There was an air of eroticism to it, but Eve was still fully clothed.

"I think that thing makes us more horny too," Ashley said. "I'm definitely feeling a bit turned on."

Melody smiled at her. "Oh, you should try making out with someone here. We do cuddle puddles and things like that some weeks, and it's amazing."

Ashley looked around. She generally preferred guys, but Rachel had been very careful about enjoying girls who she was friends or acquaintances with.

"Well, mind if I try making out with you a bit?" Ashley asked.

Melody smiled, and nodded. She moved hypnotically, rhythmically towards Ashley, lovingly caressing her face, and soon the two of them were making out. It was the best make out session Ashley had ever had. Melody's skin was just so soft, her lips so enticing, her curves so tempting. Ashley had to catch herself, and remind herself that there were a bunch of people around them.

"If we need privacy, we can always use the closet," Melody said.

"Um... I think I'm good."

"Okay, let me know if you change your mind," Melody said, and started making out with Ashley again.

Ashley could tell whatever pleasure she was feeling, Melody's pleasure was on a whole nother level. Ashley interrupted.

"Can I use the device again?" she said. "I want to, uh, I wanna feel more like you."

Melody smiled. "It's against the rules to do more than one notch at a time. It was before my time, but apparently the initial whammy hits you expo-, uh, much much harder the more you go down at once. They added that rule very early on."

Ashley reseated the helmet, and looked down at the controls. It was so tempting to go down two steps right now. But she didn't want to risk not being invited back.

She moved one more notch down. Ashley felt herself collapse sideways, as her whole body screamed out in pleasure. Every nerve, every aesthetic faculty within her suddenly felt pleasure she had scarcely conceived of. And when her faculties returned, she could see more vivid, detailed hallucinations, hear more profound and relaxing patterns. She almost felt like she was slowly edging towards enlightenment - like just over the horizon pure bliss awaited her.

Ashley started making out with Melody again, and she felt herself become much hornier than before. If she tried to describe it, her powered down brain would undoubtedly fail, but it was like more of her mind had become devoted to sexual pleasure. Everything was so much crisper, so much more vivid than before.

"Closet?" Melody purred out.

Ashley looked at Melody, feeling a connection so deep, it was like love, like pure person-to-person understanding. She did want to do more with Melody.

"Can we bring the device?" Ashley asked.

Melody giggled. "Totally!"

The two girls walked towards the closet. It was dark inside, but they didn't need light for what they were doing. Their hands explored one another's bodies, and Ashley was enjoying herself more with a girl than she had ever allowed herself to. Maybe she wasn't as straight as she thought? Or maybe the device rewiring her brain for pleasure had made her better able to appreciate how hot boobs and butts and soft skin and lips and, fuck, everything about girls was so delectable!

"I wanna go deeper," Ashley said.

She could feel Melody nod enthusiastically against her.

Ashley put on the helmet. She could barely make out the labels on the notches. Melody was at 10, right? 10 seemed perfect. Most of your wits about you.

Ashley cursed that she had arrived so late to the party. It would take forever to get to 10! She was only at 2 right now.

Ashley looked around the dark closet. No one was here but the two of them - maybe a little rule breaking wouldn't matter? She yanked the dial, until it read 10.

The world exploded for Ashley. Color, light, music, smells danced before her awareness for what felt like an eternity. She felt universes dancing into existence, galaxies singing the song of joy, pure bliss. Atoms became angels became supernovas of experience washing over her body. A goddess on a lotus descended before her, and she could feel that she was close to becoming one with everything, dissolving and becoming a cosmic entity - the paramour of the goddess, her eternal lover.

And then, it was over. Ashley definitely felt lightheaded, and her thoughts were coming slower and slower, but paired with that feeling of dullness in her intellectual faculty, she felt like the universe had become an indescribably wonderful place. The feeling couldn't compare to the explosion when she went down from 2 to 10 (numbers were such fuzzy concepts now - one was bigger than the other, that was all she knew!), but she had a pervading bliss in her soul, painted on her very being. Had this been how Melody had felt the whole time?

She made out with Melody, and she could feel herself moving in different dimensions of experience and realms of consciousness.

Melody started taking her top off, and Ashley moaned when she started massaging her breasts. Her pleasure was vibrating in sync with the universe somehow, she was seeing coincidences, beautiful and mysterious, everywhere.

"More helmet!" Ashley said. "I wanna be dumber, see more!"

Melody smiled at Ashley. The loving look they shared had so much more meaning than anything Ashley knew before. More raw passion.

Ashley wanted to see the cosmos sing again. She pulled the notch as far as it would go.

And she became one with everything.

* * *

"Ashley, are you okay?" Melody asked. Ashley had slumped over on the ground, and was completely unresponsive now. Her eyes were open, and she was smiling a strange smile, but she seemed unable to move.

The device was emitting smoke, that made Melody cough. She opened the door.

"Something's wrong with Ashley!" she said. "Something's wrong with the device!"

Some of the girls came over to try to help with either issue, but most were too dumb to really have any business being around electronic devices.

The reality of the situation started to sit in, and most of the girls had a far off worry in their dumb, empty heads. This was permanent now - they were stuck. No one would be able to fix the device, and they were going to be stuck dumb.

Within a week, it would become very clear that something was very wrong with some of the college's most brilliant young women. Some couldn't read anymore, some had been reduced to monosyllabic utterances, and some now needed 24/7 care to go about their daily lives. The lucky ones just became dumb enough that they couldn't cut it in college anymore, and ended up getting jobs as waitresses or Walmart employees. Several of them became strippers, or started OnlyFans accounts to take advantage of the assets the mind altering device couldn't take away.

Ashley's parents were hit the hardest. All that was left of their little girl was an empty shell, with a big dumb grin on her face.