There are places in this universe that are very different from the planet you and I inhabit. Take, for example, the planet Dood in NGC 5194 (the Whirlpool Galaxy). Every living thing on this planet is edible, but every living thing is also hallucinogenic. This means that the inhabitants of Dood are permanently in a mind-altered state. This is fascinating to neurologists, psychologists, behaviorists, etc. who want to study the actions and worldviews of creatures who have never experienced unaltered reality. None of them have ever published an explanation of what the Doods are experiencing, but one thing is for sure: despite being capable of complex thought and performing complicated tasks, the Doods have never built or created anything. Their lack of civilization must be a direct outcome of being on a never-ending drug trip.
Incidentally, the scientists who go to Dood to study the Doods end up having to eat food from the planet, which might explain why their studies never get performed or published. Or why they never come back.
These illustrations were drawn using Stable Diffusion 2.1.
