Very old Matrix-like short story, based on chemicals released into the air, pre-computer

I am looking for a story about the future of mankind, in which most people have been enslaved in a virtual reality. It ends with the revelation that the people are just lying there imagining their lives with their heads in a trough of feed.

It explains that chemists began to create compounds that could be released into the air to manipulate citizens - causing them to live, shop, think as desired by whoever was in charge. Eventually these tools got subtle enough that they could simulate reality using just these airborne compounds.

This was clearly a prescient view of what later became computer-based virtual reality fiction.

Answer

Stanisław Lem's The Futurological Congress has chemically induced "realities" to cover up poverty/government failures (even if they turn out to be a dream-within-a-dream / hallucination-inside-a-hallucination thing).

The (quite short) book is from 1971 (as am I, so I'm reluctant to say that it's "very old", but it still seems a good match).

Comments

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