Let me ask you: Are you tired? Lack focus? Bored by your own conversation? Has your zip been zapped, your sparkle smudged, your panache pancaked?

What if you could change all that with one little pill? What if some pharmaceutical lightning could make you feel as smart as Einstein, as witty as Dorothy Parker and as focused as a 4-year-old trying to get a candy bar down from the top shelf?

If it could help you become a star at work, would you take it? If it might help your kids realize their Ivy League dreams, would you spike their Flintstones vitamins?

These are not idle sci-fi speculations. They reflect a cutting-edge issue moving to the center of American life -- one you may need a magic pill to understand.

It involves drugs known as cognitive enhancers, such as Ritalin, Provigil and Adderall. Stimulants designed to help people with attention-deficit disorder, narcolepsy and other conditions, they are popular among academics, students and workers looking for a brain boost.

"Off-label and nonprescription use by the general public is becoming increasingly commonplace," Cambridge University researchers reported in the science journal Nature. "Such drugs may enable individuals to perform better and enjoy more achievements and success."

While dubbing these pills "the professor's little helper," the researchers, Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir, noted that a lot more aid is on the way. Biological breakthroughs will enable scientists to develop drugs so powerful and precise they will make today's potions seem like kid stuff.

In addition, research into neural implants -- microdevices that stimulate key portions of the brain -- is yielding impressive results. One day, a click of a remote control could signal the implant in your noggin to release cranial chemicals that will make your mug of dark roast java seem like weak tea.

Yowzah!

Granted, new technologies often have unintended consequences. In the early 20th century, for instance, the best and the brightest were convinced that the airplane would make war so deadly that nations would refuse to fight.

And drugs, especially when they are not used as intended, can have dangerous side effects. Cerebral candy should not be sold out of gumball machines; firm oversight and regulation are a must.

Still, moral and medical concerns will, at best, only slow this train. As we've seen with U.S. efforts to curb research into fetal stem cells and cloning, it's just about impossible to stop promising research.

And when someone makes cognitive enhancers, others will take them. The promise of snappier synapses will prove irresistible.

If athletes will threaten their long-term health with steroids so they can throw a ball a little faster or hit it a little farther, your average Josephine will be only too happy to pop a few pills to further her career.

Imagine the ads: "I used to spend my days hunting for coins in seat cushions. Then I discovered Brainzap. Now I'm a spokesman for this amazing product!"

Cognitive enhancers are just a modern answer to an old dream. Since the dawn of time, people have ingested substances to sharpen their minds.

My guess is that the hirsute genius who invented the wheel was probably sucking on magical bark when she decided to turn a rock into a copy of that full moon hanging in the sky. Hey, this rock rolls!

More recently, William Faulkner observed, "My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey."

Though most of us find coffee more effective than whiskey Faulkner's point is well-taken. Everybody's engine could use a little grease.

But their extreme effectiveness is what makes cognitive enhancers unsettling.

Tomorrow's pills and procedures may be so potent that they could transform humanity. Imagine a world where everyone is smart, focused and effective. Where nobody flunks calculus or loses his car keys. A world where everyone writes sonnets and stays awake during French films.

No doubt, the eradication of stupidity would have negative consequences. Some of my best memories involve moments of jaw-dropping incompetence. What was I thinking? I wasn't.

On a larger scale, there will be immense pressure for everyone to enhance. When all have an edge, some will seek more of one.

And even in a world where everyone is a genius, someone is still going to have to collect the trash, sweep the streets and write for newspapers.

Nevertheless, the benefits should outweigh the drawbacks. Human history is the story of our mastery of the world and ourselves. I know very few people who wish they could have lived in the past, when life was harder and shorter.

Alas, super-duper cognitive enhancers are still a ways off. I probably won't see the time when everyone is as smart as Edison and as witty as Oscar Wilde.

But it's fun to imagine it as I sip my mug of dark roast java.