Psychelian degeneration

Psychelian degeneration (simply referred to as the "degeneration") is simply an inborn restriction placed on Psyches on how long they can live outside of the collective conscience of the Psyches in Psychelia in the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf story series. The degeneration begins about a year after disconnection from the collective conscience, at which point the body begins to shut down all normal functions and withers away until the Psyche dies, which could take a few days at the best possible scenario or several hours at the worst. According to the Psyche Master, the only cure for a Psyche suffering from the degeneration is for him or her to return to Psychelia and be reconnected to the collective conscience.

In the story "Polaris' Smurfy New Life," Polaris Psyche suffers from the degeneration about a year after leaving Psychelia, at which point the Smurfs seek to find a cure in order to help Polaris survive. Although Polaris was offered a return to Psychelia in order to be cured, Empath refused on behalf of his friend when he realized that in exchange Polaris would have to give up remembering anything of what he knows about Empath and the Smurfs.

As a last resort, Papa Smurf decided that he would try using the Long Life Elixir to restore Polaris' health, although this would be coupled with Empath using the mindlink so that the elixir could do its work in Polaris' body. The combination of both the elixir and the mindlink ended up working, but in the process it caused the temporarily side effect of turning Polaris' skin blue and disabling his telepathic and telekinetic abilities.