He was experimenting with transwarp technology used by the Borg. I mentioned this in another comment but I think the reason he lizard-ified was because he didn’t have a Borg transwarp conduit to reduce the infinite probability down to a finite point in space. Thats how the Borg were able to travel nearly instantaneously across entire quadrants of space without turning into mecha-lizards. Like you said, it’s silly if you try to think about it too much.