Abstract. We consider the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with defocusing, smooth, nonlinearity. Below the critical Sobolev regularity, it is known that the Cauchy problem is ill-posed. We show that this is even worse, namely that there is a loss of regularity, in the spirit of the result due to G. Lebeau in the case of the wave equation. As a consequence, the Cauchy problem for energy-supercritical equations is not well-posed in the sense of Hadamard. We reduce the problem to a supercritical WKB analysis. For super-cubic, smooth nonlinearity, this analysis is new, and relies on the introduction of a modulated energy functionalà la Brenier.