The Doors of Perception

Can we reach higher states of being through altering our state? Through roller-coaster rides? Through star-gazing and viewing awe-inducing landscapes? Through falling in love? Through taking drugs?

Aldous Huxley wrote a book in 1954 called The Doors of Perception. It’s a reflective account of him taking mescaline to see if it could enlighten him, give him new knowledge that might otherwise be out of reach.

Here are some of the themes he recorded: while in this altered state, notions of time and duration vanished; spatial awareness was reduced while patterns and colours intensified; visuals became incredibly stimulating in general, as was merely being and experiencing, rather than feeling the need to do an action or activity of any sort.

Huxley deduced from his multiple experiences of drug-taking that an otherwise closed valve was opened to connect the conscious mind to what he called the ‘mind at large,’ where the ability to remember and perceive was so much greater than one’s normal, day-to-day functioning mind. He believed that the body filtered unessential processes of the mind in order to protect and avoid overwhelming the individual.

Later in his life, Huxley wondered if his temptation to take psychedelic drugs was a form of escapism. “Most lead lives at worst so painful, at best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.”

It might be worth adding what Alan Watts had to say on the subject: “If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.”

What do you think?