
The Doors of Perception (1954) [pdf] - sturza
https://maps.org/images/pdf/books/HuxleyA1954TheDoorsOfPerception.pdf
======
kordlessagain
_" I am and, for as long as I can remember, I have always been a poor
visualizer. Words, even the pregnant words of poets, do not evoke pictures in
my mind. No hypnagogic visions greet me on the verge of sleep. When I recall
something, the memory does not present itself to me as a vividly seen event or
object. By an effort of the will, I can evoke a not very vivid image of what
happened yesterday afternoon, of how the Lungarno used to look before the
bridges were destroyed, of the Bayswater Road when the only buses were green
and tiny and drawn by aged horses at three and a half miles an hour. But such
images have little substance and absolutely no autonomous life of their own.
They stand to real, perceived objects in the same relation as Homer's ghosts
stood to the men of flesh and blood, who came to visit them in the shades.
Only when I have a high temperature do my mental images come to independent
life. To those in whom the faculty of visualization is strong my inner world
must seem curiously drab, limited and uninteresting. This was the world - a
poor thing but my own - which I expected to see transformed into something
completely unlike itself_"

~~~
cmuldur
I couldn't comprehend the meaning of "pregnant words of poets". Can someone
explain this to a non-native english speaker?

~~~
bmcfeeley
Poets pack a lot of meaning / emotion into their words — you could think of
them as “full” of the stuff that makes up life, like a pregnant woman is more
literally filled with another life.

~~~
dredmorbius
There are apparently two independent derivations of the word "pregnant"
(though the roots may join), confusingly, both adjectives. Other than "with
child", there is:

 _" convincing, weighty, pithy," late 14c., "cogent, convincing, compelling"
(of evidence, an argument, etc.); sense of "full of meaning" is from c. 1400.
According to OED from Old French preignant, present participle of preindre
"press, squeeze, stamp, crush," from earlier priembre, from Latin premere "to
press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress" (from PIE root _per- (4) "to
strike").*

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/pregnant](https://www.etymonline.com/word/pregnant)

(TIL, for those who'd suspect otherwise. I'm quite a fan of etymology, and
Etymology Online in particular.)

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keiferski
_" If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as
it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern.”_

\- William Blake

~~~
louwrentius
Please watch the movie Dead Man with Jonny Depp.

~~~
keiferski
I had never heard of this movie, but it looks great. Thanks for the
suggestion!

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toxicFork
If you're in London you can buy the book (comes with Heaven and Hell) for £4
at the Old Spitalfields Market. Tell the guy "the one in the yellow jacket
sent me".

~~~
plumednom
I will be in London next month. What exactly should I expect the sales person
to say when I tell them who sent me. Sounds covert. :)

~~~
nabla9
Nothing. You are supposed to just go home and lick the pages.

~~~
toxicFork
A civilised person will know to lick the fingers instead as they touch to turn
the pages.

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dwaltrip
Relatedly, I just finished reading How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan,
which does a great job of detailing the fascinating history of psychedelics
and the current very promising resurgence of scientific research. It also does
as good a job as one can expect at actually explaining what they are like,
including descriptions of his own personal trips.

After reading the book, I wouldn't be surprised to see legal clinics open to
the public in the US in the next 10-15 years.

~~~
mistermann
Sam Harris does quite an impressive job articulating what a recent 5 gram
mushroom trip was like, worth a listen.

[https://bullhorn.fm/makingsensewithsamharris-
subsc/posts/177...](https://bullhorn.fm/makingsensewithsamharris-
subsc/posts/177-psychedelic-science?p=6201)

~~~
dwaltrip
Thanks for the recommendation! I just listened to the entire podcast, very
interesting and exciting stuff.

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zigzaggy
Brings back memories of the college days... not a single care in the world but
expanding horizons.

~~~
ronyfadel
It's never too late to re-expand them :)

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lubujackson
The Doors (the band) got their name from this book's title.

~~~
qqn
Yes, I'd seen this claim once before. The original quote was "There are things
known, and things unknown, and in between are the Doors", yet a quick search
led to this explanation: "QI hypothesizes that this quotation was streamlined
and then the words were reassigned to more prominent figures such as Jim
Morrison, Aldous Huxley and William Blake" on
[https://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/the-
doors](https://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/the-doors).

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duelingjello
_[2011] Aldous Huxley, Dying of Cancer, Left This World Tripping on LSD
(1963)_

[http://www.openculture.com/2011/10/aldous_huxleys_lsd_death_...](http://www.openculture.com/2011/10/aldous_huxleys_lsd_death_trip.html)

As an aside: The Doors (the band), in addition to being named after the book
and having a classically-trained pianist, basically delved into a different
genre with each album. The Electra label also had their albums put on early
CDs in 1980/1981 made in _West_ Germany.

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sideshowb
I always thought this book pretty dull. Different topic, but if you want to
read Huxley, Brave new world is great. Alternatively if you want to read about
the experiences of early psychedelic users, Leary's psychedelic experience is
better.

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idclip
Amazing read so far, very gripping! (Page 5)

~~~
duelingjello
Yeap. I read it in high school many moons ago. I should probably read it
again, before and after dropping acid, just to understand the context. With
each year and season of our lives, we see the world through different,
hopefully wiser yet still youthfully-enthusiastic, eyes.

------
lstodd
Was expanded to perfection by Douglas Adams with the bird.

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orasis
What is the copyright status of this?

~~~
hinkley
Learned something new:

> In some other countries, including Canada, copyright term is life plus 50
> years, and in those countries C.S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Robert Frost, Jean
> Cocteau, and the famous poet Sylvia Path, who all died in 1963, enter the
> public domain in 2014.

[https://klminc.com/intellectual-property/peter-rabbit-
loses-...](https://klminc.com/intellectual-property/peter-rabbit-loses-
copyright-protection)

