Huxley

Let me start by saying that Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception became one of my favorite works when I first read it last summer. His imagery and extreme understanding of the experiences that he is going through draw me deeply into a trance. What I mean to say is that his words themselves become as transporting, to me, as the mescaline he is testing.

It is apparent that he was doing this experiment as a scientist and not as a random person under the influence of an ancient hallucinogen. This is apparent in his painstaking efforts to convey every moment of the experience and put it into words that are easily digested by the inexperienced reader (of hallucinogenic reading material) by using such analogies as "the car salesman's dream" when describing the shimmering cars that he sees on his way to the store. I am by no means saying that this is an easy read, as I myself will admit to being sometimes lost in his use of terminology, but Huxley was no slouch of a writer, either. The Doors of Perception is perhaps the best chance for a reader to come away with some sort of an experience themselves. His writing ability and style convey seamless imagery from start to finish with clear and concise information to back up each and every statement. This is why this piece has become one of my favorites, it is unrelenting in it's explanation of the intricacies of the human mind in an altered state.