Huxley's world in High-Def...

So I get Huxley's intention, he wanted to be able to perceive this inner world, or inner light through the use of mescalin. Through his various references to the flowers in the vase, the chair, the blue car, the reader can really get an appreciation of hoe deeply his perception went. He mentions that such factors as time and space were no longer contenders in the fight to occupy his thoughts. Under the spell of the drug, Huxley's focus lie on the "intensity of experience, profundity of significance, and relationships with pattern". Huxley was now aware of a deeper meaning to such trivial, mundane things - things we recognize as our reality, however our reality, perhaps is only "surface deep". Being in this drug-induced state allows the mind to contemplate the meaning of such novelty-everyday things, and appreciate their "just being". I think this is what Huxley was describing when he said this ASC he experienced was like regaining perceptual innocence of childhood. I can recall from my own two sons, the wonder and amazement in their eyes as they explored different toys, books, and everyday items as infants.

I think Huxley made a good point about society's excessive use of symbols as a means of expression and clarification. In reality, these symbols stand for nothing at all unless the item being 'symbolized' can be experienced. His analogy of the "elegantly composed recipe in lieu of dinner" made me chuckle. Not only are symbols ultimately portraying just 'Suchness', but they permit us to go on with this lifestyle of condensing our values, time, space, etc. just so we can cram more things into our day. How many times do we as a society do such things , not necessarily making dinner, but any event or activity that can be shortened or abbreviated as to save us time in our hurried lives...are we really getting the 'meaning and being' of everyday life with all our short cuts?

I really liked Huxley's comment about an ASC's perception vs. that of an artist's; "What the rest of us see only under the influence of mescalin, the artist is congenitally equipped to see all the time". This made me think a lot about our creativity discussions - perhaps artists (and certainly I'm not limiting the term to those exclusively of the fine arts) have an uncanny ability to tap into the creative process much easier than others.

It was interesting that he noted while under the influence, he could not look at his wife or friend who was with him during the experience, and he made great effort not to do so. Would obliging in eye contact with those not induced cause him to feel guilty for his newly acquired perception, or perhaps present him with a buzzkill due to their confined thinking? I also thought it was interesting that his enlightened inner world consisted of no work or monotony...it provided for yet another chuckle as I remembered our extensive class discussion regarding work in our everyday reality.

I do have to disagree with Huxley's assumption that we as 'hungry sheep' look to be fed and when we do not obtain what we are searching for we "turn to the bottle". Say it isn't so! He had me until that point - certainly we go to services, take part in rituals, anything that can provide us with some kind of nourishment for the soul. But I think his assumption is a little extreme, people may turn away from such soul-searching tasks in disappointment, but I disagree that we are turning into the nearest State store for a fifth!

Lastly, I was surprised about the mention that 2/3 of our dreams are black and white...who knew? I've been attributing our discussions on ASC to dream-like states, but Huxley's ASC under mescalin was a plethora of high-def colors - some so intense that the name alone implied nothing. Huxley describes colors viewed with this inner light as having so many divisions and meanings. This parallels Hughes' comment on synthesesia. Apparently, a dreamlike state comes nothing close to the mescalin-induced state as far as "colors' being".