Phenomenological analysis of a psychedelic experience: An approach to Huxley's study The doors of perception (Part II)

Abstract

In the first part of this writing we had detailed the historical situation in which Huxley found himself, with all his drama and his rejection of violence, motivated by the warlike situations in which his generation was involved. also in the first part we had already referred particularly to the psychedelic experience recounted by Huxley, and we pointed out what it had of an attempt at ecstatic transmutation. in this second part of the present study we try to detail with a criterion of phenomenological approximation the experience that provided to Huxley the central axis of his essay The Doors of Perception. Here we describe and interpret the hallucinatory effects, the effects on time-space coordinates and the feelings of perplexity generated. an important part of this second part is the account of the consequences on the "objective field" and its perception, with lively hallucinatory events. an interesting question is the set of theorizations that Huxley made of this lived experience. He highlights the postulation of the existence of something that he calls the "reducing valve of the brain." These statements are here subjected to analysis and discussion, with their potential implications in the mechanisms linked to psychoses. Finally a global conclusion of this essay is made.