<P> After Osmond's departure, Huxley and Maria left to go on a three - week, 5,000 - mile (8,000 - kilometre) car trip around the national parks of the North West of the USA . After returning to Los Angeles, he took a month to write the book . The Doors of Perception was the first book Huxley dedicated to his wife Maria . Harold Raymond, at his publisher Chatto and Windus, said of the manuscript, "You are the most articulate guinea pig that any scientist could hope to engage ." The title was taken from William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> Huxley had used Blake's metaphor in The Doors of Perception while discussing the paintings of Vermeer and the Nain brothers, and previously in The Perennial Philosophy, once in relation to the use of mortification as a means to remove persistent spiritual myopia and secondly to refer to the absence of separation in spiritual vision . Blake had a resounding impact on Huxley, he shared many of Blake's earlier revelations and interests in art and literature . In the early 1950s, Huxley had suffered a debilitating attack of the eye condition iritis . This increased his concern for his already poor eyesight and much of his work in the early part of the decade had featured metaphors of vision and sight . </P> <P> After a brief overview of research into mescaline, Huxley recounts that he was given 4 / 10 of a gram at 11: 00 am one day in May 1953 . Huxley writes that he hoped to gain insight into extraordinary states of mind and expected to see brightly coloured visionary landscapes . When he only sees lights and shapes, he puts this down to being a bad visualiser; however, he experiences a great change in his perception of the external world . </P>

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is infinite. meaning