To be enlightened is to be aware, always, of total reality in its immanent otherness -- to be aware of it and yet to remain in a condition to survive as an animal and feel as a human being, to resort whenever expedient to systematic reasoning.The Doors of Perception Aldous Huxley (1954)
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.At Breaking Convention 2015, David Nutt mentions evidence that psilocybin opens up the brain.
One study...found that the psilocybin experience also had a positive and lasting effect on the personality of most participants. This is a striking result, since the conventional wisdom in psychology holds that personality is usually fixed by age thirty and thereafter is unlikely to substantially change. But more than a year after their psilocybin sessions volunteers who had had the most complete mystical experiences showed significant increases in their “openness,” one of the five domains that psychologists look at in assessing personality traits. (The others are conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.) Openness, which encompasses aesthetic appreciation, imagination, and tolerance of others’ viewpoints, is a good predictor of creativity.— from The Trip Treatment by Michael Pollan
