A network of brain cells that expresses our sense of time within experiences and memories. Let us see how does brain perceives time.

by Aldous Huxley

Non-fiction

This is a well-known treatise on altered perceptions and is loosely categorized as Philosophy.

The Doors of Perception is largely about the author's experience of mescaline and the altered mental perceptions of the world he experienced under the influence of the drug. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the limited viewpoint as this could have been much more interesting with input by other people, especially native American people who have traditionally used Peyote for spiritual questing in their rituals.

The sequel, Heaven and Hell, goes more into the philosophical musings that I was interested to find. In this follow-up, Huxley discusses correlations between hallucinogenic drug experience, especially the heightened sense of color, and religious experience as well as the natural attraction our species has to gemstones and flowers with bright colors.

It made for dry reading, yet had some interesting points. The rock band, The Doors, named themselves for this book so curiosity made me want to read it. I wouldn't recommend it for deep Philosophy, but it was interesting in parts and blissfully short. Reading a few pages at a time worked for me to keep from letting the boredom mask the worthwhile insights.

Duck! Rabbit!

Guided Reading: Level J

This is a great book to teach children about point of view or perception. During the the whole book two unseen narrators are talking back and forth stating their opinion of the drawing that they are seeing. From different points of view the drawing could be seen as a Duck or a Rabbit. By the end of the book the unseen narrators opinions then which because they now understand what the other is saying.

I don't even know why I thought this might be a good read for me. 

Sure, this is the book the inspired The Doors but it is infinitely more enjoyable to listen to Jim Morrison's musical expressions of his experiments with drugs than it is to read Huxley's accounts of his, and even then this is only because the songs are so much shorter.

Not for me.

This book is great for understanding differences between people around us. We may not look the same but may have common interests. I think this book would be good for any grade but for reading purposes it may be good for higher grades because of the language and how many words are on a page. I would use this in my classroom by giving the students a blank picture of the rainbow fish and they are to decorate it in anyway they feel. This will demonstrate that everyone is different and unique. The students could also write positive attributes about themselves that makes them unique. The Lexile Level is AD410L.