"doors of perception" meaning in English

See doors of perception in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: From a quote from William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793): If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} doors of perception pl (plural only)
  1. The ability to perceive more than the normal input of our senses; the means of achieving altered states of consciousness. Wikipedia link: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake Tags: plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-doors_of_perception-en-noun-tXdSL1Td Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum

Download JSON data for doors of perception meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From a quote from William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793): If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "doors of perception pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
            "Pluralia tantum",
            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1958, Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership",
          "text": "Those who have gotten their doors of perception open wide enough often enough know that this statement of Blake's is not mere poetic exaggeration.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, William Indick, The Digital God: How Technology Will Reshape Spirituality, page 60",
          "text": "We go about our lives perceiving one reality, while an infinite number of alternate realities exist just outside our doors of perception.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, William Austin Moore, The Keys to the Doors of Perception",
          "text": "Helplessly hoping to open doors of perception To the mysteries and the quandaries of mankind; The secrets of the universe are all we wish to find.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Anthony Peake, Opening The Doors of Perception: The Key to Cosmic Awareness, page 83",
          "text": "In my opinion, Myron's epilepsy is of a particular sort, something known as SLPE [schizophrenia-like psychosis of epilepsy], a form of spilepsy in which the Pleroma is only a stone's throw away and the doors of perception are wide open.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 509",
          "text": "He could not take seriously these chaps in ties and suits or tweeds who wore brogues and cardigans when at home all day, who belonged to the Garrick and the Athenaeum, who lived in solid north London villas or Costwold mansions, who spoke loftily, as one might after a lifetime pontificating from All Souls, Oxford; who had never risked a peep round the doors of perception by taking a drug other than tobacco or alcohol, which they peevishly refused to accept were psychoactive addictive sustances;",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The ability to perceive more than the normal input of our senses; the means of achieving altered states of consciousness."
      ],
      "id": "en-doors_of_perception-en-noun-tXdSL1Td",
      "links": [
        [
          "perceive",
          "perceive"
        ],
        [
          "senses",
          "senses"
        ],
        [
          "altered",
          "altered"
        ],
        [
          "states",
          "states"
        ],
        [
          "consciousness",
          "consciousness"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell",
        "William Blake"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "doors of perception"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From a quote from William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793): If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "doors of perception pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English pluralia tantum",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1958, Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership",
          "text": "Those who have gotten their doors of perception open wide enough often enough know that this statement of Blake's is not mere poetic exaggeration.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, William Indick, The Digital God: How Technology Will Reshape Spirituality, page 60",
          "text": "We go about our lives perceiving one reality, while an infinite number of alternate realities exist just outside our doors of perception.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, William Austin Moore, The Keys to the Doors of Perception",
          "text": "Helplessly hoping to open doors of perception To the mysteries and the quandaries of mankind; The secrets of the universe are all we wish to find.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Anthony Peake, Opening The Doors of Perception: The Key to Cosmic Awareness, page 83",
          "text": "In my opinion, Myron's epilepsy is of a particular sort, something known as SLPE [schizophrenia-like psychosis of epilepsy], a form of spilepsy in which the Pleroma is only a stone's throw away and the doors of perception are wide open.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 509",
          "text": "He could not take seriously these chaps in ties and suits or tweeds who wore brogues and cardigans when at home all day, who belonged to the Garrick and the Athenaeum, who lived in solid north London villas or Costwold mansions, who spoke loftily, as one might after a lifetime pontificating from All Souls, Oxford; who had never risked a peep round the doors of perception by taking a drug other than tobacco or alcohol, which they peevishly refused to accept were psychoactive addictive sustances;",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The ability to perceive more than the normal input of our senses; the means of achieving altered states of consciousness."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "perceive",
          "perceive"
        ],
        [
          "senses",
          "senses"
        ],
        [
          "altered",
          "altered"
        ],
        [
          "states",
          "states"
        ],
        [
          "consciousness",
          "consciousness"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell",
        "William Blake"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "doors of perception"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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