Jealous of Native American peyote use and intrigued by recent medical research, Aldous Huxley decided to try mescaline one day in 1953, and published a record of his experiences as this short book. The actual account of Huxley’s trip is kind of confusing, as you might expect, but he comes to some interesting conclusions about it. For example, one consequence of “opening the doors of perception” is that all sensory information becomes available—Huxley found it difficult to ignore unimportant thoughts and sensations, which is usually a critical and automatic function of the brain.