Word.ws English Dictionary

doors of perception

doors of perception noun: the ability to perceive more than the normal input of our senses; the means of achieving altered states of consciousness.

Noun

doors of perception pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The ability to perceive more than the normal input of our senses; the means of achieving altered states of consciousness.
    • 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.1958, Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership
    • “The doors of perception have opened all at once! We must close them!” “Hey, there's quadrillions of them!” “Maybe millions!” “What are you -- Quadrillions is a larger number.” “Quadrillions is a fake number.” “No, it's not! It's a thousand billion.” “Really? Look, are you just trying to make me...2010 October 17, Doc Hammer, “Assisted Suicide” (10:51 from the start), in The Venture Bros., season 4, episode 14, spoken by Dr. Byron Orpheus (Steven Rattazzi)

Examples of doors of perception in a sentence

  • “The doors of perception have opened all at once!2010 October 17, Doc Hammer, “Assisted Suicide” (10:51 from the start), in The Venture Bros., season 4, episode 14, spoken by Dr. Byron...
  • We go about our lives perceiving one reality, while an infinite number of alternate realities exist just outside our doors of perception.2015, William Indick, The Digital God: How Technology Will Reshape Spirituality, page 60:
  • 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.2015, William Austin Moore, The Keys to the Doors of Perception:

Origin of doors of perception

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.

Questions about doors of perception

What does doors of perception mean?
Doors of perception means the ability to perceive more than the normal input of our senses; the means of achieving altered states of consciousness.
How do you use doors of perception in a sentence?
“The doors of perception have opened all at once!
What part of speech is doors of perception?
Doors of perception is a noun.

Words near doors of perception in the dictionary

  1. doorplate
  2. doorplates
  3. doorpost
  4. doorposts
  5. doors
  6. doors of perception
  7. doorset
  8. doorsets
  9. doorside
  10. doorsides
  11. doorsill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doors of perception (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “doors of perception.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doors_of_perception. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.