He thought his unplugged radio was insulting him, his cat was trying to tell him something of vital significance, and that the KGB were sending him post-hypnotic triggers in the mail. The apparently mundane arrival of a delivery woman whose necklace bore a Christian fish symbol had triggered a cascade of bizarre impressions. That March had been an eventful month for Dick. Strangely enough, in 1974 the other drugs in his life were put to shame by a rank outsider: vitamin C, under the influence of which he had perhaps his most celebrated hallucinatory episode. Indeed, for someone so fascinated by the nature of reality, Dick was none too adept at distinguishing it from the contents of his own head. No mere distancing device, this was how Dick saw himself in his more lucid moments. In his autobiographical late 1970s novel Valis, he describes his "friend" Horselover Fat - as transparent a Dick-substitute as you'll find - as a madman, addled by a history of drug abuse, who ends up meeting God. Now, for all we know, Dick might have been predisposed to such delusions whatever his lifestyle, but the drugs can't have helped - and Dick realised this. He is in cover so deep he has forgotten his true identity. He put this conviction into A Scanner Darkly, where Bob Arctor fails to realise that his excessive use of "Substance D" has split him into two distinct personalities: both the narcotics agent and the drug addict he is spying on.
None of this was quite outrageous enough for Dick, who later became convinced that he'd unknowingly burgled his own house, under the influence of drugs, hypnosis or government mind control. At different times he attributed it to right-wing religious extremists, the CIA or secret police in the pay of Richard Nixon, usually motivated by some forbidden truth which Dick had stumbled on in one of his stories. It seemed the obvious explanation.)Ī break-in at Dick's house in 1971 - not altogether surprising given the proclivities of his recent house-guests - took on great personal significance. (Since he'd never lived in a house with a bathroom pull-cord, he decided he must be experiencing memories from an alternative reality. But only Dick could have constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory out of his momentary confusion as to whether his bathroom light had a wall switch or a pull-cord. Being watched by a gigantic, malevolent metal face in the sky - as he believed was happening for several weeks during a tense crisis in his third marriage - would be distracting for anybody, even if they hadn't been terrified of their father's gas-mask as a child. He had experienced not only the drug culture which surrounds the book's protagonist but also some of the hallucinations and delusions which Arctor and friends encounter there.ĭick's insights into the true nature of reality were spectacular and varied.
Seven years later, when he wrote the novel, Dick was suffering from permanent pancreatic damage and had begun to regret his earlier indulgence. After the breakup of his fourth marriage in 1970, Dick's home became open house to the eclectic collection of speed-freaks, dope-heads, junkies and dealers on whom the characters in A Scanner Darkly are based. His writing had always been fuelled by vast quantities of amphetamines, but he soon branched out into marijuana, mescaline, LSD, sodium pentothal and even PCP. In 1960s California it was inevitable that a writer like Dick would become a counterculture guru, expected - practically obliged, in fact - to flaunt a drug-rich lifestyle of his own, and he rose enthusiastically to that challenge. Since his death in 1982 he has also become a popular resource for film-makers: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Screamers, Minority Report and Paycheck are all based on Dick novels or short stories.
Dick's unique brand of science fiction earned him critical respect and a cult following, his fans (many of whom cheerfully refer to themselves as "Dickheads") being particularly numerous in France and Eastern Europe.
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