In early 1974, a delivery woman’s golden fish necklace flashed a pink beam of light into Philip K. Dick’s eyes, and he became convinced a cosmic intelligence had transferred a package of wisdom into his brain and that he was living simultaneously in 1970s California and first-century Rome. This deep dive explores the engine behind one of science fiction’s most reality-bending minds, from the death of his twin sister Jane six weeks after their premature birth to a lifelong obsession with a phantom twin.

We follow his brief time at Berkeley and his conclusion that objective reality is a mass delusion, his first published story told from a paranoid dog’s perspective, the pulp-era poverty and rejected mainstream novels, the Hugo Award for his alternate history of an Axis victory, and Robert Heinlein’s unexpected generosity. Then we trace the amphetamine-fueled 1960s, the safe blown open in his home, the Vancouver breakdown and suicide attempt, the events he called 2-3-74, and the empathy-based definition of humanity at the heart of his android bounty hunter novel.

• Why the loss of an infant twin became the epicenter of his psychological landscape
• The chicken-and-egg question of whether drugs caused his paranoia or amplified it
• VALIS, the exegesis, and the vision that led doctors to diagnose his son
• The contradiction of an anti-surveillance writer sending letters to the FBI about his peers
• His burial beside his twin and the lost robotic head modeled on him