Editing Philip K. Dick (section)

===Themes===
Dick's stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is real and the construction of [[personal identity]]. His stories often become surreal fantasies, as the main characters slowly discover that their everyday world is actually an illusion assembled by powerful external entities, such as the suspended animation in ''Ubik'',<ref name="Ursula" /> vast political conspiracies or the vicissitudes of an [[unreliable narrator]]. "All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality", writes science fiction author [[Charles Platt (science-fiction author)|Charles Platt]]. "Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out another person's dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely."<ref name=Platt>{{Cite book| last = Platt| first = Charles| author-link = Charles Platt (science-fiction author)| title = Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction| publisher = Berkley Publishing| year = 1980| isbn = 0-425-04668-0| url = https://archive.org/details/dreammakers00char}}</ref>

[[Parallel universe (fiction)|Alternate universes]] and [[simulacrum|simulacra]] are common [[plot devices]], with fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than galactic elites. "There are no heroes in Dick's books", [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]]: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people."<ref name="Ursula">{{cite web| title = Criticism and analysis| publisher = Gale Research| year = 1996| url = http://www.stud.hum.ku.dk/rydahl/pkd/PKDcritic1.htm| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070307193543/http://www.stud.hum.ku.dk/rydahl/pkd/PKDcritic1.htm| archive-date = March 7, 2007| access-date = April 20, 2007| url-status = dead}}</ref> Dick made no secret that much of his thinking and work was heavily influenced by the writings of [[Carl Jung]].<ref name=carrere>{{Cite book|title=I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philp K. Dick |last=Carrère |first=Emmanuel |year=2004 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |location=New York |isbn=0-8050-5464-2 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.philipkdick.com/media_sfeye87.html A Conversation With Philip K. Dick]  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120511082635/http://www.philipkdick.com/media_sfeye87.html |date=May 11, 2012 }}</ref> The Jungian constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the archetypes of the [[collective unconscious]], group projection/hallucination, [[synchronicity|synchronicities]], and personality theory.<ref name=carrere /> Many of Dick's protagonists overtly analyze reality and their perceptions in Jungian terms (see ''[[The Unteleported Man|Lies, Inc.]]'').{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

Dick identified one major theme of his work as the question, "What constitutes the authentic human being?"<ref>{{cite book|last=Dick|first=Philip K.|title=I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon|year=1985|publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]]|isbn=0-385-19567-2|page=2}}</ref> In works such as ''[[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]'', beings can appear totally human in every respect while lacking soul or compassion, while completely alien beings such as Glimmung in ''[[Galactic Pot-Healer]]'' may be more humane and complex than their human peers. Understood correctly, said Dick, the term "human being" applies "not to origin or to any ontology but to a way of being in the world."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dick |first=Philip K. |title=The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings |publisher=Vintage |year=1995 |editor-last=Sutin |editor-first=Lawrence |pages=212}}</ref> This authentic way of being manifests itself in compassion that recognizes the oneness of all life. "In Dick's vision, the moral imperative calls on us to care for all sentient beings, human or nonhuman, natural or artificial, regardless of their place in the order of things. And Dick makes clear that this imperative is grounded in empathy, not reason, whatever subsequent role reason may play."<ref>Taylor, Angus (2008). "Electric Sheep and the New Argument from Nature", in Jodey Castricano (ed.), ''Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World''. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 188.</ref> The figure of the android depicts those who are deficient in empathy, who are alienated from others and are becoming more mechanical (emotionless) in their behaviour. "In general, then, it can be said that for Dick robots represent machines that are becoming more like humans, while androids represent humans that are becoming more like machines."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Taylor |first=Angus |date=1975 |title=Philip K. Dick and the Umbrella of Light |url=https://philipdick.com/mirror/essays/umbrellaoflight.pdf |access-date=June 4, 2022 |website=Philip K. Dick |page=33 |archive-date=June 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616051030/https://philipdick.com/mirror/essays/umbrellaoflight.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

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|quote= Dick's third major theme is his fascination with war and his fear and hatred of it. One hardly sees critical mention of it, yet it is as integral to his body of work as oxygen is to water.<ref>The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick, Volume 1, ''[[The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (collection)|The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford]]'', (1990), Citadel Twilight, p. xvi, {{ISBN|0-8065-1153-2}}</ref>
|source= —Steven Owen Godersky
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Mental illness was a constant interest of Dick's, and themes of mental illness permeate his work. The character Jack Bohlen in the 1964 novel ''[[Martian Time-Slip]]'' is an "ex-schizophrenic". The novel ''[[Clans of the Alphane Moon]]'' centers on an entire society made up of descendants of lunatic asylum inmates. In 1965, he wrote the essay titled "Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes".<ref name=sutin>Sutin, npg</ref>

Drug use (including [[Entheogenic|religious]], [[Recreational drug use|recreational]], and [[Drug abuse|abuse]]) was also a theme in many of Dick's works, such as ''[[A Scanner Darkly]]'' and ''[[The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal|url = https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n13/stephanie-burt/kick-over-the-scenery|title = Kick over the Scenery|journal = London Review of Books|date = July 3, 2008|volume = 30|issue = 13|last1 = Burt|first1 = Stephanie|access-date = August 25, 2021|archive-date = August 25, 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210825225641/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n13/stephanie-burt/kick-over-the-scenery|url-status = live}}</ref> Dick himself was a drug user for much of his life. According to a 1975 interview in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'',<ref name="rollingstone">{{cite magazine| last = Williams| first = Paul| title = The Most Brilliant Sci-Fi Mind on Any Planet: Philip K. Dick| magazine = Rolling Stone| date = November 6, 1975| url = http://www.philipkdickfans.com/mirror/articles/1974_Rolling_Stone.pdf| access-date = November 10, 2014| archive-date = June 26, 2014| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140626113849/http://www.philipkdickfans.com/mirror/articles/1974_Rolling_Stone.pdf| url-status = live}}</ref> Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on [[amphetamine]]s. "''[[A Scanner Darkly]]'' (1977) was the first complete novel I had written without speed", said Dick in the interview. He also experimented briefly with [[psychedelics]], but wrote ''[[The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch]]'' (1965), which ''Rolling Stone'' dubs "the classic [[LSD]] novel of all time", before he had ever tried them. Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors told him the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain.<ref name="rollingstone" />

Summing up all these themes in ''Understanding Philip K. Dick'', Eric Carl Link discussed eight themes or "ideas and motifs":<ref name="Eric Carl Link">{{Cite book |last=Link |first=Eric Carl |title=Understanding Philip K. Dick |publisher=[[University of South Carolina Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-57003-855-6}}</ref>{{rp|48}} Epistemology and the Nature of Reality, Know Thyself, The Android and the Human, Entropy and Pot Healing, The [[Theodicy]] Problem, Warfare and Power Politics, The Evolved Human, and "Technology, Media, Drugs and Madness".<ref name="Eric Carl Link" />{{rp|48–101}}