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A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

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Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#3
Interesting read. Have always enjoyed Philip K Dicks novels… sadly not surprised he struggled with mental and substance abuse. His books read in a way that often feature a character somewhat removed from reality or in some form of psychosis. The idea of what is real or not real is explored over and over again. I cannot help but think he was writing from his own soul or at least his own experience. He was always the looker peering into the another world that he just didn’t quite fit into. It makes me feel sad like he was often likely very lonely despite his genius and fame :/.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#4
Superficial and entirely missing the mark. PKD spent years doing research trying to understand his most important mystical experience, and his extensive notes and documentation ended up in the book "exegesis" (also greatly influencing the philosophy underlying works such as Valis). None of that is of course mentioned in the article.

What we get is a random psychiatrist performing armchair psychoanalysis on someone he knows very little about.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#7
post #4

Superficial and entirely missing the mark. PKD spent years doing research trying to understand his most important mystical experience, and his extensive notes and documentation ended up in the book "exegesis" (also greatly influencing the philosophy underlying works such as Valis). None of that is of course mentioned in the article. What we get is a random psychiatrist performing armchair psychoanalysis on someone he…

Yeah, reads more like a collection of fun apocrypha than a serious look at something that affected the great author so profoundly

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#8
post #2

if pkd were still alive he would think that gpt is communicating with him specifically

You know I think you're 100% right on this... wonder what kind of crazy things PKD would come up with after talking to chat GPT.

Train up a GPT from his writing, and have a dialogue with himself?

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#10
post #4

Superficial and entirely missing the mark. PKD spent years doing research trying to understand his most important mystical experience, and his extensive notes and documentation ended up in the book "exegesis" (also greatly influencing the philosophy underlying works such as Valis). None of that is of course mentioned in the article. What we get is a random psychiatrist performing armchair psychoanalysis on someone he…

Absolutely.

If you want to get a handle on PKD and his problems, it's so much better to read his work and get his own perspective. Radio Free Albemuth is interesting as a kind of precursor to Valis, but I must admit to not wanting to read Exegesis as it looks too in depth.

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