Philip K. Dick’s influence on science fiction, literature, and popular culture in general is simply undeniable. Dick was the first to introduce philosophical and psychological themes with a futuristic approach often dancing between the lines of what’s real and what’s not.

In his work, he questioned, well, basically everything that we’ve ever known about the universe, the future, and how we perceive them. With around 44 novels and 121 short stories published, the word “Phildickian” has now become a recognized synonym of all that is paranoid and explores the themes of alternate realities or distant futures with dystopian tendencies.

However, through PDK’s own life, the line between what’s real and what’s not seemed blurry for Philip K. Dick, and the story of his life has become also a part of his legacy. The Blade Runner creator’s life story resembles a pretty trippy movie on its own: living in poverty, fighting mental disorders, numerous marriages with disastrous outcomes, and battling the very drug addiction that fueled his writing.

Here are more than 50 surprising facts about the life and death of the legendary science fiction and futuristic cyberpunk fantasy writer Philip K. Dick:

 

Philip K. Dick’s Early Years, Family & Education

1. He was born prematurely

Philip K. Dick was born on the 16th of December 1928 in Chicago, Illinois — six weeks before expected. Luckily, Chicago was one of the first cities to have a premature infant care center, without which, Dick might not have survived.

2. Dick had a twin sister named Jane

Jane was Philip’s fraternal twin sister and sadly only lived six weeks after birth before passing away. As an adult, Dick would go on to have a recurring trope in his stories about a phantom twin, and often felt guilty about surviving when she did not. Jane had a very deep and profound influence on how Philip was shaped.

3. His parents engraved his name next to his sister’s on her tombstone

While the motive behind this is unknown, his parents wrote his name next to Jane’s when she was buried, and below it engraved “twins.” Some speculate that it may have been due to the fact they were expecting Philip to also pass away, but that certainly doesn’t really make it any less strange.

4. Philip K. Dick was a child of divorce

His father was Joseph Edgar Dick, and he worked at the United States Department of Agriculture. His mother was Dorothy Kindred. Philip was raised in San Francisco but when his parents divorced, his father lost the custody battle and ended up moving to Reno, Nevada. Philip moved to Washington D.C. with his mother and didn’t see his father for six years after that.

5. He developed an eating disorder at 7 years old

In the late 1930s, Philip and his mother moved to California, where she was too overwhelmed with work to care for Philip so she sent him to a boarding school. There, Dick developed a developed an eating disorder. He continued to struggle with anorexia (in addition to numerous other maladies) for most of his life, often feeling uncomfortable eating in front of others.

6. He attended high school with the award-winning science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin

Dick attended John Elementary school and later graduated from Berkley High School in California in 1947 — with none other than fellow famous science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin in his graduating class. However, the two of them did not know each other at the time. In fact, Ursula herself has said “Absolutely no one I’ve spoken to from our Berkeley High years remember him… His name is in the yearbook but there is no picture of him. In Dick’s life as in his fiction, reality seems to slither from the grasp, and ascertainable facts end up as debatable assertions or mere labels.” The two writers corresponded and spoke on the phone, but despite going to high school together, they never met.

7. Philip K. Dick dropped out of college

Despite being accepted at the University of California in Berkley, Philip K. Dick never graduated college. He lasted only a semester, but not without taking classes in history, psychology, philosophy, and zoology. According to his third wife Anne Rubinstein, he dropped out because college brought him too much anxiety. The mandatory ROTC classes didn’t help, either.

Philip K. Dick: Drugs, Marriages & Life

8. Dick worked several different jobs before he was a writer

Philip K. Dick lived in California most of his life. As a teenager in Berkley, he worked as a sales clerk at an electronics store selling radios and televisions. He also spent four years working at a Telegraph Avenue record store called Art Music.

9. He got married when he was only 19

Right after moving out of his mother’s and moving into an upper floor of a warehouse in Berkley, Dick married Jeanette Marlin. However, as young marriage usually goes, it only lasted six months before ending in November 1948.

10. Dick began writing in his teenage years

In his preteen years, Dick fell in love with science fiction and it sparked his interest in storytelling. While he was working at the record store, he began writing stories himself and publishing them in science fiction magazines. In 1953, he wrote “The Defenders,” which was the cover story in the January edition of Galaxy Science Fiction. He also wrote “The World She Wanted,” which made it to the cover of Science Fiction Quarterly.

11. Dick met his second wife at the record store

Philip K. Dick met Kleo Apostolides while he was working at Art Music. They married in 1950.

12. Philip supposedly survived on horse meat

Despite publishing a lot of short stories, he still struggled financially as science fiction wasn’t exactly a booming business at that time. Dick even reported that he couldn’t pay late fees on a library book. It’s said that during that time, Dick was reported to shop from the Lucky Dog Pet Shop, where dog food had become his more affordable cuisine.

13. Dick used to publish his work under pen names

Often, more than one of his writings would be accepted in a single issue and Philip wanted to give the illusion that they were written by different authors. Philip K. Dick’s pen names include Richard Phillips and Jack Dowland.

14. He cheated on Kleo with their neighbor

Philip K. Dick and Kleo moved to Point Reyes Station in California. There, Dick had an affair with their neighbor Anne Williams Rubinstein, who would later become his third wife. In 1960, Anne would give birth to Philip’s first child: Laura Archer Dick.

15. Philip and Kleo remained close friends

Despite Dick’s infidelity, he and Kleo remained very close after their divorce. He even introduced her to her second husband Norman Mini, who used to work with Philip at the record store in Berkley on Telegraph Avenue.

16. Philip was close to Kleo and Norman’s daughter

Kleo and Norman’s daughter, Anne (who ironically carried the name of his mistress), was very close to Philip. He was her first writing teacher and they both spoke frequently, especially during the time where Anne’s father was dying when she was in elementary school. Here is a very engaging and informative interview Kleo’s daughter Anne once gave.

17. Dick was unfortunately abusive to his third wife, Anne

In 1963, Philip attempted to push Anne off a cliff in a car while she was driving after an argument. He later on persuaded a psychiatrist to commit her without her consent and accused her of trying to kill him.

18. Dick attempted another vehicle suicide a year later

After his divorce from Anne, Phil moved to Oakland where he lived with writer and science fiction editor Grania Davis, who was a big fan of Dick’s work. Shortly after, he attempted another suicide while she was a passenger in his car.

19. He developed an addiction to amphetamines

Dick started using amphetamines as a way to maintain his rapid writing rate. He also experimented with LSD a couple of times, but amphetamines became a substantial part of his life — with him taking up to 1,000 pills a week! — an issue that he struggled with years after that. He wrote about his experiments with drugs in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick.

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20. Despite using amphetamines for a long time, he was only psychologically dependent on them

Apparently, Dick’s amphetamine dependency was only psychological. At one point, Philip K. Dick was in rehab at Hoover Pavilion, Stanford Hospital for his drug use, and doctors found that the amphetamines never actually affected him and that most of the drugs he took were metabolized in his liver before reaching his brain.

21. Dick moved with his fourth wife to Santa Venetia

He married Nancy Hackett in 1965 and moved to a house in Santa Venetia. When they divorced three years later, she moved out and their house became known as the hermit house. He left early in 1972, and there are folks who consider visiting this house as a sort of pilgrimage.

22. He joined the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest, which cost him his car

Created by Gerald Walker, editor of The New York Times Magazine (and author of Cruising) in 1967, The Writers and Editors War Tax Protest was an anti-war pledge by 528 writers and editors to pay no U.S. federal income tax. PKD was one of them, and as a result, his car was confiscated by the IRS, leaving Dick with a large tax debt to pay.

23. Famous science fiction writer Robert Heinlein lent Dick his tax debt

Of course, Dick couldn’t pay the tax debt as he was just barely getting by, and the so-called “dean of science fiction writers” took mercy on his friend. The Hugo Award-winning science fiction author Robert Heinlein lent Dick his debt money so he could avoid jail.

24. Ironically, Dick was a government informant — or at least tried to be

PKD contacted the FBI more than once accusing his fellow writers and professors of being communists or foreign agents. You can read one of the letters here, which he sent in September 1974.

25. One of the people Dick reported was actually a huge fan of his

In 1974, Philip K. Dick told the FBI that the famous Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem was implanted by the Soviet Union to spread anti-American thoughts through his work. The FBI didn’t pay attention to his claim. Lem, who didn’t know of Dick’s accusations, later on wrote an essay where he called Dick “a visionary among the charlatans.”

26. He met his fifth wife when she was 18, and he was 42

Philip met Leslie “Tessa” Busby at a beach party in Santa Ana, California. They married in April 1973 and their marriage lasted four years before it ended in 1977.

27. Dick’s three children are co-founders of Electric Shepherd Productions

Dick’s three children: Isa Dick Hackett, Christopher Dick, and Laura Leslie, are co-founders of Electric Shepherd Productions, a company dedicated to the stewardship of his library. Founded in 2007, they’re very involved in film and television adaptations of PKD’s work.

28. Philip K. Dick didn’t die from the drugs

After his long struggle with addiction, Dick died on March 2, 1982 from a complication of a series of strokes. This was right before the publication of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, which earned him a Nebula Nomination. His ashes were buried next to his twin sister’s body.

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29. A group of scientists created an android to imitate Philip K. Dick

Built by Hanson Robotics in 2005, the android was also programmed to recognize his family and friends. His daughter Isa met with the android which went on a tirade to denounce her mother, Nancy. Naturally, Isa found this disturbing and was pleased to know that the android’s head was lost in the airline while flying to Santa Ana. A second android was created in 2011 and in 2012, How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection was published.

 

Philip K. Dick & His Paranormal Experiences

 

30. Dick believed he was hit by a pink beam of light

After an extracted wisdom tooth and being loaded up with barbiturate in 1974, PKD opened his front door to receive a pharmacy delivery and was struck by a beautiful dark-haired woman. As the sun reflected on a gold pendant she was wearing, Dick believed he was mesmerized by a pink beam of light. According to PKD, this was a kind of spiritual epiphany that changed his life.

31. PKD believed this beam of light gave him impeccable wisdom

On a separate occasion, he was suddenly startled by the memory of this pink beam, which planted in his head that his son was ill. Dick rushed his son to the hospital, where indeed, the doctors confirmed his suspicion. He later described it as, “I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly, I had become sane.”

32. He experienced strange hallucinations, which he named “2-3-7-4”

The numbers stood for February and March 1974, the time when Dick experiences a series of hallucinations including brief pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome. He claimed he traveled to a time where he was inhabiting an ancient persona named Thomas, a first-century Christian fleeing the persecution of hateful Rome.

33. Dick believed he was taken over by the spirit of the prophet Elijah while writing

In a section of his novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, there was a detailed retelling of a biblical story that is very similar to the Book of Acts. Dick had actually never read it before and he discussed this experience in a private journal that was eventually published as The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.

 

What books did Philip K. Dick write? Early & Major Works

34. “Roog” was the first story Philip K. Dick sold

“Roog” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1953. Dick once explained that his story “tells of fear, it tells of loyalty, it tells of obscure menace and a good creature who cannot convey knowledge of that menace to those he loves.” You can find “Roog” as part of the Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick collection.

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35. Dick became one of the genre’s major figures in 1962 with the publication of The Man in the High Castle

In The Man in the High Castle, Dick brilliantly played with the terrifying idea of parallel worlds, where the Allies have lost World War II resulting in a dystopian nightmare. New York is controlled by the Nazis, and California by the Japanese. In a neutral zone, lives an author whose book offers a new parallel of reality, an alternative universe where the Axis powers were defeated.

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36. The Man in the High Castle was Amazon’s most-watched pilot

The plot didn’t go unnoticed by TV producers and several attempts of TV adaptation were made, most notably by the BBC and Syfy. Finally, Amazon released the pilot on their platform in January 2015, where it became their “most-watched” originally developed program and more episodes were ordered.

 

37. Dick wanted to write a sequel for The Man in the High Castle

He stated in an interview that he started writing a sequel many times but couldn’t do it. He was so heavily disturbed by what he found while researching the Nazis for the first book and he said he didn’t have enough mental capacity to read about it again. Still, he was open to the idea and was keen on collaborating on it with another author.

38. A Scanner Darkly was the first complete novel Dick wrote without amphetamines….

Dick stated in a 1975 interview with Rolling Stone that all of his books published before 1970 were written under the influence of amphetamines.

39. …and was also written after his suicide attempt

After Dick’s 2-3-7-4 hallucinations subsided, he felt spiritually abandoned and in despair — which lead to him overdosing on his anti-hypertensive drugs. However, there are many versions of this story, with even different retellings by Philip himself! Eventually, he entered a cult-like rehab program and was back in California before long, ready to write again.

40. A Scanner Darkly was semi-autobiographical

Philip K. Dick incorporated a lot of his life events into A Scanner Darkly. It tells the story of an undercover police officer who’s suffering from his distorted reality due to the influence of a powerful hallucinatory drug. Sounds familiar? It’s also worth mentioning that A Scanner Darkly won him a British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Award in 1978.

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41. Tessa, his fifth wife, wrote A Scanner Darkly with him

A Scanner Darkly was so emotionally tough for Philip to write that Tessa would find Dick in tears at sunrise after pulling an all-nighter working on the book. While Philip wrote it in two weeks, Tessa stated that she and he spent three years rewriting it together. She considers herself a “silent co-author,” and Philip even wrote a contract to Tessa giving her half of the book’s rights.

42. The movie adaptation to A Scanner Darkly is considered his most faithful one

Very faithful in sticking to the source material, A Scanner Darkly was adapted to a movie that was released in July 2006. Directed by Richard Linklater, it starred Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey, Jr.

43. The Inspiration for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? came to Dick while writing The Man in the High Castle

While researching for The Man in the High Castle, he came across an Auschwitz Nazi Officer’s Diary and was startled by what he found. He read an entry that stated, “The screaming of children keeps me awake,” wondering if this human had become an android. Dick dives into the exploration of what it means to be a genuine human and if a machine can, in fact, become one.

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44. He only saw 20 minutes of Blade Runner

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is known for its 1982 film adaptation, the one and only Blade Runner. Before he passed away, Philip K. Dick saw about 20 minutes of almost completed special effects while it was still in production. Dick, who had been cynical about it beforehand, left the screening pleasantly stunned with what he had seen.

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45. Dick’s Valis was inspired by his pink light beam experience

Valis is one of his most-read novels and is considered his most autobiographical piece. The title is an acronym that stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System and it tells the story of a man who’s convinced there’s an alien figure orbiting around earth and revealing secrets about reality to him. Oddly familiar!

 

46. Many of his early short stories are in the public domain

More than a dozen of Philip K. Dick’s early short stories that originally appeared in science fiction magazines during the early 1950s are now in the public domain. In fact, the folks here at Content Bash have collected them all into one convenient ebook that you can purchase below!

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Philip K. Dick’s Awards & Accolades

 

47. PKD was nominated for the Hugo Awards three times — but only won the first time

A Scanner Darkly won Dick the Hugo Award for best novel in 1963. He was nominated again in 1968 for his short story “Faith of Our Fathers,” and once more in 1975 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. You can find “Faith of Our Fathers” in Dangerous Visions, an anthology of science fiction pieces edited by Harlan Ellison and released in 1967.

 

48. Philip K. Dick never won a Nebula Award

Despite being nominated five times — including twice in one year in 1965 — Philip never won a Nebula award. The two 1965 nominations for Best Novel were The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Dr. Bloodmoney.

 

49. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said won him the John W. Campbell Memorial Award

Another Nebula nominee, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is perhaps his best novel. In addition to the Hugo Award nomination, PKD won the 1975 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction novel.

 

50. There was even a theatrical adaptation

Ten years after Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said was published, the experimental theater company Mabou Mines debuted a theatrical adaptation at City Stage Company in New York City on June 6, 1985 before a two-week run at the Boston Shakespeare Theatre. Linda Hartinian, a close friend of PKD, adapted the novel to the stage, designed the set, portrayed one of the characters, and read Dick’s 1981 “Tagore Letter” at the end of the play. The play is actually based on an early draft of the novel that contained text omitted from the version that was eventually published.

51. The Philip K. Dick Award was established the year after his death

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (PSFS) hands out the Philip K. Dick award annually to the best original science fiction published as a paperback to the author “best representing the spirit of innovative science fiction.”

52. Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame began in 1996 and eventually became affiliated with the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle. Since its inauguration, the inductions have included a veritable who’s who of science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, and old PKD classmate Ursula K. Le Guin. Philip K. Dick was inducted in 2005 along with Steven Spielberg, painter and illustrator Chesley Bonestell, and stop-motion visual artist Ray Harryhausen.

53. Philip K. Dick was the first science fiction writer included in the Library of America

In 2007, the Library of America published a volume of Philip K. Dick novels, and it was the very first time they had included a science fiction writer in their overview of the American literary canon — not even sci-fi heavyweights like Ray Bradbury or Jules Verne had been included at this point. The LoA published two more PKD collections in 2008 and 2009.

 

Final Thoughts About Philip K. Dick

The story of Philip K. Dick’s life is hectic and surreal — and not exactly flawless. PKD continues to live through his legacy of the undeniable influence his work has had on science fiction literature, one that has extended to video games, television shows, and even blockbuster Hollywood films. From Richard Linklater to Steven Spielberg, and William Gibson to Neal Stephenson, so many writers and filmmakers have been touched by the ideas put forth in his work — so much so that PKD has shaped so much of what we see in science fiction today. The next time you watch a science fiction movie like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or play a video game with futuristic elements like Final Fantasy VII, you can bet good money that Phildickian themes and ideas are hiding somewhere.

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Looking for more content about books and literature? Check out our series of fun facts about literary superstars, including Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Oscar Wilde.

 Cover Image Credit: Image by tunnelmotions from Pixabay

 

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