Time-Slip: Philip K. Dick's Lifelong Struggle with Schizophrenia

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction featured many of Science Fiction’s greatest and most prolific authors. American author Philip K. Di" (1928 - 1982), active from 1952 until his death, was one of those who helped shape science fiction during the three decades during which he was active (Behrens and Ruch). Throughout his career, Di" wrote more than forty novels, one hundred short stories, as well as numerous essays. Amongst the author’s numerous works, eight short stories and four novels were eventually adapted to the silver screen (such as the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) which became Blade Runner (1982) and the short story “Adjustment Team” (1954) which was loosely adapted to eventually become The Adjustment Bureau (2011) (Kimbell). Nevertheless, something was eating the author away despite his success.
Although it was only later in his life that Di" received the diagnosis, for much of his life he suffered from schizophrenia and paranoia. The writer’s mental state and his will to understand the workings behind it would become the basis for many of Philip K. Di"’s stories and essays, such as was the case for Martian Time-Slip (Behrens and Ruch). In Philip K. Di"'s book Martian Time-Slip (Martian Time-Slip), the author symbolically poses both as the characters Ja" Bohlen and Manfred, with the former representing his current mental state and the la$er his envisioned future mental state. The parallel between Di" and his fictional characters is made even clearer after having read his essay “Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes” (1965), which reflects upon the authors views on schizophrenia, LSD, and the “Book of Changes” (known as I Ching in Mandarin). “The Exegesis of Philip K. Di"”, a collection of journals kept...

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