Week 7/8 P.K.D "Drugs, Hallucinations, and the Quest for Reality"

Doubt the reality of the material world, the solid world we experience every day and in which we construct as individual entities apparently independent of one another, may be considered for many people a hallucination. Things do not disintegrate or disappear, and yet it can be touch and it changes in accordance with established laws that are predictable and consistent. But consider the possibility that this is so precisely because we or someone else has establish that this is “the reality”.

Phillip K. Dick actually defined reality as "it which persists even when we stop believing in it." Things; the table, the tree, the car… it persist in our common experience.  McKee (2004) explains that Phillip K. Dick had a fascination with questioning the nature of reality. Perhaps this shows a kind of rejection of the world.

He shows us alterations of reality or the perception of it, through different ways; using drugs, brainwashing, implantation of false memories, alien abductions, etc...  I would like to talk about a particular one, "A Scanner Darkly", in which the alteration of reality is due to drug use and abuse, and the plot revolves around narcotics agent Fred, who is in charge of investigating the dangerous drug dealer Bob Arctor.  We follow the "adventures" of both, along with his group of relatives, friends, co-workers, etc... We also witness the damage that the drug is doing to the different characters, and the alteration of the reality in their minds, but at the same time this reality is confusing, the author manages to make us question our perception of it, especially when we approach the end.

Philip K. Dick wrote this novel in memory and in honor of his friends and colleagues affected by drug use, but as he says at the end, the story has no moral, doesn't apologize or accuses anyone; only it limits itself to tell the consequences. Finally, he dedicates his love to all of them, makes a list, accompanying that list are the consequences suffered by each of them (death, massive and permanent brain damage, permanent psychosis, etc.), he includes himself in that list. What I liked about the movie, was the fact that P.D.K didn't have to go far to show us other face of reality, it is here among us in our contemporary world.

The film's title is a technological gloss on 'For now we see through a glass, darkly' in Chapter 13 of St Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians.