PKD had some interesting things to say.

"PKD had a visionary Gnostic experience after the removal of two impacted wisdom teeth in which he believed that our current reality is a Black Iron Prison that is actually still Ancient Rome, which was communicated to him by a Vast Active Living Intelligence System (VALIS) encoded into a shade of pink light. Dick spent the rest of his life trying to unpack this experience, writing a massive tome of speculations about what it meant (called the Exegesis). Often considered by some to have been mentally ill, he had some visions that led him to believe we are living in a simulation. Most of his books dealt with issues of perceiving reality. As a young writer he took a lot of amphetamines so he could crank out the novels and maybe that caused some issues."--Robert W. Malone, M.D.

Thanks!