Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick's work consisted nearly completely of science fiction.  He wrote short stories, novels, and essays, and was well-known for his bizarre mind and ways of thinking that were reflected into his writings.

The man was a mess at first.  He abused drugs and, possibly as a result of those, became a very anxious person.  Dick's anxiety even drove him to drop out of college.  He also married five times, all to different women.

What really interested me while reading about this guy was his epiphany-vision experience.  His abuse of drugs, namely speed, could have very well been the cause, since speed can cause hallucinations and delusions.  However, speed doesn't insert accurate knowledge of things that Dick couldn't have known otherwise, which is what actually happened.
Strange things fascinate me, as does the abnormal. Philip K. Dick's experiences were certainly unusual, and their religious nature piqued my curiosity all the more since I am Catholic myself.

I'm drawn to the surreal, and reading about Dick's ideas made me sit back and do some thinking too.  A few of his beliefs or themes in his writings that caught my attention were his idea of reality, discovering one's personal identity, and the "phantom twin" that appeared multiple times in his work.
I thought it was interesting that Dick often contemplated the reality of reality itself.  He probably sometimes believed that reality is just an illusion, and that none of us, nothing around us, is real.  It was actually kind of scary to read about that because I frequently dwell on how real reality actually is, but I try not to let myself think about it quite as deeply as Philip K. Dick did.
The theme of the "phantom twin" came from Dick's own twin sister, Jane, who died six weeks after they had been born six weeks prematurely... so, she died when she should've been born.  Jane's death heavily affected him, which is what spurred him to use the idea in his work numerous times.  I think personal experience is really important in order to produce something compelling.

Another thing I liked about Philip K. Dick's stories was that he didn't write about your typical hero saving a damsel in distress - he focused on the lives of characters that had serious hardships, such as mental illness.  Although sci-fi isn't usually a genre I seek out, I'm looking forward to reading something he wrote one day.