The psychotic does not merely think he sees four blue bivalves with floppy wings wandering up the wall; he does see them. An hallucination is not, strictly speaking, manufactured in the brain; it is received by the brain, like any 'real' sense datum, and the patient act in response to this to-him-very-real perception of reality in as logical a way as we do to our sense data. In any way to suppose he only 'thinks he sees it' is to misunderstand totally the experience of psychosis.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that hallucinations are genuine experiences for those who have them, not mere figments of imagination.
Philip K. Dick illustrates the reality of psychosis by asserting that hallucinations are perceived as real by the individual experiencing them. He argues that these perceptions, while not shared with others, are as valid and impactful as any common sensory experience, thus highlighting a profound misunderstanding of psychosis if one believes that the person merely 'thinks' they see their hallucinations rather than truly perceiving them.
In practice
During a discussion about mental health, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of understanding the experiences of individuals with psychosis.
We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present - deja vu.
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.
"Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?" "An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for." "Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."
The universe is information and we are stationary in it, not three dimensional and not in space or time.
A man is an angel that has gone deranged.
A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.
If machines do everything well, including allocating capital and resources efficiently, can that be deflationary, can that eliminate poverty? I don't know. It's hard to be very optimistic if you look at how humans have behaved historically.
It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.
Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius! If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then this parting was well made.
Soon all of you immortals Will be as dead as we are! Come on then, what are you waiting for? Have you run out of thunderbolts?
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