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Dick's father worked for the United States Department of Agriculture. Philip Kindred Dick and his twin sister, Jane Charlotte Dick, were born six weeks prematurely to Dorothy Kindred Dick and Joseph Edgar Dick in Chicago. Jane died five weeks after her birth (January 26, 1929). The death of Philip's twin sister profoundly affected his writing, relationships, and every aspect of his life, leading to the recurrent motif of the "phantom twin" in many of his books.

The family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. When Philip turned five, his father was transferred to Reno, Nevada. Dorothy refused to move, and she and Joseph divorced. Joseph fought her for custody of Philip but did not win the case. Dorothy, determined to raise Philip alone, took a job in Washington, D.C. and moved there with her son. Philip K. Dick was enrolled at John Eaton Elementary School from 1936 to 1938, completing the second through the fourth grades. His lowest grade was a "C" in written composition, although a teacher remarked that he "shows interest and ability in story telling." In June 1938, Dorothy and Philip returned to California. It was around this time that he became interested in science fiction. Dick states that in 1940 at the age of twelve he read his first science fiction magazine entitled "Stirring Science Stories".

Dick attended Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California. He and Ursula K. Le Guin were members of the same high school graduating class (1947), yet were unknown to each other at the time. After graduating from high school he briefly attended the University of California, Berkeley as a German major, but dropped out before completing any coursework rather than participate in mandatory ROTC training. At Berkeley, Dick befriended poet Robert Duncan and poet and linguist Jack Spicer, who gave Dick ideas for a Martian language. Dick claimed to have been host of a classical music program on KSMO Radio in 1947.From 1948 to 1952 he worked in a record store. In 1955, Dick and his second wife, Kleo Apostolides, received a visit from the FBI. They believed this resulted from Kleo's socialist views and left-wing activities. The couple briefly befriended one of the FBI agents.

Dick sold his first story in 1951. From that point on he wrote full-time, selling his first novel in 1955. The 1950s were a difficult and impoverished time for Dick. He once said "We couldn't even pay the late fees on a library book." He published almost exclusively within the science fiction genre, but dreamed of a career in the mainstream of American literature. During the 1950s he produced a series of nongenre, non-science fiction novels. In 1960 he wrote that he was willing to "take twenty to thirty years to succeed as a literary writer." The dream of mainstream success formally died in January 1963 when the Scott Meredith Literary Agency returned all of his unsold mainstream novels. Only one of these works, Confessions of a Crap Artist, was published during Dick's lifetime.

In 1963, Dick won the Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle. Although he was hailed as a genius in the science fiction world, the mainstream literary world was unappreciative, and he could publish books only through low-paying science fiction publishers such as Ace. Even in his later years, he continued to have financial troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection The Golden Man, Dick wrote: "Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him—one of the few true gentlemen in this world. I don't agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time when I owed the IRS a lot of money and couldn't raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me. I think a great deal of him and his wife; I dedicated a book to them in appreciation. Robert Heinlein is a fine-looking man, very impressive and very military in stance; you can tell he has a military background, even to the haircut. He knows I'm a flipped-out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love."

In 1972, Dick donated manuscripts, papers and other materials to the Special Collections Library at California State University, Fullerton where they are archived in the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Collection in the Pollak Library. It was in Fullerton that Philip K. Dick befriended budding science-fiction writers K. W. Jeter, James Blaylock, and Tim Powers. The last novel written during Dick's life was The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. It was published shortly after his death in 1982.

Unusual experiences

On February 20, 1974, Dick was recovering from the effects of sodium pentothal administered for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth. Answering the door to receive delivery of extra analgesic, he noticed that the delivery woman was wearing a pendant with a symbol that he called the "vesicle pisces." This name seems to have been based on his confusion of two related symbols, the ichthys (two intersecting arcs delineating a fish in profile) that early Christians used as a secret symbol, and the vesica piscis. After the delivery woman's departure, Dick began experiencing strange visions. Although they may have been initially attributable to the medication, after weeks of visions he considered this explanation implausible. "I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane," Dick told Charles Platt.

Throughout February and March 1974, he experienced a series of visions, which he referred to as "2-3-74", shorthand for February—March 1974. He described the initial visions as laser beams and geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and of ancient Rome. As the visions increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live a double life, one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a Christian persecuted by Romans in the 1st century A.D. Despite his history of drug use and elevated stroke risk, Dick began seeking other rationalist and religious explanations for these experiences. He referred to the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS." Dick wrote about the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novel Radio Free Albemuth and then in VALIS, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, i.e., the VALIS trilogy.

At one point Dick felt that he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. He believed that an episode in his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was a detailed retelling of a story from the Biblical Book of Acts, which he had never read.

Marriages and children

Dick married five times, and had two daughters and a son; each marriage ended in divorce.

• May 1948, to Jeanette Marlin – lasted six months divorced 1948
• June 14, 1950, to Kleo Apostolides – divorced 1959
• April 1, 1959, to Anne Williams Rubinstein – divorced October 1965
• child: Laura Archer, born February 25, 1960
• July 6, 1966, to Nancy Hackett – divorced 1972
• child: Isolde Freya Dick (now Isa Dick Hackett), born March 15, 1967
• April 18, 1973, to Leslie (Tessa) Busby – divorced 1977
• child: Christopher Kenneth, born July 25, 1973

Death

Philip K. Dick died in Santa Ana, California, on March 2, 1982. He had suffered a stroke five days earlier, and was disconnected from life support after his EEG had been consistently isoelectric since losing consciousness. After his death, his father Edgar took his son's ashes to Fort Morgan, Colorado. When his twin sister Jane died, her tombstone had both their names carved on it, with an empty space for Dick's death date. Brother and sister were eventually buried next to each other.

Dick was recreated by his fans in the form of a remote-controlled android designed in his likeness. The android of Philip K. Dick was included on a discussion panel in a San Diego Comic Con presentation about the film adaptation of the novel, A Scanner Darkly. In February 2006, an America West Airlines employee misplaced the android's head, and it has not yet been found.

Biographical treatments

Books

Lawrence Sutin's 1989 biography of Dick, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, is considered the standard biographical treatment of Dick's life.

In 1993, French writer Emmanuel Carrère published Je suis vivant et vous êtes morts which was first translated and published in English in 2004 as I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick, which the author describes in his preface in this way:

The book you hold in your hands is a very peculiar book. I have tried to depict the life of Philip K. Dick from the inside, in other words, with the same freedom and empathy — indeed with the same truth — with which he depicted his own characters.

Critics of the book have complained about the lack of fact checking, sourcing, notes and index, "the usual evidence of deep research that gives a biography the solid stamp of authority." It can be considered a non-fiction novel about his life.

Films

Writer-director John Alan Simon is making a semiautobiograhical film based on Dick's novel Radio Free Albemuth starring Shea Whigham as the author.

A 2008 film titled Your Name Here, by Matthew Wilder, features Bill Pullman as science fiction author William J. Frick, a character based on Dick.

BBC2 released in a biographical documentary as part of its Arena arts series called Arena - A day in the afterlife.

The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick was a documentary film produced in 2001.

The Penultimate Truth About Philip K. Dick was another biographical documentary film produced in 2007.

Pen names

Dick had two professional stories published under the pen names, Richard Phillips and Jack Dowland. "Some Kinds Of Life" in Fantastic Universe, October, 1953 was published as by Richard Phillipps apparently because "Planet For Transients" was published in the same issue under his own name.

The short story "Orpheus with Clay Feet" was published under the pen name "Jack Dowland". The protagonist desires to be the muse for fictional author Jack Dowland, considered the greatest science fiction author of the 20th century. In the story, Dowland publishes a short story titled "Orpheus with Clay Feet", under the pen name "Philip K. Dick".

The surname Dowland refers to Renaissance composer John Dowland, who is featured in several works. The title Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said directly refers to Dowland's best-known composition, "Flow My Tears". In the novel The Divine Invasion, the 'Linda Fox' character, created specifically with Linda Ronstadt in mind, is an intergalactically famous singer whose entire body of work consists of recordings of John Dowland compositions. Also, some protagonists in Dick's short fiction are named 'Dowland'.