And yet, as of this March, with the sudden bombardment of the nonobjective graphics, perhaps I have once again regained contact with the authentic future; for example, the work I’m engaged in now is a sequel to Man in the High Castle, at last—I’ve wanted to do that for 12 years, but never come up with an idea good enough. Based on my experiences from March of this year on, I believe I have indeed, finally, come up with an idea good enough, and am deep into it. I feel that the external creative force which I’ve discussed throughout this letter, whatever its source, whatever its nature, has inspired me as I have never been inspired before. More important to me than what it is, what it’s called, is the quality of its inspiration to me and the effect on my writing. Well, from these experiences over the past three months I do have a terrific idea, I think the best of my life, and in no way will it be anything you can read about in the present day newspaper. Perhaps what has happened is nothing more or less than a sudden return of the old force of creativity which animated me in years past and novels past. . . . Whatever it is, God bless it, and I am grateful for it. Wish me luck—and also, let me know what you think of all this; I value your opinion uniquely.
Letter to Claudia Bush, July 5, 1974
[4:13]
Dear Claudia,
Since I last wrote you (sending on the 7 page letter to Peter Fitting plus the 2 page letter to you) I have continued to have the same dream again and again which I mentioned: a vast and important book held up before me which I should read. Yesterday, for example, since Tessa and Christopher had gone off on a picnic, I took several naps and had four dreams in which printed matter appeared, two of them involving books.
For three months, virtually every night, I’ve had these dreams involving written material. And within the last few days it became obvious that a specific book was indicated. That the ultimate purpose of all these dreams was to call my attention to an actual book somewhere in the real world, which I was to find, then take down and read.
The first dream on July 4 was much more explicit than any before; I took down my copy of Robert Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, a large blue hardback U.K. edition, for two men to look at. Both men said this was not a book (or the book) they were interested in. However, it was clear that the book wanted was large and blue and hardback.
In a dream a month ago I managed to see part of the title; it ended in the word “Grove.” At the time I thought it might be Proust’s Within a Budding Grove, but it was not; however, there was a long word similar to “Budding” before “Grove.”
So I knew by the first part of the day yesterday that I was looking for a large blue hardback book—very large and long, according to some dreams, endlessly long, in fact—with the final word of the title being “Grove” and a word before it like “Budding.”
In the last of the four dreams yesterday I caught sight of the copyright date on the book and another look at the typestyle. It was dated either 1966 or possibly 1968 (the latter proved to be the case). So I began studying all the books in my library which might fit these qualifications. I had the keen intuition that when I at last found it I would have in my hands a mystic or occult or religious book of wisdom which would be a doorway to the absolute reality behind the whole universe.
Of course the possibility existed that I didn’t have the book in my library, that I would have to go out and buy it. In several dreams I was in a bookstore doing just that. One time the book was held open before me with its pages singed by fire on all sides. By that I took it to be an extremely sacred book, perhaps the one seen in the Book of Daniel.5
Anyhow today I looked all day around the house, since Tessa has been sick with a sunburn, and all at once I found the book. The three month search is at last over.
As soon as I took down the volume I knew it to be the right one. I had seen it again and again, with ever increasing clarity, until it could not be mistaken.
The book is called The Shadow of Blooming Grove, hardback and blue, running just under 700 huge long pages of tiny type. It was published in 1968.6 It is the dullest book in the world; I tried to read it when the Book Find Book Club sent it to me but couldn’t.
It is a biography of Warren G. Harding.
Cordially,
Phil Dick
P.S. This is on the level, and it goes to show you that you should never take your dreams too seriously. Or else it shows that the unconscious or the universe or God or whatever can put you on. A three-month gag. (If you want to read the book I’ll mail it to you. Postage should be enormous. You got three years ahead in which you have nothing planned?)
Letter to Claudia Bush, July 13, 1974
[4:16]
Dear Claudia,
[ . . . ] Inasmuch as I’ve delighted you so far with my unusual (to say the least) trip into Big Dreams of Big Books, then I might as well go all the way.
Now, as I’ve mentioned, among other things I’ve dreamed about:
A big blue book whose title ends in the word grove and before this is a word starting with a “B” which could be blooming or budding or something. A book in which everything there is is.
The sibyl. Who knows and sees everything . . . The deeds of men, especially.
The cyclops (in same dream as above). Contributing the seeing Eye.
A friend called “Paul” holding up galley proofs for me to read, which I am told consist of a “book of prophecies,” and in which I find a passage about myself. Again, a huge MS of printed pages, but not quite a true bound book in our terms. Yet enormous.
The word “sintonic,” which I am told to be, and which when I wake up I believe to be a neologism, but when I finally look up and find to be a real word, Greek, meaning self-harmony, etc. In harmony with, etc. A key term in Pythagorean thought, also Roman.
Well, Claudia, let’s take the above five in terms of what I found in my funky reference books. Now, ESP has been described as “when you somehow acquire knowledge you shouldn’t have,” or “have no way of having,” whether it’s about the future, or what’s in the next room, or in another person’s mind, etc., or in the past. Since I wrote you earlier today I decided to look up Virgil’s Aeneid, because in the short paragraph which I quoted to you about the Cumaean Sibyl, it’s in that book where she is mentioned. Okay. Here is what I found: