Mike Rossmassler

It is rather difficult to suss worlds out of works by Philip K Dick. His stories are curious amalgams of science fiction, paranoia and political anxieties. Dick's stories mix real history with fantastic alien worlds, drug culture and Christian mythos. The world Jason Taverner inhabits in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Taverner is a television celebrity with a weekly music variety show on NBC that has over 30 million nightly viewers. That is, until he wakes one day to find that he does not exist.

Taverner calls the world he lives in a “betrayal state,” where police surveillance is omni-present, and individuals are paid to nark on any infraction. Individuals must carry a score of identification cards, and are tattooed with an identification number. Failure to present these at any of the ubiquitous police checkpoints will result in death, or even worse, imprisonment in a forced-labor camp. Roving teams of three officers conduct random identification checks, and are in constant radio contact with the central records office in Kansas City. Those without identification are called 'unpersons' and Jason Taverner finds himself one of them. Taverner eventually learns that all record of him has disappeared from the archives, be it the records of his birth, military service or even membership in the musician's union.

Dick goes to great lengths to establish a greater world, and though he only obliquely refers to it, it has a significant impact on the events of the book. A second Civil War breaks out in America, not so long after Richard Nixon dies. In this world, Nixon dies a hero, and is depicted as the 'Second Only Son of God.' Dick's feelings toward Nixon and Christianity reveal this world to be an ultimate dystopia. Furthermore, students (who are classified as unpersons) are confined to warrens beneath the campuses of major universities, and often stage futile, guerilla-style raids to steal food and fresh water. Science fiction movies are referred to as 'captain kirks' and it is even implied that numerous movies are made from old episodes of Star Trek. Dick even comes up with numerous 'celebrities' whom Taverner knows in real life, and one character met (or met people who claimed to be) while living in a mental institution.

At the same time, commonalities with our world exist. Taverner, though a television star, is well read in books like Finnegan's Wake, Remembrance of Things Past, and another character, Felix Buckman, is an avid stamp collector, and fan of classical music such as John Dowland's Flow My Tears.

The entirety of the world is presided over by a group of six police generals (of whom Felix Buckman is one), above whom is a police marshall. The police have infiltrated every sector of society and operate with virtually no restrictions. Certain legalities have changed. Cigarettes, recognized as deadly to a person's health are rationed to one pack a week, but can be bought on the black market for exorbitant sums. Instead, marijuana joints are commonly smoked, and Taverner even bums one off of a police officer while in transit to the North American Central Headquarters in Los Angeles. Liquor is common, and hard drugs are branded and circulated often amongst the elite. Buckman himself is virtually above the law, and has a son from an incestuous relationship with his sister, Alys.

Furthermore, Taverner has just barely survived an encounter with a Callisto Cuddle Sponge, a jellyfish-like creature that bonds with a person's psyche and feeds off of their brainwaves.

Taverner does have one advantage in this world, aside from the money acquired in his celebrity; he is a Six. Genetic experimentation amongst the extreme upper class resulted in a series of individuals who possess brainpower, life expectancy and an ability called “amplification.” As a member of the six line of experiments, Taverner was 'handled' by (presumably meaning engineered by and educated by) a person called a 'muter,' named Dill-Temko. This person was also responsible for the line of the fives, an earlier genetic line, according to Buckman, though this statement cannot be verified, as Buckman uses it to gain leverage over Taverner.

However, the most important plot device that Dick creates is a drug called KR-3, a “mutiple-space inclusion drug.” Its primary effect is to inhibit the time and space binding functions of the brain. As such, it renders the user unable to determine whether or not an object still exists, resulting in a breakdown of the brain's ability to 'exclude alternate spatial vectors.' It causes the brain to perceive any number of irreal universes, and eventually latch onto a spatial universe, whatever is closest at hand. The result is an temporary overlap of 'worlds,' where any number of things can be different.