If you’ve ever stared into the bottom of a glass and wondered if you’re experiencing divine revelation or just drunk, you’ll love Philip K Dick. The American sci-fi writer died in 1982 with little money or fame.

Four months later, his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) was released in cinemas as Blade Runner and his reputation was transformed. Numerous adaptations of his books followed, including Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), the Adjustment Bureau (2011), and now The Man in the High Castle – a TV series produced by Amazon about life in an alternative universe where the Germans and Japanese won the war and occupied opposite coasts of the United States.We join the story in 1962 as the resistance is promoting a documentary film that shows the Allies winning the war.

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was an adaptation of Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

So which is the real reality: the film we’re watching or the film the folks in the film are watching? And, more importantly, what does it mean to be real anyway? Like the replicants in Blade Runner who insist that they are more than just microchips, Dick’s characters are lost sheep in search of a meaning.

As was the man himself. Dick, who was born in Chicago in 1928, sold his first story in 1951. He complained that his attempts to make it as a mainstream writer were so disastrous that he “couldn't even pay the late fees on a library book.”

The Man in the High Castle, Amazon's adaptation of Dick's novel about a world in which the Germans and Japanese have won the war Credit: Liane Hentscher

The only thing that covered the rent were the stories he produced for pulpy scif-fi magazines, which earned him a small but devoted base of fans and, eventually, publishing deals. The Man in the High Castle (1962) won the distinguished Hugo Award for fantasy in 1963 – but his name was still relatively unknown outside the genre.

As the years wore on, Dick complimented his poverty with substance abuse and worked his way through five admirably patient wives. Most of his books were written on amphetamines; The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) reads like a Rough Guide to an acid trip.

In 1972, Dick attempted suicide and entered a recovery programme. It’s around that time that his work evolved from speculative fiction to quasi-theological nonsense in need of editing. Dick, who believed that the universe was an extension of God, was convinced that history had stopped still in the first century AD.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone in Total Recall (1990) Credit: © Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo/Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Thereafter, all time was simultaneous: we occupy the same moment as the Romans, who maintain an oppressive influence through corporations and the CIA. Dick believed for a while that he was possessed by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. What kind of influence did this crazy visionary have on the real world?

For a start, he helped define the sci-fi aesthetic. Think of the future city and you’ll probably imagine tall buildings, ubiquitous ads, impersonal corporations and ceaseless rain: everything you see in Blade Runner.

Dick did not have faith in progress. He predicted a world in which environmental despoliation was so great that people would flee the planet to escape pollution. In Palmer Eldritch, temperatures have risen so high that those still living on Earth walk around in specially cooled life suits and social status is measured in how far from the sun your apartment is.

Samantha Morton and Tom Cruise are directed by Steven Spielberg in Minority Report Credit: Rex Features

In Ubik (1969), every aspect of existence has been made-for-profit to the extent that the hero can’t leave his apartment because it won’t let him. He’s behind with his rent, so the door – which has sentient life – demands five cents or he’ll just have to stay inside all day.

As he starts to unscrew the door, it says: “I’ll sue you.” Dick found humour in despair and laughter in the vanity of the technological elite. Which is why Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and based on We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1966), is the movie that best captures his tone.

Paul Verhoeven, the film’s Dutch director, once told me that when he moved to Hollywood he decided to make movies that were hyper-stylised visions of Uncle Sam – things Americans might dream in their sleep.

So Total Recall is a cartoon populated by ripped heroes (Arnie), evil sex vixens (Sharon Stone) and even a lady with three breasts. The plot is typically mind-bending: a bored worker has a false memory of being a spy implanted into his brain – only to wake up and discover that he really is a spy (or is he?).

Philip K Dick in May 1977 Credit: 2011 Gamma-Rapho/Philippe HUPP

The fact that Arnie can’t act for toffee only adds to the plasticity of the production – the kind of cheery, ultra-violent Cold War scene that Dick loathed, loved and parodied all at the same time. By contrast, the noir look of Minority Report – about a world in which crime is eradicated by precognition – or Blade Runner is accurate but the tone is way off.

In fact, compared to the novel, Blade Runner is a grim bore. The book hypothesises a future in which most animals have been wiped out by a plague and a handful of rare species sell for millions. To keep up with his aspirant neighbours, the protagonist owns an electric sheep that he tries to pass off as the real thing.

When it breaks down, he decides to buy a genuine goat – and the only way to afford it is to kill several replicants in exchange for a large fee. The critical, and absurd, role played by his goat is tragically missing in the movie. Perhaps Dick’s greatest legacy was his contribution to popular acceptance of sci-fi as a legitimate art form.

Its status is still uncertain: science-fiction pictures generally don’t win Oscars. But Dick showed that imagining bad futures offers the chance to reflect upon contemporary problems. High Castle is an exploration of life under occupation, of how people adjust to a reality that’s thrust upon them.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Some just want to survive; others think survival isn’t enough if they can’t be free. But Dick is interested in the impact of fascism upon the fascist as well as his victim. The German and Japanese overlords are just ordinary men and women doing a job, occasionally tinged with regret and always seeking self-justification. Their understanding of right and wrong is framed by the reality that the regime constructs for them.

The Germans, who Dick despises, are Darwinian and materialists: nothing matters beyond survival of the fittest. The Japanese, who Dick admires, believe that this world is an illusion. All that really matters is the world beyond the sun – and the sun is the Emperor.

Watching this TV show in 2015, one is likely to think of the clash of realities tearing Syria apart. Here in the West, we think of history and time ticking forever forward. In other parts of the world, the clock is being violently pushed backwards – to an hour of feudalism and fanaticism. As Medieval fundamentalists terrorise Paris, Dick’s visions of the future no longer seem so irrational. For some people, it’s as if life really did stop in the first century AD.