Paranoia, in some respects, I think, is a modern-day development of an ancient, archaic sense that animals still have — quarry-type animals — that they’re being watched. . . . I say paranoia is an atavistic sense. It’s a lingering sense, that we had long ago, when we were — our ancestors were — very vulnerable to predators, and this sense tells them they’re being watched. And they’re being watched probably by something that’s going to get them. . . .

And often my characters have this feeling.

But what really I’ve done is, I have atavised their society. That although it’s set in the future, in many ways they’re living — there is a retrogressive quality in their lives, you know? They’re living like our ancestors did. I mean, the hardware is in the future, the scenery’s in the future, but the situations are really from the past.

—Philip K. Dick in an interview, 1974.