In Ubik, reality is an ephemeral experience that can hardly be trusted. Both Runciter and Joe believe they are alive, and, by the end of the novel, readers cannot be sure who is alive and who is dead. Like much of Western philosophy, the novel asks us to call into question what we see and experience. It’s the classical existential question of how do humans know that they exist? The novel casts our conscious reality as a delicate construct that is easily manipulated. The perception of individuals like Ella who are suspended in half-life is a broader metaphor for human perception at large. Nobody in the novel knows precisely how a person’s consciousness perceives reality in this state. By the same token, it is impossible for individuals to know if they perceive the world as others do. This causes humans to question not only others’ perception of reality but their own perception as well. Even more troublingly, the novel warns of a time when humans may evolve into telepaths and our realities may no longer be our own.

As for the precise method by which perception and reality are manipulated in Ubik, this is an open question.