Yeah, when I read that book I was like: this reminds me of that time I freaked out in high school!
I admire the fact that the author put it online for free, and it’s a pretty good book, but it could have been better… Watts could have taken all those ideas about consciousness and humanity and produced something like 1984 or Catch-22 that embodies ideas that might otherwise get lost in abstractions. Unfortunately the ideas all get a little muddled.