For biographer John Baxter, J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962) echoes the work of neurophysiologist John C. Lilly, who, from 1954 onwards, conducted a series of sensory deprivation experiments with floatation tanks. Lilly’s work paralleled that of psychologist Donald O. Hebb. Hebb used soundproof isolation chambers to simulate the withdrawal of sensory stimuli from test subjects. James...