the mind that loops so far in it can't reach the world
this is a prime example of what’s sometimes called ‘marijuana thinking.’ You can tell because Hal’s leaned way over to spit but has gotten lost in a paralytic thought-helix and hasn’t yet spit, even though he’s right in bombing-position over the NASA glass.
Context
Marijuana-thinking named and caught in the act: Hal wonders whether he's a snob, then whether the capacity to wonder that "attenuates the possibility that he's really a snob," and the recursion freezes him mid-lean, unable even to complete a spit. The image is the cage of self at its purest — consciousness so involuted it can't cross the short distance to a physical act, let alone to another person.