A book about the psychology of creatures with different sensory arrays
persuades me that all of us creatures build models of one shared world,
for understanding your neighbors vastly ups your odds of survival...
UNICORN EMISSARY: I meet a unicorn diplomat in Japantown. Beautiful, formidable...
THE A.I. WHO RUNS THE WORLD: I meet and then briefly become our world's
leader; before the strain of it wakes me, I learn she rules mostly by not meddling...
I'm cold, tired and wet, and I have to take this dog to college. But when I touch him,
he howls in horror. I'm not having a nightmare, I am a nightmare. His nightmare...
My uncle Mac has a secret scheme to free us all from the Rat Race, but
his dancing mouse-headed robots (and climate change) get out of hand...
DAY: I see Avatar: the Way of Water. Two films in one: Blue Lagoon alternates with Mad Max...
DREAM: As an oracle, I have to go topless so the magic mini-ravens can perch on my nipples...
CAUTION: BRR, OW!, BREASTS, and SNIPING AT JAMES CAMERON
DREAM: a weird footbridge of twisting tree-branches; with steps made of wood-cased stereo equipment!
NEXT EVE: a birthday potluck with a twisting papier-maché trees. Steps lead up to a treehouse full of...
In the park, long lines of worshipers wait to meet a guru. But I'm naked, so I hide in the reeds...
CAUTION: NUDE SUNBATHING
DREAM: I climb a stair to a surreal space where kids dance in tights spattered with wet red paint.
NEXT DAY: I watch Wednesday--Wednesday Addams dances & gets spattered with wet red paint...
CAUTION: NUDITY, ESP SPECULATION
My clinic's euthanasia program is so warm and cuddly I barely notice I'm drifting toward death
til I reach the final form... and it's in Russian. They think I'm a refugee! Don't know me at all...
CAUTION: FLAMES ANTI-ABORTION AND HEALTHCARE IDEOLOGIES
A disintegrating board game reminds me to take time to enjoy things beyond work and activism...
CAUTION: NUDITY, TRANSGENDER, ASTROLOGY
Inspired by Lynda Barry, I fill a black-paged book with 20 improv paintings.
They grow into a tour of my dreamwork led my anima Silky, a nightmare...
Twenty-four panels of improvised comics in unerasable ink,
letting the shapes and themes in each panel suggest the next...
A dog man invites me to play in the park--and as long as
we play on soft turf, without teams or rules, I'm happy!
A TV documentary shows the history of war. Or does it? In what war did great clouds of flame
swallow sailing ships? Every scene they show is a natural disaster. Why are they lying?
The house I'm looking at has unexpected rooms, even a pool, but another buyer beats me out.
An old woman says "Don't worry dear, in time you lose everything." A comfort at first, but then...
A girl writes a whole movie to get a shy boy to hold her; I stupidly summon a monster dragonfly-bus;
a devil-suited jerk hogs a musical's stage TWICE; leeches crawl from the treasure-box I opened...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY, SEXUAL FEAR/GUILT
I'm a great blue heron with hands and human speech. A hunter fires arrows at me,
but I'm fast and can catch them. They're costly, so I demand a bargain with him...
CAUTION: ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE
My home's a huge maze. Find a clinic and a cafe. Cops appear, & claim I'm a woman named Mem Loi
& confiscate weird masks off our walls. Ugly masks, so who cares? Wait, one looks like a covid virus...
CAUTION: DREAMER'S A DOORMAT
My parents, alive again, steal my car, my meds & my supplements,
trapping me in their isolated house and forcing me to stay awake--
no sleep, no food. They're out to cure my silly, selfish idea I have needs...
DREAM: in my car, the window crank turns on its own; my invisible girlfriend is crawling
out the window! She's turned so quiet & private. Have I seen the last of her? Well, not seen...
NEXT DAY: I stumble on a one-off manga about an invisible girl; but the artist writes "I
decided not to make her a regular--too quiet & private, & I can't draw her feelings"...
CAUTION: GLASSY NUDITY, E.S.P. SPECULATION
4/12: I get a mysterious energy node implanted in my belly. After convalescing I'll have new talents...
4/13: I'm altering my home to host two flannan, bird-girl spirits swift to hunt down the truth...
CAUTION: WITCHCRAFT, NUDE SPIRITS
Truce at last! We can party again. But witch-hunters burst in and try to arrest me for being a wizard. They
use a box of strong-arm force; I use my wand. But their weapon's rechargeable battery overheats, while I...
CAUTION: CRITIQUES SELF-STYLED RATIONALISTS
A Bengal tiger slips into my room. Others panic and want to call the police, but I feel protective...
I'm in an alt-world Berkeley where mythic creatures shop on College Avenue. Marigold
the unicorn flirts with me. Rainbow Dash the pegasus has turned male. Very very male...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY (AND CRUDITY)
An autistic genius gets distracted from her cosmological research, and rants
about non-autistics' monkey-mind distractions, distorting their worldview...
CAUTION: HARSH ON NEUROTYPICALS
I'm lost in the underworld again. Happens a lot lately. But I run into my anima Silky,
in yellow boots and a safety vest, blasting clean the walls of the land of the dead...
I live in four consecutive bodies: I'm a Bose-Einstein condensate, a cloud of particles moving as one--
unless overheated. No, I'm Witch's Butter, a mob of amoeboid cells who unify into a quasi-slug--temporarily.
No, I'm a person, but soft and yellow as Witch's Butter. No, I'm firming up, but still entangled...
On a scorching world not built for people like us,
I find someone who seems to be a lot like me...
I look down on scrawny centaurs with cropped manes & tails: butch minimalism. Unsexy! Then I'm
down among them. Now they have big eyes, luxuriant manes and tails: femme excess. I find this sexy...
CAUTION: CENTAUR NUDITY
I'm the new manager of the watermelon mine. And to free the trapped minors--
oops, miners!--I have to plan. So I cover the floor with My Little Pony post-its...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
I wake in a suburb with Dire Wolves next door. I'm told an herb will appease them.
But the local herbal expert's a regal talking lily--and can I speak plant-language?
The will named a strange executor: a kangaroo. Turns out there's some logic to it:
executors need burglar-skills, and few quadrupeds can climb in bedroom windows...
I'm building a planetary model a kilometer across, inset in Bernal Hill like an eye in a socket.
My intern Silky kicks the globe, scuffing a caravan trail in a desert. Needs to be crookeder...
CAUTION: FATSHAMING? OR CALLING OUT SKINNYSHAMING?
Strangers ask me about my nine selves, and I find I know exactly what they mean!
The last three are new and odd--calm quiet states that heighten paranormal senses...
CAUTION: MYSTICAL
Fires erupt all over the Bay Area, but people I meet (and the news) just say "global warming." No!
It's no warmer than normal and those fires are in lines! Arsonists are driving around, torching...
CAUTION: POLITICAL READING
My sister Miriel asks me to ask my dreams if it's safe for her to get cataracts removed.
I find myself in her body, biking at night--near-blind. Surgery has risks, but this is riskier!
I dream I'm reading an amazing comic about a bright red geometric dog named Question,
floating through surreal landscapes. I'm envious--until I wake in relief that it's just a dream!
Inspired by Shaun Tan, I fill a black-paged photo album with 36 improv paintings.
They become a tour of my dreamworld, led by my anima Silky, a literal nightmare...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY, WEIRD DREAM IDEAS
I'm in a vast cavern full of skyscrapers--sucked into the underworld. Rusty steel plates cover
their now-useless windows. In the shadows, horned, fanged businessdevils scurry by...
I meet two witch sisters. Little sister and I magically power a flying saucer. She gives me a tour
of this vast, ruined city. My life here is happy, but it doesn't look good for civilization as a whole...
I find myself working in a bank that won't let us do our jobs. Only one guy can disburse cash!
Lines of angry customers. If management won't change the rules, I'll have to quit...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE!
I'm caught in a surreal traffic jam--balky horses, teeny cop cars. Get so stressed that I split
into a big creature guarding a small human sleeper. But even sleep is now a crime...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE?
After seeing Julia Wertz's cartoon history of her entire dreamlife (on one big page!) I dream
Wertz style all night! I don't mind the nightmares--what gets me down is comics' black & white...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARES, SEX
A pig-man hybrid--huge mouth, tiny body--happily eats trash, smirking as I pass...
Then a woman bends over to flash me, smirking, as a censorious Judge glares...
CAUTION: SCENE 1 GROSS, SCENE 2 SEXUAL
One night I meet a robot and an alien staring in a shop window at a photo of a Gothic chapel.
They're shocked--it's a Galactic legend, the Palace of Good Policy. Pure myth! Or is it?
I'm dating a sexy salad. But I just gobble the good bits and leave: I have an appointment in Chinatown.
The salad understandably feels let down, but she's painfully familiar with guys who eat and run...
CAUTION: WEIRD EVEN BY MY STANDARDS
I find myself on the bridge of a starship. But the décor is Arabian Nights--and half the crew are unicorns,
grazing built-in flowerbeds. Some humans on board treat them as mere pets. But one's piloting the ship...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE
DREAM: I see photos of smiling couples at the beach, but someone's scribbled on them: just black blots for eyes. Creepy.
DAY: Read a fantasy novel in which a prince has a cursed double, identical except: he has black blots for eyes. Creepier...
Trump wackos bomb the World Trade Center. I flee New York. Morticia Addams puts us up. Inside the
dream, I fall asleep. When I wake I ask "was the attack a dream?" Morticia says it was smaller. I try to
write it all down on my bedsheet, but the ink spreads. I wake again, sure I need to wash the sheet...
I'm in a restaurant at a round table. Waiters wrap me in hot towels. I laugh "If I were
chilled, I'd love this--but I'm NOT!" I wake to find I am too hot--too many blankets...
I dream I go to my NY dentist, but the novocaine sends me into a dream of having dentistry in Tel Aviv!
I 'wake' and my NY dentist explains he can't do me today: sore hands from doing Henry Kissinger...
My kid and I have mere nubbins where our fingers should be,
but I realize it's a dream--I can grow fingers or absorb them
I was trapped in a Handmaid's Tale dystopia; I was a mannequin, naked &
helpless. I couldn't even walk. But I hid one rebellious act: I kept a diary...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY, CARTOON DYSTOPIA
Is our brain trying to tell us something that, evidently, we haven't heard the last 70 times? Or is the
dream-manufacturing area feeling a little lazy? I have no idea, but here are some of my "classics"...
Turns out you can float in deep space without a helmet.
But there's this weird disturbing smell, like an electrical fire...
The lights go out, the world's ending. Roz tries to make party snacks and keep folks calm. At last
she notices lights out the window. Other buildings seem fine. Is it really the Apocalypse? Or...
Worldwide drought. I have a mutation making me produce lots of saliva, so to keep
people alive, I drool into their open mouths. Gross, but it's take my drool or die...
CAUTION: UGH