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NAIAD AND GOD-DOG: by Wayan; 1980/11/7, a manipulative dream-tragedy.
I love a Naiad who's lost her God. Tragedy strikes us. I'm devastated till I meet the aliens who explain...
THE NAKED POEM, alternate title for IN THE CAMP
NAMED: by Kathleen Raine, between 1981 & '87; a mystical dream poem
A voice calls to me by name--but not the name I now bear, evoking memories of another life...
NAMELESS HAT: by Elizabeth Kew; 1930s?, a comic dream.
Giant worms put me on trial for wearing a nameless hat, but I like their punishment so I taunt the judge...
NANCY AND KIT: by Wayan; 1994/1/3, a dream about mislabeling.
In a psychodrama scene, I try to stop a furious guy from hitting an exhibitionist girl. But I'm bleeding...
NAOMI, CAVES, AND LEMON TREES: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1995/10/4, a joyful dream
I swim with my daughter Naomi in a desert pool amid lemon trees. She may be able to help me...
NAPPING IN PATERSON: by a Paterson mom; pre-1961, a lifesaving intuitive flash
I was downtown when I knew I had to hurry home. I found it full of gas.
As my husband napped, our two-year-old had turned on all the stove jets...
NATALIUS' WELTS: by Natalius the Confessor, c.155 CE (or 199?), a dream leaving physical traces.
Natalius dreamed that angels whipped him for joining a heretic cult, and woke to find welts on his back...
NATIVE LANGUAGE: by Wayan; 1996/11/17, a dream about senses and speech.
I'm at the beach, seeing it through English linguistic filters. Or do I? Is there a language under language?
NATURE DEFIES CONTOUR: by Wayan; 1999/9/20. waking vision in ink & acrylic applied with a stick
It's not nice to outline things that don't want to have outlines...
NAVAHO HORSES: by Wayan; 1972/8/1; childhood drawing, feltpen & color pencil
A museum sketch of Navaho horses who got me hot--teaching
teenage me that my sexual orientation wasn't (only) human...
NAZIS BURN MY ART: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; the primal art-nightmare
Nazis call my simple architectural drawing a social protest, take it at gunpoint,
and toss it in the ovens. The commander mocks me with its ashes...
NEANDERTHAL EXTINCTION: by Wayan, 2008/7/30, an academic argument turned horribly personal
I challenge my teacher's claim human historical patterns are universal.
She challenges me by dragging us both back to the Ice Age and...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S TREE: by King Nebuchadnezzar II; c. 583 BCE, a predictive dream
Nebuchadnezzar dreams a voice from heaven commands a great tree be cut;
Daniel interprets this as a prediction the king will go mad for 7 years...
NED'S KISS by Ned's mom and sister Ethel; pre-1961, cledonic dreams of a playful revenant
I wished I could kiss my son farewell. That week, Ethel called. "I dreamed Ned kissed you, not me!
I was hurt. He laughed like anything and kissed me too..."
NEED AN ADVENTURE? by Catshall, 2022/5/18-25, collage-poem on recurrent dreams
For a week the same dream-figures and settings have been recurring:
shapeshifters and sea monsters. What are they hiding? Or guarding...
NEOLITHIC: by Wayan; 1992/9/21; a time-travel dream on the roots of art
I'm at a Neolithic art show. A Stone Age critic says "Viewers struggle to interpret signs as the signified."
I think they're just baffled how those animals can be stuck on a cave wall yet still be running around...
THE NEPALESE DROP: by Wayan; 2000/4/20, a predictive nightmare.
I climb a crumbling slope to a cliff with a Himalayan view; I slip, and no one lifts a hand to help as I...
NERO'S TOOTH: by Vespasian, c.65 CE, an oracular dream fulfilled alarmingly soon
Vespasian dreamed he and his family would rise only when Emperor Nero lost his teeth.
The next day, a surgeon happened to show Vespasian a tooth he'd just extracted from...
THE NESS MAN, or, HOW TO HEAL: by Wayan; 1994/4/13, a mytho-musical dream.
Mythic creatures round a woodland pool want to heal a businessman. Do too many cooks spoil the soup?
NEST, EGGS AND LEGS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; l993/9/7, a comic mystical dream
Two friends send energy through me, transforming me. Now that
my legs are detachable, I can sit comfortably on my eggs...
NET PROFITS: by Wayan; 1998/7/14, a dream of family values and Web credit.
At a family picnic, my sisters and I fish for scholarships and grants. They put down my art, my website...
NEUTRALITY'S ROOMMATE: by Emily Joy; 2007/4/19, a spooky dream.
At our commune's new house, pandemonium breaks out when
our matriarch meets a spook. Can we live together in peace?
NEUTRINO EYES: by Wayan; 1983, a poem on dark matters.
ESP is like having neutrino detectors for eyes: what radiates from people's cores blinds you to their surfaces...
A NEVADAN ASS: by Wayan, 2007/5/17, a dream-poem on sabotage in art AND love
DREAM: on a Nevada ranch, I'm a were-horse into mares--when I'm human. And when I'm a stallion?
Why, cowgirls! Always date the wrong species--just to be sure of rejection.
NEXT DAY: I let a class of commercial artists critique my dream-comix. Just to be sure of rejection...
CAUTION: FURRYPHILIA, SELF-SABOTAGE
NEW BODIES: by Dreamy; around 2007/1/25, a transformation dream
My best friend and I qualify for new bodies. The new me is taller, but poor Ken may take years adjusting to his new...
NEW BRIGHTON MURDER: by Annie Howie Mudie; 1912/12/20, a sloppy oracular dream
Someone said "There's been a murder in the Victoria Hotel, and the murderer slept in your house." Three weeks later...
THE NEW DALAI LAMA: by Wayan; 2011/9/9; a prescriptive AND predictive dream.
I dream the new Dalai Lama's a kind woman who gives me startling health advice
AND shows me how to fly. The next day...
NEW LEVEL!: by "Julian"; 2006/5/22, 3 gamelike dreams in one night, two of them epic
My mom and I road-duel an alien beetle, then investigate a deepspace Marie Celeste;
then I spy for the Angevin Empire to protect the Crown Jewels...
NEW LIFE: by Deena Metzger, between Sept. 1982 & Sept. 83, an apocalyptic dream
Nuclear holocaust. Outside, an ashen waste. I decide to cut my wrists in the tub. But a corpse already fills it.
A man drives up. A voice commands "Make a child!" I protest--the world's gone--but the voice says...
NEW PASSPORT: see MY NEW PASSPORT
NEWS AT ELEVEN: by a widow-in-process; 1948/10/27, a somatized empathic waking nightmare
My heart began beating like a sledge hammer. I couldn't imagine what was happening, and got frightened...
NEWT WEDDING: by Emily Joy; spring 1995, a six-year-old's epic dream
Through wild jungles and over the Mattress Mountains, I lead a giant purple newt to love...
NIBBLING FRUITS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2009/2/3; a painting from an advisory dream
I am given a gift of "Nibbling Fruits" which only I may eat--because I've been feeding everyone but me...
NIC THE UNICORN: by Roger Martinez; 2013; a dream encounter
I met Nic as he steppd out of the elevator. We were both spooked. Nic asked if I believed in
mermaids and unicorns. I said “yes.” I asked Nic if he believed in dreamers, and after a pause...
NICHE: by Wayan; 1990/5/9, a nondream poem on new art media, or crashing your computer. Same thing.
A poem linking the dawn of digital art to early, tinny phonographs, cranky film cameras...
CAUTION: IDEAS
NIC'S THOUSAND PAINTINGS: by Wayan, 2017/7/9, a dream with creative advice
My friend Nic vows to paint two pictures a day, and, impossibly, does.
Meanwhile, I'm blocked. Can she show me how to get unstuck?
NIETZSCHE EATS A TOAD: by Frederick Nietzsche; c.1867; a (prodromal?) nightmare
At a party, Nietzsche told a young woman "my hand was transparent as glass;
and a fat toad sat on my hand. I felt compelled to swallow it, and did..."
CAUTION: CREEPY DREAM, CREEPY FOLLOW-UP
NIGHT-BLIND: by Wayan, 2023/9/14, a dream incubated for another
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!
THE NIGHT DREAM: by Archibald MacLeish; c.1930, a dream poem.
A joyous day with a strange woman who seems not to be his wife, until he touches her hand and knows...
NIGHT FLIGHT: by Catherine as told to Wayan; c. 1962, a recurrent childhood flying dream.
My friend Catherine dreamed she was a flying mare with golden hooves. But in real life, she lost them...
NIGHT MARE: by Wayan; 1990/11/23; digital painting inspired by a friend's dream.
I dreamed I was a feral mare: gentle, affectionate, sensual, but gone wild, wary of being tamed again...
THE NIGHT MY NUMBER CAME UP: by Sir Victor Goddard, Jan. 1946, a predictive dream
At a party in Shanghai, I overheard a fellow RAF officer say he dreamt that my flight to Tokyo
would crash. I didn't worry much, since he'd seen seven passengers, and my flight next morning
did not... until three last-minute passengers came on board! The plane iced up, and crashed...
NIGHT OF A THOUSAND DREAMS: by Chris Massie, 1927, a chaotic multiversal dream
I don't mind regular dreams. But when I dream a thousand dreams simultaneously,
I get overwhelmed--drowning in wonders. Is my brain doing this, or is it a message?
THE NIGHT OF CHANGE: by Wayan; 1994/2/8, a dream on the order of deep changes.
Festival night in a strange town, where, one night a year, dancing in the street transforms you into...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
A NIGHT ON MOUNT DIABLO: by Wayan, 1984/6/8, an allegorical four-phase dream.
I'm attacked by a narcissist firebird, a rabid rattler-manticore, a masochist bear, and a sexless succubus...
CAUTION: INEPT DEMONS
THE NIGHTMARE: by Cathy Anderson, 1992?, a poem on mysterious recurring dreams
Every night the same nightmare--the creatures take flight again, and I wake shaking...
THE NIGHTMARE EFFECT: by Emily Joy; 2006/12/14, an anti-nightmare.
My own fear creates a field of time/speed distortion; can I use it against my attackers?
NIGHTMARE FROM 'SISTERS': by Margarethe Von Trotta; 1979 or before, an unexamined nightmare
A dream of body parts--maybe, impossibly, alive--hung up like drying laundry. Von Trotta inserted it in a film
script to foreshadow a suicide, but seems deaf to any personal warning--as if it's not her dream at all...
NIGHTMARE NEXT TO MY LOVER: by Kathleen Spivack; before 1983, an outside look at dreaming
A woman unreachable, in dream, drowning in the bed, fish-gasping, scissoring, while her man oblivious...
NIGHTMARE 1944: by Ira Sadoff; before 1981, a temptation-nightmare?!
On my side of the fence, Austrian winter--gray skies, snow. On the other, warm sun, and a frighteningly beautiful
German woman. She invites me over the border, to join her--and the terrified people being dragged off in carts to...
CAUTION: HOLOCAUST HINTS
NIGHTMARE QUARTET: by Hans Rickheit; before May 1991, four Dada nightmares
Ow! My body parts grow & shrink... A mad orchestra leader pulverizes me for nonconformity...
The Brady Bunch crams siblings into a waterpipe one by one. I'm next! My bones crunch...
I'm blindfolded, perched on a miles-high needle piercing my big toe. Blood drips down...
CAUTION: GLEEFULLY GROSS
NIGHTMARE STUDIO: by Gary Panter, 2003, a 5-page comic of his lonely surreal dream world
(plus a 2018/8/31 dream by Wayan provoked by Panter's dream art)
Rather than a dream narrative, this is a tour through Gary's common dreamscapes--
forgotten places, empty streets. Or ones you wish were empty...
NIGHTMARE TRANSUBSTANTIATION: by Wayan; 2015/2/10; a gross-out but predictive nightmare
I'm in a basement, forced to enact a ritual where I must mate with, then FEED on, a flayed creature...
I wake shaken, open a random book--and it describes the ancient Celtic rites of Epona...
CAUTION: BESTIALITY, MATE-DEVOURING
NIGHTMARE'S EAGER: by Wayan; 1999/4/6, a short dream about dreams.
I meet a Nightmare in heat who wants me. A human girl by me says I'll catch an equine sex-disease...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
NINA'S RING: by Nina's clown, 1955/4/20, a lifesaving intuition
While rehearsing our circus act I mentally saw Nina's ladder breaking loose.
Next day, a supporting ring snapped. Being forewarned, I pulled hard...
A NIP IN THE EVENING: by Wayan; ink 1980 tinted 2000; daydream image.
Like a lot of playful beasts, I like a friendly nip in the evening...
NIP OFF HIS NOSE: by Wayan, 2020/2/20, four surreal dreamlets about Covid? or... overwork?
1: I sketch two deer-girls making videos. 2: I pull a man's nose off, and milk the scene for drama before...
3: My old boss is convicted of murder! 4: I wake and two friends interpret #3 as "Overwork is killing you..."
I wake again. My dream-notebook's blank. No friends here; their interpretation was a dream too....
CAUTION: NUDE DEER
NIXON AND CHOU: by John Wren-Lewis, c.1973, a character-evaluation dream of Ann Faraday
DREAM: I'm in the White House. Nixon blows his nose on the curtains! I think "despite his crudity, he reached out to China."
DAY: my wife Ann has a cold--she's Nixon! The dream concedes she has private flaws, but she's pioneered dream research...
NIXON NOSE: by Wayan; 1997/12/10, a predictive dreamlet.
A dream girl with a giant ski-jump nose turns out to be less symbolic than expected...
NIXON'S BLANKET POLICY: by Wayan; 1974/5/30, a political dream.
After a class in nonverbal communication, I meet
Richard Nixon under embarrassing circumstances...
NO BLUE RIDER: by Wayan; 1956-8 recurring dreams; a 1987/6/22 dream brought them back; painted 1996/1/21
My first memory is of being a wild horse, and waking up to find I was now a human child.
Franz Marc's "Blue Rider" paintings felt like my dreams; but as I learned of his life...
NO FINGERS: by Wayan; 1993/10/6, an indirectly predictive dream.
My therapist has no fingers. A fingerless man intrudes on my session, and they use up my hour talking...
NO GAS IN SANTA CRUZ: by Wayan, 1984/4/11, a predictive frustration dream
I'm in Santa Cruz. Low on gas, but the pumps died. Hwy 17, the route home, is blocked. Drive back roads on fumes...
Next day: a friend's in Santa Cruz. The power goes out, pumps don't work, 17's blocked. He drives back roads...
"NOHOR!" YELLED THE NIGHTMARE: by Wayan; 1982/12/27, a passionate nightmare.
I dreamed a black mare was howling "Nohor!" At first I thought she meant "I'm not just a horse", but...
CAUTION: SEXUAL ISSUES
NO "I": by Wayan; 2003/10/22, a dream of identity loss.
I'm in San Francisco trying to throw Sauron's Ring into the Cracks of San Andreas.
But a sexy sorcerer steals my sense of I! How can you act without a self?
NO MAN IS ISLAND: by Wayan; mid-May 1990, a poem challenging John Donne's, illustrated with dreamselves.
No Man is Island. So Men say. I am not a Man...
"NO ONE REALLY": by Wayan; 2019/7/13; a ghostly dream of weak borders
My new bedroom has huge windows, but no blinds. I pin up bedsheets for now--flimsy.
A girl walking by peers in. Wait--we're 50' up! She's in my room--and transclucent.
I yell "WHO ARE YOU?" She looks shocked I can see her, says "No one really" and fades...
NO ONE'S OUT TO GET ME: by Wayan; 1993/12/14, a subtle nightmare.
I always thought learning no one's out to get me would be a
good thing. But No One turns out to be a deadly opponent...
No Place Like Home: see THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
NO ROOM ON THE MOON!: by Wayan; 2014/7/7; poem of a frustrating surreal dream
I want to catch a crescent moon home--our transit system's been buying up
old moons and running them across town--but tourists reserved all the seats...
NO TRAVELER RETURNS by Nancy Price; 1948/2/2, a predictive dream
I don't love my husband, so I'm stranded in the hotel between life & death, from which...
NO VACATIONS?: by Wayan; 1999/8/14, a spiritual nightmare.
Before I was born, I set up this life to learn loneliness, boredom and fear. Good move, soul! No vacations?
NOCTURNAL HAIRCUTS: by two of Pliny the Younger's servants; 96 CE. Subliminal? Oracular? Prank?
Two boys dream robed figures climb in the window to cut their hair--and find, awake, someone has. While Pliny...
NOCTURNE: dreamed 2011 & 2013/11/19 by S---; nested, incubated advisory dreams
After asking "Am I ready to say yes to someone new?" I dreamed I met my old love...
NOCTURNE: by Wayan; 2023/9/20, a book of improv paintings on dreams
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
NON-GHOSTS: by Wayan, 2022/2/5, a dream-poem on two... beings.
I met two transparent spooks who insist "We're not ghosts! We were never human."
I'm sure they're wrong; they've just forgotten. But I phone a witch, who confirms...
NON OMNIS MORIAR: by Carole Lindberg; Dec. 2012, a comic apocalyptic dream
The world was ending. Volcanoes, floods. Refugees trudged by in the mud, carrying their belongings
on their backs. I think I better get dressed to go. But I can't find anything appropriate to wear...
NORASINGH: by Wayan; 1987/1/15, a Tantric Frankenstein dream.
I fall in love with my sculpture of a mythical Southeast Asian creature. Then a mad yogi breaks in...
CAUTION: SEX, TANTRA, AND GENERAL WEIRDNESS
HIS NORI SUIT: by Wayan; 1992/9/4, a dream on isolation.
Down at the tideline, a man dressed in seaweed disproves John Donne's adage...
NORTH FLEET OF THE RAIN: by Wayan; 1974/7/10, an alien-invasion-solution dream
A vast galactic fleet hovers around Earth, demanding Rain. Whaaat?
I fight an alien leader, and find out what their long drought has been...
CAUTION: UFO SEX
NOSER: by "Anonymous #13"; pre-1963, a predictive dream
An orange tiger with wolf ears jumped on me. I was surprised but not scared, as if it were just a big dog.
The next day, shopping, my daughter thrust an orange wolf-eared hand-puppet in my face, jaws open...
NOT A CAT: by Wayan; 2022/11/27, a dream of being a sort-of-ghost
I wander New York City, a homeless ageless child, unnoticed--unless I climb stairs. Then people panic--see a huge cat!
But today I meet a crew lugging big paintings, who seem blind to cat or child. I think they're art thieves, mid-heist...
CAUTION: SHAMANIC INTERPRETATION
NOT A LICK OF E.S.P.: by Wayan; 2021/10/22, a sex dream not about sex (or ESP)
After an impatient bookseller puts me down, I dream I'm licking a girl who nothing pleases...
NOT A NICE DAY: by Gladys Clarke; 1925/3/18, an aural premonition
All day I expected a terrible scream, but had no idea why until I heard it. A woman in flames came out of her house...
CAUTION: GRUESOME DEATH
NOT A THING: by Wayan; 1981/3/1, a shocking dream.
What if your mind doesn't think it's yours? What if it's not so sure you're even a person?
NOT LOVE, BUT NOT ABUSE: by Wayan; 1996/6/6, a dream on gradualism.
I dream I don't love my girlfriend, I just confuse non-abusive treatment with love....
NOT OUR HAWAI'I: by Wayan; 2008/8/20, a dream poem; Dreamverse #10
My sister & I swim round a weirdly shrunken Pacific. Near Fiji, we blunder too close to the drain...
NOT SELF DEFENSE!: by Wayan; 1999/4/29, a warning dream.
I'm Tarzan, fighting off attackers. But I kill one helpless prisoner! Am I going too far?
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
NOT THREE!: by Wayan; 1996/11/11, an encouraging nightmare
I was wrong. I didn't survive three assassins. It's been seven! Why'd I forget the others?
NOT THROES; RECOVERY: by Wayan; 2013/6/1, a telepathic, diagnostic dream
In a grassy depression, a small animal is thrashing. Death-throes? No. Calisthenics!
But not under the animal's control. Someone's testing...
NOT TOO LATE--IF SHE ONLY KNEW: one dreamlet of three in POISONED!
THE NOTE: by Wayan; 1976/12/31, a psychic nightmare.
On New Year's Eve, I dream my college no longer welcomes me.
New Year's Day, I wake to find it's true...
NOUVELLE BARBIE BODS: by Patagia, 2012/12/22, a playful poem on a dream-diorama
I visited my friend Chris Wayan's workshop and found him building
a dance troupe of joyfully obscene centaurs out of Barbie dolls...
NOVEMBER DREAM: by Kathleen Raine, between 1974 & '77; a longing dream poem
In my dream I walk through golden glowing woods; I wake to a soggy London November...
NOW DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH: by Wayan; 1998, pencil sketch of 3 recurring dream figures.
It's hard being even mildly multiple. Here three of my least compatible personalities line up and...
NOW WE ARE 48: by Laurel Blossom, 1991; a dream-poem of a rescue.
At the beach I dive into deep water to save my drowning friend Kathy, and find it’s not so clear who’s who...
NUBBINS: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, a lucid dream
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
NUCLEAR NIGHTMARES: by Erica DeMane, Michael, Joanne and Scott; c.1984, four creepy dreams
Erica dreams that during a protest she's caught in a radioactive flood...
Michael dreams a nuclear forcefield makes his fingertips explode and congeal into weird knobs...
Joanne dreams she meets nuclear mutants with curling black nails great for peeling potatoes...
Scott dreams the world goes silent and white, bleaching out. His hands dissolve...
NUCLEUS: by Wayan, 1979/3/18, a surreal dream of character-insight, set inside an atom
I dream my theatre friends are particles dancing inside an atomic nucleus--
particles that reveal their character, motivations and power. And I'm one too...
NUKES AND WEREBIRDS: by Wayan, 2020/6/28, a surreal shamanic dream about... Covid?
I'm a were-crane in a flock fighting the dreaded Human Flu, setting off sterilizing nukes. But
birds aren't great with explosives; I end up hiding from a flash behind Stonehenge megaliths...
NUKING HOOVER: by Wayan; 1997/2/16, a predictive dream about... fallout.
DREAM: a 1950s newsreel shows J. Edgar Hoover, founder of the FBI, staged a coup.
So his enemies dropped a tactical nuke on his HQ, killing hundreds in the street...
NEXT DAY: TV news shows clips from The Day After. My nightmare newsreel...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND POSSIBLE ESP
NUMB CUNT COMES ALIVE: by Wayan; 1996/6/18, a dreamtale on flow.
My lover's half-mechanical cunt wakes fully--a first. But what inspired my dream wasn't a sexual first...
CAUTION: SEXUAL SYMBOLISM

O
O LA LA, WHAT A STRANGE DREAM: by Julie Doucet; 1989, a comic space sex dream
Mom gave me cookies for my three-year solo spaceflight. Special cookies for both ends of me...
CAUTION: NUDITY, BAD SEX ADVICE
OBISPO'S OUT OF RANGE: by Wayan; 1997/2/2, a dreamtale on ESP.
I move hundreds of miles away to escape my family's psychic broadcasts. Pathetic, but... does it work?
THE OBSERVER EFFECT, OR, WATCH THE WATCH: by Wayan; 1997/1/21, a dream of time and opticks.
After seeing an Einstein biography I find myself in the bathrooms of Thought-Experiment High, and...
CAUTION: DARK SIDE OF AN ICON
OCARINA, or, MILLION-YEAR SENTENCE: by Wayan; 1972/5/27, a lucid / predictive dream.
I go lucid and drive my bed to the Nevada desert where I see my next million years. And so far, it's been true...
THE OCCUPATION: by a patient of Peter O'Connor; 1985 or before, a therapy-guiding initial dream.
Touring an underground maze, I meet a woman I like. But her brother bristles.
Then, from a height, I see the ventilation pits of the labyrinth laid out like a map.
The Japanese invade! Hide in the jungle. Women in rags butcher centipedes & mice...
CAUTION: UNHAPPY MEALS; OVER-JUNGIANISM
THE OCEAN'S FLOOR: by Cheryl Fish, c.1986, a dream of failure-analysis?
I dream we canoe down a river. You say it's barren because this was once the ocean's floor. You're
protective but not longing. I wake on a beach, puzzled why I still feel for you a year later...
OCTOPIA: by Wayan; 1996/3/21, a spiritual dream-comic on play; ill. text version
I'm a stratospheric bat who finds a flying swastika. Is it creeping fascism?
Or a Hindu blessing? Neither! It's an Octopian frisbee. I return it...
ODE TO NOT WRITING ODES: by Wayan; 2019/7/17; a nondream non-ode
In an Oakland literary salon (no, not an oxymoron) I'm supposed to
write an ode. But it's so hot, and I have surreal dreams to sketch...
ODE TO PSYCHE: by John Keats; 1819, a poem based on a dream-encounter
Keats met two winged lovers nesting in the woods: Eros and Psyche, the last Olympians, worshipless...
ODE TO SPAM: by Wayan; 2007/10/11, a poem about the wonders of email
Softly snows the spam upon my lonely brain, quilting me in flounderdrifts. Shovel it again...
ODESSA STEPS: by Wayan; 2022/3/18, a predictive dream? I hope!
A man's stalking me and my friends. We try to escape but a circus is in the way.
My friends shrink to babies, so I pop them in a stroller and flee over steep hills,
bouncing down stone stairs! "OW!" the babies howl! Hey... why do I feel deja vu?
CAUTION: INTERPRETATION INSULTS BOTH RUSSIA AND NATO
OFF BY ONE HOUR: by Wayan; 1988/3/20, a dream
DREAM: my bedroom clock's late by an hour. Must have been a power failure. I'll be late for that play...
AWAKE: my bedroom clock was right last evening, but now it's late by an hour. Outage! I'll be late for...
CAUTION: SUBLIMINAL OR E.S.P.?
OFF DOVER: by Wayan; 2010/9/30, a dream-based mini-sestina (poetic experiment)
I'm biking over the English Channel. So mild & easy after the Greenland-to-New-York run...
OFFICE NIGHTINGALE: by Wayan; 1982/9/21, a dream warning I'm in the wrong place
I'm a lonely bird flying in a glass office. Seeking friends, seeing reflections, I fly into windows.
Ow! There's hope of escape only where no false friend beckons...
OGIE YOSHA CHANTEUSE: by Wayan; 1991/8/8; a flirtatious predictive dreamlet
I dream I'm jamming with a girl in red--she sings a line, I echo or challenge it, she sings another. Fun! Who is she?
I wake realizing the band I saw before sleep, Ogie Yosha, had that back-and-forth style... but no female singer. Sigh!
A friend calls. "Didn't you love the lead singer, isn't she cute?" Whaaat? She wasn't there! Until... later that night.
CAUTION: POSSIBLE E.S.P.
OH LEAD MY REM SOUL ON: by Wayan, 1991/9/2 silk painting of shamanic dream process
I rise in animal form, and fly to a world as coherent as this one, guided by a greenhaired girl...
CAUTION: NUDITY
OHLONE AT THE MALL: by Wayan; 1994/2/1, a dream of what matters
I see two Ohlone women around 1900, starving, naked, despised, their land stolen--and still way happier than...
CAUTION: NUDITY
OH, WAIT: by Wayan; 2008/10/3, an illustrated dream poem; Dreamverse #32
I'm a spy tracking down coinlike bombs. Fighting a double agent, I fall in love!
So I suggest her gang rob golden-parachute bankers...
CAUTION: POOLSIDE SEX
OIL DERRICK: by Fernando Rojas Zapata, Dec 1994-early 1995; recurring, life-saving nightmares
DREAMS: I'm arguing with a worker on our oil rig when a huge piece of steel falls, crushing me instantly.
MONTHS LATER: that very worker gets in an argument with me. I recall my dreams, step back, and...
OISIN: by Wayan; 2005-2013, 32 maps and images; a nondream virtual world
A model of a moon, half-Europa, half-Mars, with (intelligent?) life in seas under a skin of ice...
OJIBWAY DREAM NET: by Regina de Cormier-Shekerjian, c.1984, a dream-poem of a visiting animus
I hung the dream-net over my bed. It worked. A blue-winged man with a leg of silver came to me,
drummed, danced, offered to teach me secrets. Awake, I found a blue feather caught in that net...
OLD ADAM: by Robert Southey; 1804/12/7, a comic dreamlet.
I meet the original Adam. He complains Eve neglects him, but he hopes to meet one of his cleverer descendants...
OLD AND IN THE WAY: by Wayan; 1999/5/3, a veiled predictive dream.
On the street called Old And In The Way, I meet a psychic I crushed on as a kid,
and then, in a hearth, fight the tentacled alien who's been stalking me...
OLD HAT: by Wayan; 1988/1/5, a "normal" (i.e. incoherent) dream.
The Goddess gave birth in my workplace. Her fever-dreams become real around us...
CAUTION: BIRTH SCENE, LIBRARIANS' ORGY
THE OLD WITCH: by Wayan; 1991/8/1, a dreamtale on abandon.
A Hollywood sex goddess confronts the Ingenue who's supplanting her. Just how far will she go?
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM
THE OLD YOUNG MAN: by Anna Kingsford; 1880/2/21, a dream of a step-in soul
Malaria nearly kills a talented young artist; he must retrain from scratch. Why? Well, he's not exactly himself...
OLDER AND YOUNGER: by 'Rasselon'; 2009/11/17, a dream of erotic deviousness
The older sorceress I'm in bed with plans to marry me off to a younger woman, but I distract her with my tongue...
CAUTION: BEDROOM HUMOR
OLYMPUS UNMASKED: by Wayan; 2022/8/10, a far-future dream
On terraformed Mars, we set out to climb Mt Olympus without
oxygen masks. The first miles are OK, but the air thins until...
CAUTION: ANTICIPATED DEATH?
OMELET BEACH: by Wayan; 2007/1/15, a dream on how things look through your third eye
An alien beach scene--as seen through eyes that see bodies' energy fields more than surface forms...
ON BEING NEEDY/NEEDED: by Roswila; February 2002, a dream-poem
In her kitchen she offers me shortcake. She's short herself, for she gives away all
to everyone--only her bodiless head is left...
ON BEING 29: by Gray Stanback; 2022/9/10, an uneasy milestone dream
The night after my 29th birthday, I dream my youth is literally leaving me. I'm at a party
full of kids and teens; I can't get anyone's name, and they slip away leaving me alone...
ON DRAGONS: by Roswila; July 1986, three poems of dragon dreams
The first two dragons numb my pain. I demand it back, and soon regret my haste.
But the third dragon I seduce, for I'm a dragon now...
ON HER FOURTH BODY: by Wayan; 1993/11/25, a psychic dream-comedy.
A sexy gene-sculpted singer (an ex-cow on her 4th body) solves the riddle that's stumping Mr Spock...
ON MOLLY'S FOREHEAD: by Wayan, 1988/11/19, a spiritual sex dream.
A child of radicals goes wild in Rio. When we bail her out, we find she's had a strange enlightenment...
CAUTION: UNSAFE SEX
ON THE NIGHT RIDE HOME: by Wayan; 1971/11/8, a dream-poem on pushing past prejudice
As I bike home at night, strange doings--a rat is sacrificed; gemstones delivered;
an astronaut shows glowing alien objects; a second rat becomes a... firefighter?
ON THE SEASHORE: by Gabrielle Bell; between 1998-2002; a lucid dream-comic
I'm on a beach in Mexico with a baby--my only souvenir of an affair I can't recall.
I'm a mom? My whole life will change! Wait. Is this real, or...
ONCE A HERO: by Wayan; 1998/10/22-25, 17 images, a raw dream-series.
Sexy dreams of Chinese archeology, authorized by the fairies, make me face that my family abused me...
ONE-EYED BOY: by Roswila; 2009/4/5, a dreamku on the limits of desire
You'd think his Christmas wish would be "a new eye"; well it was, in a way...
ONE FRUIT REMAINS UNEATEN: by Catshall; November 1983, a journal dotted with dreams
My day life as an artist and explorer of the San Francisco underground scene
gets regularly commented on by my dreamlife...
CAUTION: SEX, BONDAGE
ONE-PERCENTERS: by Wayan; 2014/5/2, a dream on how egalitarianism can drive the gifted crazy
A sociologist exposes the smugness of Britain's 1%, but the writer's denial of any innate differences
can be just as pernicious as elitism...
CAUTION: EGALITARIANISM ON TRIAL
THE ONI PLAGUE: by Wayan; 2018/2/2, a dream implying our leaders are sociopathic
Humans and elves like me can get along, but not oni (Japanese demons)--they'll hurt anyone for gain...
CAUTION: POLITICAL BITTERNESS
THE ONION: by Sunshine; 2015/3/16, a magical dream voyage
My love and I steal the only onion in the world! To make our getaway we sail off the edge of the earth...
ONLY A PIECE OF PAPER: by Wayan; 1980/12/15, songlyric heard in dream.
Kate Wolf sings that ads are way dirtier than porn. But my memory slowly twists her message...
OOPSPACE: by Wayan; Wayan; a daydream/tribute watercolor, 1999
The poet e.e. cummings drew a book of astral fairytales with watercolors that felt a bit like my dreams...
OPELS, OPALS: by Wayan; 1990/6/10; two dreamlets that turn out to be predictive
I'm car-buying. My friend has an Opel, but it's sluggish AND a gas hog. How can a car be both? Then...
I notice a jar of opals that my grandpa gave me has grown dull with algae! Sheesh, more opals gone bad...
I wake and head to work. But at a bottleneck, I'm blocked by this loud group talking on and on about...
OPEN MIC: by Wayan; 1992/8/18; my first public dream-reading
An open microphone in a San Francisco cafe. Others tell stories, sing songs, chant poems. But I
want to tell a shamanic dream! To an audience sure that dreams are dull, incoherent, meaningless...
OPEN THE DOOR!: by Wayan; April 2002, acrylic bas-relief of waking fantasy.
I salvaged a door. When I painted it, a fox-woman wanted to open it and get out...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY
OPEN YOUR CAGE: by Wayan; 2000/1/10; penciled collage of dream characters
The cover of a collection of 11.5 dream-tales in glorious detailed Web-unfriendly black and white....
OPENING: by Wayan, 1992; incubated automatic drawing
Why don't I push for more art shows? I asked how I feel at shows of my own work, and this came out...
OPHIDIOPHOBIA: by Wayan; 1986/2/12, a dream on race and religion.
I'm a therapist with a client diagnosed paranoid--but are his doctors racist? He's not just black, but scaly...
OR... IS IT YOU?: by Wayan; 1990/2/11 nondream digital painting on marginality.
When I was battered, I briefly lived on the streets. What struck me was how fragile most of us were...
CAUTION: BRIEF BUT GRIM
ORACLE--SEA CHANGE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1999/5/6, dream-based painting
At the beach, wading with my fellow dreamworker Stephanie.
The waves are getting bigger--are they a hazard, or can we ride them?
ORACULAR RAVENS: by Wayan; 2023/1/24, a genderbent, predictive/synchronistic dream
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
ORAL ORGY: by Wayan; 1983/8/24; a predictive sex-dream with a political & scientific agenda
I dream Public Broadcasting System actors rebel on camera and have an oral-sex orgy!
Next day, NPR has a call-in show, and suddenly they're arguing in favor of oral sex...
CAUTION: SEXUAL POLITICS
ORANGE: by Jim Shaw; c.1994; a wordplay dream?
A coy, giggling giant orange bounces onto a man's bed, trying to seduce him, and...
ORB: by Walter de la Mare; before 1939; a feverdream image
I held the strangest and most entrancing object I have ever seen: the very citadel of life itself!...
ORBITING MOM: by Wayan; 1997/1/7, an uh-oh dream.
I'm trying to get a moontan when my mom appears.
My astral body starts orbiting her like a moon. Uh-oh...
ORBITING THE CRYSTAL PALACE: by Wayan; 1998/1/12, a dream of making a home.
A wild flying dream lands me among feral children fighting to live in a glass conservatory of lost flowers...
ORCA TOWS: by Wayan; 1984/5/25, a dream with impact.
I show an Ohio friend the latest California sport. But
we haven't quite worked out how to land just yet...
ORDEAL BY INFRASTRUCTURE: by Wayan; 1987/11/22, a Clintonian dreamtale--before Clinton!
I want to join the inner circle of America's political elite.
But to do that I have to survive the Ordeal by Infrastructure...
ORE PIRATES, by Wayan, 2009/5/29; a dream-poem, Dreamverse #45
I'm in a movie version of prehistoric Baja California, mining nuggets that howl,
when pterodactyl-worshiping pirates glide in trying to snatch our ore...
ORGY BELOW THE SURFACE: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; an embarrassing dream
Under the surface of my comics panels, a tiny horde is having an orgy. I can't
publish this, it's too embarrassing! Wait a minute. That one is me...
CAUTION: MICRO-ORGY
ORIOLE GIRL: by Wayan; 1992/1/23, psychic dream told as illustrated poem.
While conducting a census of fairies in Golden Gate Park, I fall in love
with an abused oriole-girl, and we try to heal one another...
CAUTION: AWKWARD SEX
ORPHEA: by Wayan; 1995/12/27. Digital painting of a hole in our myths.
Krishna, Orpheus, Kokopelli...why are the mythic musicians all guys? Where's Orphea's head?
ORPHEUS AND POOH: by Wayan; 1972/4/9, a dream echoing Cocteau's film Orphee--before seeing it
I meet my true love during a coup. We go through Hell together, like Orpheus and Eurydice--only we...
OSENTO: by Wayan; 1991/2/15. Digital painting based on a dream.
Osento is a bath house that my friends all love. But women only. So I dream I change sex just to...
CAUTION: NUDITY, GRATUITOUS HAPPINESS
OSMAN'S DREAM: by Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, 1280?, a predictive dream
The moon rises from my friend's body, and sinks into mine. Then
a great tree grows from my body, covering much of the world...
CAUTION: ORAL TRADITION AT BEST
THE OTHER LAND: by Walter de la Mare, c.1881-4; an episodic or "installment" dream series
Age 7 to 11, I often dreamt I inhabited a consistent geography of mountains & deserts. I was an adult of dark
complexion in non-European clothes; I spoke a tongue (and read a script) that I didn't recognize when awake...
CAUTION: ADULT DRUG EXPERIMENT; PAST LIFE MEMORY?
THE OTHER PILLAR: by Roswila; 2007/12/9, a double dreamku
A kinky seduction slips into something more uncomfortable: the Qabbalah? Or possibly leather...
CAUTION: EROTICA OR ESOTERICA?
THE OTHER ROOM by Nancy Price; 1948, a predictive dream
A writer I haven't seen for 40 years gives me a drink, but all I want is to find my mom in The Other Room...
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS by Anonymous #35; summer 1934, a psychic dream
The engine pinned a young man under it. A crowd gathered, but no one saw the girl on the far side of the tracks...
OTTER MEDICINE: by The-Fringe, a Crow healer, early 1850s; a shamanic dream with physical effects
I slept on an island in a scalding hot spring, praying for a dream. I got one--and woke up on the shore...
OTTER NERD FROM TITAN: by Wayan; 2012/4/15 & sequel-dream (2013/2/9), a dream-poem on social skills
A suspicious exobiologist warns me that otter from Titan may not be the amiable, nerdy celebrity it seems. But...
OTTERS DON'T FAKE: by Wayan; 1989/10/15, a sex dream that's not about sex at all.
I'm scared to show my dream-paintings to my art class. That night I find an large otter in my bed...
CAUTION: SEX
THE OTTER'S MOM: by Wayan, 1996/5/29; a dream-comic of the future.
A doomed, orphaned ottercub meets the last Tasmanian Wolf, who makes a hard choice I couldn't. Or... did I?
CAUTION: BIRTH SCENE (MARSUPIAL/NON-GORY)
OTTO PREMINGER: by Gayle Delaney; 1972 or '73, a dream on dreamwork!
I DREAM I'm in the mansion of my favorite film producer, Otto Preminger. Then I learn it's my home!
I WAKE realizing I'm the producer of my dreams--not some impersonal, instinctive Unconscious...
OTTO SUGGESTION TO A HORSE IN DRAG: by Wayan; 1995/8/8, a dream on body image.
My uncle mocks the racehorse he rides! Smears lipstick on this stallion, calls him a wimp... Why?
CAUTION: DREAM PUN, NUDE MARES
OUR BEST SONG: by Wayan; 1983/10/25, a decade-long dream of song and flight.
The artcops search-and-destroy our flying band, and my wings are shorn. But ten years later,
songless, apathetic, I climb through my TV--and the women of Vietnam show me a new way to fly...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, ATTITUDE, ALTITUDE
OUR EYES ARE OPEN: by Wayan; 1998? Political painting of my animal anima.
As new political outrages flow forth, I feel like a horse wary of a sweet-talking human, and I think...
OUR GOVERNOR: by Wayan; 1990/3/28, an anti-death-penalty dream.
I force the governor's chief aide to tour the new prisons for us artists, fags, and niggers.
He's appalled--but how many more noses must I rub in the governor's racism?
CAUTION: THE N-WORD
OUR LADY OF THE YOYO: by Wayan; 400 x 670, 1983, digital over acrylic over crayon.
Our Lady of the Yoyo plays with our yin-yang world, trying to keep the spin going on each bounce...
OUT-OF-BODY ROMANCE: by Gayle Delaney, c.1984, apparent telepathy
On a trip, lonely, I induced dreams about my fiancé Steve, hoping I could visit him
out-of-body. On the one night I succeeded, he abruptly felt my presence while awake...
OUT OF BODY TO THE MOON: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1860?-67? Early out-of-body dream
I rise out of my body, find I'm invulnerable, visit the moon, with its volcanic rocks, re-enter
my body, "wake" and write the dream--only to wake again and find all my notes gone!...
OUT OF THE IQ CLOSET: by Wayan; 2008/5/7, a dream-outburst on the social minefield the gifted face
I'm silent in class; let our new, inexperienced teacher fumble. At last
I'm forced to answer, and reveal I'm ahead of her. She doesn't take it well...
CAUTION: UNCOMFORTABLE SOCIAL DILEMMAS
THE OUTER LIMITS: by Marianne A.; 1988/3/13, a dream that lucidly intervenes in itself!
I'm trapped in the scary show The Outer Limits. A man scolds me: "You think not, but you MATTER!"
I try suicide rather than face my worth! But my dream fences off the river, forcing me to confront...
CAUTION: SUICIDE ATTEMPT
AN OUTGROWN BED: by Wayan; 1990/10/14, a dream of growth and time.
I'm a girl in a Catholic school. But a magazine and my too-small bed combine to change my life...
CAUTION: MASTURBATION, QUEER-POSITIVE, CHRISTIAN-NEGATIVE
THE OUTSIDERS: by Grady Towers; 1987, article on genius.
Towers, before he was killed, argued Terman was wrong: geniuses are often isolated and maladjusted...
CAUTION: UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
OVARIES: by "Ann", as told by Gayle Delaney, 1979 or before, a curative dream
Ann had inflamed ovaries and faced surgery. She asked her dreams for a second opinion. She dreamt of voices and images saying
"there's plenty of time for all this." She bathed peacefully in a river, meditated, gave easy birth to an infant, climbed a ladder to
her law degree. She woke cured. Her next doctor said "you must've been misdiagnosed; you just thought you were in pain."
CAUTION: SEXIST GASLIGHTING
OVER THE VOLCANO: by AE (George Russell); c.1900, an embarkation dream.
We're spirits over a volcanic fountain of energy. And some of us prepare to ride the current up to...
CAUTION: ASSUMES MYSTICAL LITERACY
OVERKILL: by Wayan; 1991/11/22. Nondream digital picture-poem-poster.
Now the Evil Empire's dead. We're all safe, safe at last. And all the bombs are gone... right?
OVERLAY: by Wayan; 1984/2/11, 1995/8/26, and 2004/9/11, 3 dreams shape a 9-page comic on living with ESP
Dreams of translucent fairies, centaurs, robots & gnomes prompt me to cartoon
on transparent overlays to show how dreamworlds overlay ours...
OVERWHELMED YOSEMITE DAD: by Wayan; 1998/9/25, a warning dream.
Mom's vanished, and our writer/bohemian dad's caring for us
alone now. But he's barely coping. And he's me...
OWL AND CHEESE: by Wayan; 1986/7/8, a dreamtale of a Shadow?
An alien woman makes a mess of our economy, ecology, world--but insists she wants to be my friend...
OWL GUARDIAN: by Wayan; 1986/6/6, a psychic dreamlet
A giant luminous guardian owl baffles and intimidates me
but after seeing a play next evening, it makes more sense...
OWL SHOT: by Wayan; 2007/2/15, a predictive dream
DREAM: I'm hiking in a local preserve when a jay with a handgun shoots an owl...
A MONTH LATER: the first owls to resettle my urban county nest in a nearby park...
A MONTH LATER: they're dead. One was shot; its mate died of grief.
OWL TAVERN: by Dan O'Neill; before 1994/11/2, a dream-comic
I stumble into a bar where the TV stars from my childhood are
drunkenly arguing metaphysics--Howdy Doody, Beany & Cecil, Flipper...
OWLOVERS: by Wayan; 1992, digital painting of vivid daydream.
My dreams mix sex with warmth, grief, even silliness, but what's with the owls? Bewildering...
CAUTION: WEIRD ORGY
THE OWLS OF THE GATEKEEPER ON THE FOREST BRIDGE: by Brian Quinn; 2009/7/15, a shamanic invite
I'm pulling a cart in the woods. At a bridge over a canyon, owls urge me to climb down into the misty abyss, but...
OWLYCAT: by Wayan; 1983/3/16, daydream of night being.
At the time I didn't even notice the pun...
OZETTE ANGEL: by Wayan; 1988/8/23; dream-tinged landscape.
West of Seattle, near Lake Ozette, a mudslide buried a whole Makah Indian village centuries ago...
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