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Artists and the Arts

Dreams (and a few nondream essays) on artists (especially dream artists), our work environment, our values and subculture, and on the arts, esthetics and criticism.

RELATED TOPICS: the art business - creativity - art studios and life studies - writing and publishing - music - Art gallery of 2000 dream images - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.


ABREAST OF THE COMPETITION: by Wayan; dreamed 2013/10/9, a dream on appeasing others
A tall busty girl's younger, part-unicorn friend starts developing breasts at last. She makes
boob jokes, mocking her own body to reassure her herdmate she's no competition...
CAUTION: SELF-PUTDOWNS
AIN'T EASY: by Wayan; 1990/2/25. Nondream digital Coyote dance poster.
As Red Emma said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution..."
THE AIR BURUNDI PAINTINGS: by Wayan; 7 illus., 2007/1/20, a dream of art & courage
Weird paintings cover a hill town in Africa, demanding I paint them when I wake.
Paintings on courage, flight... and defying tradition.
ALICE MILLER MONSTER MESSAGES: by Wayan; 1998/1/22-3/8, digital improv-portrait of inner selves.
Writer Alice Miller tried painting her childhood monsters. I tried it and got surprise messages...
CAUTION: FRANK LANGUAGE
ALIEN GIRL, SACRED PEAKS: by Wayan; dreamed 2005/11/25, two dreams on long-term goals
I'm one of a trio of swimmers in a pool, making out--under the surface only. Must we hide?
I'm near Shiprock with a flying-saucer girl who sees the nearby crags and far snowy peaks
as all the same size and distance... how to teach perspective?
CAUTION: SKINNYDIPPING, GROPING
AL CAPP'S HORSES: by Wayan; 1988/4/12, a dream predicting an odd image, palette and painting style
I dream cartoonist Al Capp switched late in life to painting horses in a weird expressive style;
I wake, write the dream, rush to work to find a painting of horses in a weird expressive style
CAUTION: CAUSTIC TO E.S.P. DENIERS
AMAZEMENT PARK: by Stan Van Der Beek; 1980/12/30, a dream-proposal for a huge art installation
The "Amazement Park", as I dubbed it, was a building long as a football field and three floors high; you fly,
suspended, round an oval track, through a galaxy of images teaching that "sharing" is what matters...
ANIMATION TODAY: NO PEARLS, LOTSA SWINE: by Wayan; 1986/1/31, nondream thoughts on animation
What makes so much animation all feel the same? Temptations inherent in the medium...
ANSWERING JUNG: by Wayan; 2005/7/5, a dream parodying one of Jung's key dreams
After reading Jung's dreams, I have an anti-Jungian dream of sexy nightmare-statues
waiting to come alive, like the tree I draw & bring to life with my literally magic marker...
CAUTION: NUDE STATUES
APPLY FOR PRIORITY: by Wayan; 2000/7/11, a dream about taking yourself seriously
While building the World Dream Bank, I dream a hacker says
"certain remarkable sites get free fast access; you should apply..."
ART ENVY: by Roz Chast, before 2023/9/18, an insecurity-baring dream
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!
ART OR PROPAGANDA?: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/2/7, 3 dream-reactions to Philip Pullman's books
There's a rare dream-type that can change reality itself. I study its EEG trace. Can I learn to do it?...
I'm arguing with musicians--what's better, music that serves your goals, or purely great music...
I'm bored in class. Draw sexy furries. The babydykes by me do too! Art'll summon the girls we want...
CAUTION: PHILOSOPHY! OH NO!
ART TAKES GUTS: by Wayan; 1982/12/26, ink, 11x14", a confessional doodle.
Why this site? Because if I'm around when you see my dream art, I feel like THIS...
ARTSHOW IN A DREAM: by Wayan; 1983/6/28 & 9/18, twin dreams on modern art's blindspots
Jaundiced dreams of an art show spell out just how deeply I reject the rules behind modern art...
THE ASHE SISTERS: by Wayan; 2010/1/26, a dream portrait.
My two moms sell art fabrics made by grayish batwinged sisters whose newest ad is risqué...
CAUTION: ADS WITH NUDE BATS
BAD DREAM BOOK: by Jim Shaw; late 1994?, a dream calling his dream art lame
I show a friend my book of dream-art, but it's half-baked and embarrassing.
I'm no good at smuggling guns, porn or cash through customs, either...
CAUTION: LOW-RES SMUT IN THAT BOOK
BALLET CURTAIN: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, an odd double dream image
Dancers in 18th Century gowns emerged from a curtain with paintings of ballerinas in the same gowns...
BANANA MOON: by Wayan; 1998/3/4-12/26, dream-figure painting, acrylic on wood, 3x4'
My figure-painting class here in San Francisco has a diverse student body, but not THIS diverse...
CAUTION: NUDITY
BEAR LADY: by Rachael Dutton, c.1981; a dream painting with four rearrangeable panels
Bear lady, bare lady,
in (or out of) a bear suit...
BITTER JADE: by Wayan, 1983/4/8, a dream on change.
Why's Jade the bitter artist throw me at her happier, calmer daughter? Wait, is Jamie the new ME?
CAUTION: SEX
BIVOUAC: by Richard Turner; 1981, a dreamlet with sculpture-advice
A young Tibetan boy approached me with his arms full of the shapes I had been working on for
the past week. To my delight I found the material, textures and colors I had been searching for...
BLUE RABBIT: by Stan Brakhage; 1975/5/17, a colorful dream image bogged down by theory
A startling deep-blue rabbit with scarlet eyes and red veined ears, floating in colorless air...
I'd been reading Watership Down, the chapter on the Black Rabbit of Inlé...
CAUTION: ART THEORY CRUSHES BUNNY
BOX: by Wayan; 1991? Digital self-portrait as dreamer trapped on the Web.
So exactly how is posting all these dreams different from crawling naked inside your screen?.
CAUTION: NUDITY
BOXES, or, THE THRILL OF DRAWING: by Wayan; 1999/10/20, nondream pencil drawing
In drawing class I was supposed to be studying perspective, but I went beyond the box...
BRADBURY'S DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS: by Wayan; 1994/1/12, a book review? Or a life review?
Bradbury's Mars was based on his life in Venice, California. What worlds grow out of my San Francisco?
BRITISH TRIANGLE: by Wayan; 2019/8/18, a dream of another life.
I'm a middle-aged British writer in a triad with a sculptor and a dairy farmer
who seem happy sharing me. But it's a small town, so we must be discreet...
CAUTION: TRIAD THAT WORKS
BURN HIS TREE: by Emily Joy; 2007/2/7; two linked nightmares on art
Malevolent artwork terrorizes my baby and me! What's to be done?...
BURNING HOUSE: by Graciela Iturbide, 2006 or before; a Pygmalion dream
My home was burning; I despaired. All my negatives would be lost. But
some figures arose from their photos and walked out of the fire...
THE BUSINESSMAN IN ANGUISH: by Wayan; 1991/7/2. Digital dream painting.
I dreamed this was in our civic museum: a painting of the central
dynamo of our world finally erupting: the Businessman in Anguish.
THE CAT: by David B.; 1991/9/24, an eerie sculpture come alive
In the woods outside a modern art museum, I'm being stalked by Giacometti's huge skeletal cat...
CHIRICO'S DREAM: by Giorgio di Chirico; 1904, a surreal dream prefiguring his paintings
In vain I struggle with my father, with his strong arms and wary eyes... I give up... agonizing quests down darkened
streets... long shadows on columns and porticos... a crowd gathers; my father may be in danger... I want to flee...
CIRC CERVINE: by Wayan; 2016/9/16, a dream on... how to catch difficult dreams?
At a polyspecies circus, I sketch three acrobat-dancers--one deerish, one human, one... a mannequin?
Fiendish to draw! I wake frustrated & sketchless. But my sketchwork in the dream helps me redraw it awake...
CAUTION: DEER NUDITY
CLIMB DOWN THE PINNACLES: by Jenny Badger Sultan, l995/12/24, a surreal dream and painting
Decision by decision, we made our way down immense rock crags. Below, I had to put out a deadly fire,
a fire as solid as wood or stone, with a white staff. What am I really trying to calm?
COCO CHANEL'S PUSSY: by Wayan; 2010/4/26; a film-pun-sex dream
Coco Chanel's fashion workers want me to screw Coco's cat,
so she'll stop screwing them financially...
CAUTION: SEX KITTENS
COMICS & DREAMJOURNAL: by Rick Veitch, Jan 1974, a life-path dream
I'm trying to jam together my dream diary and my first comics. My grandmother's
skeptical. But at last, with an audible 'click', dreams and comics suddenly merge...
COYOTE INVADES ABSTRACTION: by Wayan; 1989/8/24, reworked 1998/7/26, nondream digital painting.
Coyote invades an abstract painting to expose why the art world loves that high-concept, impersonal art...
CRISP: by Wayan; 1991? Digital poster on Web art.
Is digital Web blather any better than old-fashioned, live, analog blather?
CAUTION: STUPIDITY
CRITTERS OF THE MONTANA FRONT: by Wayan, 2022/5/31, a watercolor warning dream
DAY: I admire Hannah Hinchman's watercolors of Montana and Vad Yakovlev's digital art of Equestria.
DREAM: I meet & sketch a coyote girl, a whack-a-mole mare, and a leering herder of shadowsheep...
CRUMB: by Wayan; 1995/6/7; film review/essay on art-integrity
Cartoonist Robert Crumb just turns off all taboos while drawing. A learnable technique...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, CARTOON SEX
DEADWOOD, or, MAO'S ONEIROLOGIST: by Wayan; 1976/4/2, a career-advisory dream-poem
The Cultural Revolution denies me the Himalayas--the spiritual heights.
So I flutter around the base of the Stairway to Heaven...
"DEATH! DEATH!" by William Holman Hunt; 1854/1/20 (or so); a one-year predictive dream
DREAM: Hunt's mother points at a tall figure in the shadows and shrieks "Death! Death!"
ONE YEAR LATER: in Jerusalem, his hostess finds her young son dead, and shrieks...
CAUTION: BEWARE THE IDES OF JANUARY?
DOPP: by Wayan; 1988/11/5, a predictive dream
DREAM: On a farm, I meet two sexy shapeshifting sisters. But mushroom clouds rise on the horizon...
NEXT DAY: at SF-MOMA, Susan Marie Dopp's paintings: shapeshifting sisters, mushroom clouds...
CAUTION: NUDITY; ESP
DRACULA'S SANDWICH: by Brenda Ferrimani; 1997/8/22, a death/rebirth nightmare-painting
Dinner with Dracula goes well, considering, except for the mayonnaise. But suddenly I'm drowning!
No one sees or hears me. Am I a ghost, am I dead or alive? And how would anyone notice?
DREAM-DENIERS: by Wayan, 2014/5/31, a dream contemplating the meaning of dreams
In a museum I talk to a stained-glass artist who's a dreamworker like me.
But a meme seems to be spreading that says dreams mean absolutely nothing...
CAUTION: ADVANCED DREAMWORK
DREAM MILKING: by Wayan, 2000/6/30, a dream warning of overwork... but awake or asleep?
After a hard day getting a "free" bed, I dream my milker comes to drain my dreams.
Wait...did I agree to this? Or does milking drain objections, too?
CAUTION: CREEPY
A DREAM OF HELL by Herbert Palmer, 1919; recurring nightmares of loneliness
I'm in Hell. No fire, no guilt. Just endless forests under the moon. My mother paints
endlessly but never gets it right. A sunny day, but I can't go out to play. Cut off...
CAUTION: DEPRESSION
DREAMTALES: by Wayan; 1996-2006, a 250-page collection of dream comics
"I've always dreamed other lives. Other bodies. Other times. Other worlds. I draw my lives..."
THE DREGS EFFECT: by Wayan; 1997/11/19, a waking insight on artists in therapy
Artists have their own strange culture, and we can unintentionally mislead therapists unfamiliar with us...
CAUTION: THERAPESE
EGO FACTORY: by Rick Veitch, late 1974/1, both a Jungian & career-advisory dream
I go to work at the factory, clock in, strip naked, and build my... self! Myself as art.
A long slow job, but when my workmates ask, I'm admit I'm happy with me at last...
EMISSARY: by Wayan; 2000/3/22, an astral dreamtale.
I signed a prenatal agreement for weird, uneven luck to turn my life toward art and spirit.
I want to broaden it, but I've lost the contract! So my spirit wife Silky sets out to find it...
EMOTIONAL PALETTE: by Wayan; 2000/3/22, an indescribable dream.
My spirit-wife and I spend our last evening together painting. Not with colors--with emotions...
ENVY'S BAND: by Wayan, 2016/1/10, a dream on ambition rebelling against niceness
I meet Envy, that pushy, ambitious rock singer from the Scott Pilgrim books.
She's kind of sabotaging herself--but then don't I go too far the other way?
EYE AND I by Wayan; 1999/11/15, a drawing that shifts me into a new way of seeing
I met a colorblind artist with an amazing grayscale sense. He inspire me to
draw a huge eye full of abstract shapes in gray, trying to see his way...
FAIRY URGES A WORKTABLE: by Wayan; 2009/7/15, an advice-dream wiser than it seemed
I find a long, narrow table. I have a table, but a fairy friend
perches on this one and urges "Take it home! You'll do better art!"
FAMILY JESTERS: by Wayan; 2017/3/15, a dream mixing Kurt Vonnegut and My Little Pony
Coastal unicorns are slender; inlanders bloat. Genes, diet, both? Inland bosses enslave their gracile minority.
Performing pets! Jesters caged, chained & handicapped to heighten the wonder they can do their art at all...
CAUTION: TROUBLING SOCIAL ANALOGIES
FESTIVAL OF THE MOTHERS OF RAIN: by Rachael Dutton, c.1984; a dream-based sculpture group
The whole village welcomed in the Mothers of Rain. An aged deer had visions.
A young mother gave birth. All the creatures and spirits danced...
FIGURE AND FIELD: by Wayan; May 1990, a poem on the dark side of a human ability
We see patterns everywhere... but that also means we relegate nonpatterns to the background...
FIGURE DRAWING: ALL MUST BE PRECISE: by Wayan; crayon, 1995/2/6, sketch of studio classmate
An elegant, sexy classmate of mine, a fastidious feline island in our sea of grubby manic sketchers...
FIGURE DRAWING: AND AT ALL TIMES BE SERIOUS: by Wayan; 1995/3/6?, figure study.
She tried to find a pose so melodramatically goofy the sketchers couldn't take her seriously... but no.
CAUTION: ART-SCHOOL NUDITY
FIGURE DRAWING: STUDIO: by Wayan; 1999/5/12; acrylic figure sketch
In life drawing class, the model built a sort of green island/nest in the sea of grubby students...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
FIGURE DRAWING: EAGER ARTIST: by Wayan; 1995/1/30, studio sketch.
Rather than draw the model, I often sketch my classmates in life-drawing. They get so intent!
FIGURE DRAWING: NOW HOLD THAT POSE: by Wayan; 1989/11/14 digital sketch of model clowning.
Shasé liked absurd, impossible poses, and she held them heroically...
CAUTION: SILLY NUDITY
FILLY'S QUEST: by Wayan; 1981/1/31, a dream on dream-theory. Head versus... wings!
The tunnel has pictures of a winged unicorn filly on a quest. But the editor
of the deluxe book version is intellectual, patriarchal and heavy-handed...
CAUTION: UNDERAGE ALICORN FLIRTING
FLOATING HORSES: by Wayan, 1972/8/10, a flying/transformation dream advising patience
That day, I did bad art. That night, my friend & I get turned into levitating horses--
though some of our fellow fliers, like the mummified Inuit, are kinda creepy...
FLOATING WOLF AND BUTTERFLY: by Wayan; 2010/12/21; a furry advisory dream
The city museum's new levitating sculpture shows a space reef explored by
a floating wolf who needs no spacesuit--vacuum adapted!
FLOWERHEADED CAT: by Wayan; 2005/8/17, two bizarre, sexy, advisory dreamlets
My co-worker flashes a lot. Her boyfriend helps--flaps her skirt up to bare her pussy. What's their agenda?
In a dream-sculptor's studio, I pet her lily-headed cat, who purrs. I think "At least her pussy likes me..."
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM, PUNS, PETTING
FLY WITH ME?: by Wayan; 2024/1/7; a flying dream of course! But an odd one.
DAY: I research a weird Salvador Dalí dream-painting mingling, flight, tigers and sex.
DREAM: I flirt with a talking cat. Want her to fly with me. But she wants something earthier...
FLYING UNICORNS' GIFTS: by Lily Michaud; 2007/9/5, an advice-dream inside a flying dream
Flying unicorns hang out with me and my friends, sending us
dreams full of useful advice--and more concrete gifts...
FOOD CAME BETWEEN US: by Wayan, 1993/4/25, an incubated epic diagnostic dream.
The terror of Navy breakfast, the joy of filterfeeding,
how to marry pudding, and a sniper lunch with kisses...
FOUR ELEMENTALS: by Wayan, four recurrent 2009 dream-figures, 2010/1/1 to 1/14
For the New Year, I draw a group portrait of the old year's main dream-figures. Four needs came up constantly...
FRESH BLOOD: A DREAM MORPHOLOGY: by Carolee Schneemann, Aug. 1980; menstruation-triggered dream
I'm with an Englishman in a taxi who seems rather calm about the fresh blood welling from his crotch...
I find a famous European Veterinarian, but his waiting room's too crowded, so I just leave a bouquet of dolls...
...and wake to find blood on my own thighs. Why does menstruation always come to me as a surprise?
FURRY TRINITY: by Wayan; 2021/3/1, a dream painting three facets of... me? Or of dreaming?
Three furry people show off their collected art & pets. But then they dissolve into their art & pets!
The room itself dissolves into a river-raft. A unicorn girl in a gauze ritual robe studies a map...
CAUTION: MILD FURRY NUDITY
GALLERY GAWKERS: by Wayan; 2003-5; sketches of San Francisco characters
For two years, I sat at the desk in our co-op gallery, and
secretly sketched our bewildered, art-assaulted customers...
HAND US THE FRENCHMAN!: by Wayan; 2004/10/24, a comic dreamlet on hippiedom's last gasp
The Feds order my friend Mike to hand them a Frenchman we haven't seen in years. Mike substitutes a junk VW...
HAPPY HUNDERTWASSER: by Wayan; 1991-1999, nondream digital picture-poem.
As the bland lead the blind... who knows their own mind? I'll tell you who....
A HAUNTED HOUSE INDEED!: by Anna Kingsford; 1887/4/12, an epic ghost dream
I was warned about soul-devouring art in the haunted house, but I didn't expect to find an entire art salon...
CAUTION: ABSORBING ARTWORK
HEAD ON MY TABLE: by Lauren Watley; 2011/2/16, a creepy dream-image with depth
After a day of troubling conflicts over race & art, I dream I'm handed a hot, heavy, mossy head--is it art, or alive?
HERSELF IN REVERSE: by Wayan; 2013/6/13, three surreal future-prompting dreamlets
1: In a theater I meet weird big-eyed ballerinas, & realize I'll choreograph for them soon...
2: A sorcery student & her powerful future self flying back through time meet & fuse...
3: A squirrel-mage meets his future self too. He gives us a mild fever to protect us against a deadly plague...
CAUTION: NOT FOR TOTAL SKEPTICS ABOUT PREDICTIVE DREAMS
HOMAGE TO CAMILLE: by Wayan, spring 2003. Portrait of a half an anima
A portrait of my dream-friend Silky, using a technique learned from artist Camille Porter.
HORSE-DOG: by Wayan, 1982/2/1, a rambling, scattered but predictive dream
I cross the Mushroom Desert, meet a blue-tailed squirrel & a horse-size dog, then zombie-vampire suburbanites.
NEXT DAY: an artist sends me a flyer with a new dream painting--a huge dog whose fur-patterns depict a horse...
CAUTION: SYNCHRONICITY
IF YOUR HEART IS BEAT: by Wayan; 1989/6/30. Nondream digital graffiti-picture-poem.
When your brain-cops are edgy, you're getting warm!
IMMOLATION MAZE: by Richard Turner; 1973, a nightmare expanded into both sculpture & story
Saigon, 1973. Lost in a fabric maze. I find, wearing Buddhist robes, the skeleton of a dog.
Years later I write of Buddhist monks burning themselves, and build an ominous maze...
CAUTION: SUICIDES BY FIRE
IN THE VAULT: by Wayan; 1983/4/6, a dream of treasure.
I was a sheltered girl till I entered my family's secret ancestral vault. I didn't expect to meet...
INK MOUNTAIN: by Wayan; 1992/8/5, a tutelary dreamtale.
A Himalayan peak boils with warring creatures, but a guru says "They're just your conflicts. Sit, watch..."
JEAN ARP'S OCTOPUS: by Wayan; 2001/2/26; a surreal dream of my surreal reaction to a surrealist and his... lunch
A library shows me surrealist Jean Arp's sketchbook. One Eschery sketch with repeated focal points is hypnotic.
But they also show me his lunch, and I try to eat it! I fail. Head & gut disagree. Stuck Arp-way...
CAUTION: NEVER EAT 12-YEAR-OLD SUSHI
KLIMT'S GIRL FRIENDS: by Wayan; 1998/7/4, a short art rant
Klimt did a deep portrait of a lesbian couple back when most folks hardly saw gays as human...
LAKOTA TRAINSCAPES: by Wayan; 2018/10/30, art seen in an anti-lucid dream
In a general store on a High Plains rez, I find two surreal collaged postcards. If only
this were a dream they'd qualify for the World Dream Bank, but sadly, it isn't. Right?
CAUTION: STUPID, STUPID CONSCIOUS!
MAGENTA SQUARES: by Wayan; 1991/1/27, a predictive art dream.
My bedroom's full of magenta squares with stuff glued on. The room glows pink.
A girl who's an expert on the marketing of such installation art gives me advice...
Then I wake to find my housemate Sarah filling our flat with an installation of magenta...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
MAGICAL GRADUATION: by Wayan, 2018/4/22, twin dreamlets on letting go and being yourself
I befriend author Andre Norton--an ageless high-school kid writing enthused fan fiction, forever...
I find my Niche--the stone nook that decides if I'm a journeyman mage! Here comes my prophecy...
MAJOR F.'S EXPERIMENT: by Major F., Nov/Dec 1920, dream experiment urged by J.W. Dunne
DREAM 1: On green grass, a red & blue boat with a net draped atop. Predictive.
DREAM 2: Climbing a ladder with square rungs in a space w/o walls. Predictive.
DREAM 3: A small boy with a toy boat. A sail's laid out flat for washing. Predictive...
MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES: by Wayan, 2017/9/14, a reassuring dream. Sort of.
I worry I'm overworking, but my dream says life's so crash-prone you should let creative frenzy happen...
MARJANE: by Wayan; 2005/6/3, a nightmare about... articide? Watercolor comic or illustrated text
I'm cartoonist Marjane Satrapi. I passively tag along with friends (and a fiancé I tend to forget)
in the Mission District of San Francisco. But they blunder into real trouble...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
MARTIAN VIGILANTE: by Wayan, 2006/3/25, an absurdist nightmare on inner killjoys
After a busy exhausting day, I find myself on a dream street flirting with a really cute artist.
Until this stumpy green Martian slithers up, calls us criminals, and threatens us with a raygun...
CAUTION: DUMBEST INNER CRITIC EVER
MARVIN, CRASH: by Rick Veitch; Feb 1974; a predictive/warning dream
My "friends" pull me away from the girl of my dreams, push booze & pot at me,
and won't even try to climb the rope to success. But Marvin saves Evel Knievel
from a motorcycle crash. Sounds good--until, ten years later, I hear how Marvin died...
CAUTION: GRIM AFTERMATH
MARY MCBRIDE AND THE SPIRITUAL EARTH MOVEMENT: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2011/11/26, dream of a kindred artist
I met a woman whose art (and her love for the Earth) inspired me to start a series of paintings with creatures hidden in landscapes...
MATISSE: by Wayan; 1988? early digital daydream.
An early piece about Matisse, and his models, and quilting, and disembodied heads...
MEAD'S ADVICE: by Beverly O'Neill; c.1977? 78? a dream on seeking a female rolemodel
I try hard not to invade Margaret Mead's privacy, but I need her advice;
after I find a fruit true growing in a forgotten room, she unbends...
MEETING CARAVAGGIO: by Phyllis Davidson, 1978, a dream earned the hard way
While painting a tribute to my hero/mentor Caravaggio, I dream we meet. He talks of his art
as we walk a dark space full of living chiaroscuro scenes we can circle, see from all angles...
MOON-STRIPED TIGER PROWLING: by Sylvia Rosen, 1975/6/29; dream poem
The foul old fossil woman had carved and burnt her own flesh in the name of art;
we washed her till she was reborn young. It was my turn next to enter the water...
MOVING IN THE LANDSCAPES OF MY DREAMS:
by Jenny Badger Sultan; 14 dreams (mostly Jan-Mar 2011) painted on one canvas
A dream urged me to paint a big landscape with cutout movable (magnetic) dream figures
and liftable flaps revealing hidden dream scenes...
MY FLUORESCENT WORLD: by Wayan; 1997/8/16, a psychedelic dream.
I always thought I saw differently than others, but when someone builds the Goggles...
MY FUTURE ART: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995; a self-fulfilling dream prophecy
This woman shows me a book of my art. I'm not sure I want to see them--some pieces are from my future...
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...
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...
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
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?
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...
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...
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...
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
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 PAINT KIDS: by Wayan; 1996/11/23, an apparent predictive dream.
Two child artists mail themselves to me in their paint kit, and
start a painting orgy that gets messy in more ways than one...
CAUTION: PEDOPHILIA, OR MAYBE PEDOPHOBIA
PALAIS IDÉAL: by Ferdinand Cheval; dreamed 1864, built 1879-1912, a life-defining dream
I dreamed I built a palace, but for fifteen years I kept silent, ashamed. Then
I tripped over a beautiful stone. I took it home. Next day I collected more...
PATH: by Wayan; figures from 1989/10/12 dreamlet invade a waking landscape.
My art teacher said "Draw a spiritual experience." I tried, but that night, I dreamed of sharp-toothed...
CAUTION: TOPLESS MEDITATORS
PESCADERO MONET: by Wayan; 1983/11/4, a happy art-cult dream.
Monet is over 100 now, living in an art colony. I visit him, but my parents come along. Bad idea...
PINKIE CLEANS THE WINDOWS OF PERCEPTION:
by Wayan; 2017/2/5, an advisory dream fusing Aldous Huxley & My Little Pony.
My new housemate Pinkie is a party animal, but she's really nice. She climbs a high ladder to help wash my
Windows of Perception. Then our unicorn friend Rarity walks in. She warns me to pace this renovation project...
CAUTION: PONIES
PLANET-SCULPTING APE: by "AE" (George Russell); mid-1870s, a childhood characterological dream.
On a cloud in space I met an ape molding a model of Earth, glancing at the original far below. We were much alike...
THE POLYGAMOUS PILOT: by Wayan; 1990/9/25, an unlikely predictive dream.
My friend the Polygamous Pilot is up in an ice-storm, hanging powerlines on the sky, when...
THE POWER OF ART: by Wayan; 2016/8/29, a dream-poem about the longtern effect of dreamwork?
At a museum, a weird art project shows me how observing and documenting life
in art can improve that life--just from being taken seriously...
PUT TWICE AS MUCH IN: by Wayan; 2003/9/22, a dream warning how much it takes to change
All the claymation figures I made in my teens are gone but one. And the centauress has a broken hip
and spindly leg. I start to mend her, but I need TWICE the clay I thought...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY
QUADRUPLE WEDDING: by Wayan; 1995/5/15, a unifying dream.
Day: Why did I get sick from figure-sketching? Guilt?
Dream: I'm at a group wedding; shall I wed a dwarf, a feral boy or a horse?
RAVENNA: by Wayan; 1994/12/25, a predictive Jungian dream on art & body-image.
In a church-tent, I find glowing pictures of mine I've never seen awake. One's half-done; I work on it.
I wake, and read how Jung, in a Ravenna church, saw luminous images he later learned burned centuries ago!
CAUTION: NUDE STAINED GLASS
RAZI AND THE HOLY WINO OF SHASTA: by Wayan; 1994/9/1, a redemptive epic dream
20,000 years from now, a deer-harpist named Razi finds the Holy Wino's not quite the ruin he seems...
CAUTION: BAD PENGUINS, DEER NUDITY, RUDE DRUNK
REBEL OWL: by Wayan; 1971/10/9, a dream so mysterious it mystified its inhabitants
My city's invaded and occupied. I become a gigantic Owl and fight with impossible stamina.
But in the end I'm dead, stuffed, on a museum wall. Can I let go NOW?
CAUTION: WAR
REVELATION: by Anna Kingsford; 1885/11/27, a prophetic, almost messianic, dream.
Dreams and other revelations shouldn't be dissected--they need to be reveiled, not revealed...
CAUTION: INTENSE MYSTICISM
SCULPTOR OR WRITER?: by Lucian of Samosata, c.135 CE, a career-advice dream
As a boy, my family urged me to aim low and follow our trade: stonecarving. I dreamt two strong women fought
over me, a grubby sculptor and an elegant writer. I sided with the writer, and she let me ride in her flying chariot...
SELF-POSSESSED: by Wayan; a 2000/7/10 dream of a ghost (representing the World Dream Bank itself?)
In a pizzeria, customers walk blindly through a ghost; briefly possessed, they
echo his moods. But for such an insubstantial figure, he seems strangely stable...
SELL THE GODS, AND RAISE HELL!: by Wayan; 1994/1/26, a dream riddle.
Reactionaries smash a paper. To rebuild, the editor must sell
the sacred tiki carvings! But gods don't LIKE being sold...
CAUTION: MORAL QUANDARY
SHARONNE: by Paul Friedrich, pre-1983, a political dream (despite Freud and Jung)
I was in a gang, but I quit. They stoned me--and the green heron, the green color I called "Sharonne".
The setting (Israel), the green (Islam), and the name (Ariel Sharon?) all hint the dream's political...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, POLITICS
SHY SPHINX: by Wayan; 2009/11/27, a dream of indirect advice
I find a shy sphinx hiding in the corner of a painting in a dull art class. But maybe she's right to hide...
SILKY SHIELDS A VANDAL: by Wayan; 1994/8/6, a cautionary dream.
I'm a kid in a classroom someone's trashed. Our teacher goes ballistic. But was the gypsy girl framed?
SILKY THE PEGASUS: by Wayan; 1984/12/11; a guided flying dream
My anima, a pegasus mare, leaps out of a girl's book and teaches us to fly up to an astral land...
CAUTION: FLIRTY PEGASUS
SING TO MY ALIEN FRIEND: by Wayan; 2017/3/7, a dream-poem on... alienation?
From a crowd in a gym, I sing to my wolflike alien friend. But she can't recognize my voice--
too convincing a falsetto! I slide deeper, but once she heard a girl, she can't imagine...
SKUNK SEEKS THAILAND: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a dreamlet of shamanic kindness
One night I meet a giant talking skunk and its pup, who asks how to walk to Thailand...
SO GUARDED A SKIN: by Wayan; dreamed 1983/6/11, a dream of a Freudian... blurt?
An art critic asks me what I think of a sexually explicit nude, and I
find myself blurting nearly the opposite of my conscious opinion...
CAUTION: NUDE SKETCH
SPEAKING ABOUT ART WITH THE AFRICAN BEINGS:
by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2002/1/19, a dream-painting of a dream about dream-painting!
I'm teaching an art class full of strange masklike beings. We debate art
as spontaneous process, versus art as planned product...
A SPHINX'S SKETCHBOOK: by Wayan; dreamed 1994/7/2 & 7/19; a 23-page dream-comic
I find the sketch-journal of a beautiful winged sphinx who left her mythic isle
to explore a great city of crazy bipeds, called San Francisco...
CAUTION: SPHINX SEX, SPHINX ATTITUDE
STREAMLINING: by Wayan; 2004/11/10, a dream within a dream
I dream I'm an otter, and wake into a dream about sculpture--and learn my style's due to my species...
SURF THE SAN ANDREAS: by Wayan; 2008/8/21, 3 short dreampoems, Dreamverse #11
Through twin gates of dream--not ivory and horn any more, but fear and trust...
Three castles on the sea: a Mock Kremlin, a Ship of Toiletpaper, and a Ship of Brick and Beer...
A mad old surfer of the San Andreas Fault, impossibly riding earth-change...
TAROT: THE PIANIST (Knight of Wands?): by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
The knight of creative fire who takes over when you've mastered technique and can let go...
TAROT: THE QUEEN OF FLUTES: by Wayan; 1981/6/19, a brief dream image.
I dream I'm giving a friend a Tarot reading, and the card she picks for herself is one I've never seen:
TEETH IN HIS THIGH: by Wayan; 2008/10/30, an embarrassing dream-poem: Dreamverse #37
The Conference on Love has two sexy speakers. One says
"my teacher's stalking me" but she clings to him. Love? Hate? Both?
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM--but what are these two exhibiting?
TERESA'S BILLBOARDS: by Wayan; 1988/5/1, a dream about trust.
Teresa mistrusts men. Her best friend Sabina comes on to me in front of Teresa, who blames me...
CAUTION: NUDITY, BETRAYAL, GENDER PARANOIA
THAT'S NOT ART! THAT'S ART!: by Wayan; 1995/3/19, a true story
An artist I know dismisses her (gorgeous) art as just therapy... while the museums are full of trash. Why?
THERAPIST GARBLES "I" & "YOU": by Wayan, 1987/12/28, a dream warning of bad therapy
In therapy, I'm wrestling with sex. But workmen invade--hammer & hang pictures. MY pictures!
And my therapist keeps confusing me and her, and our sexual orientations! She means well, but...
CAUTION: NUDE PORTRAIT
THIEF OF DREAMS: by Wayan; 1996/11/29, a sexy soul-swap dream; a 22-page comic (or text w/pics)
I was a mermaid trying to find Count Coyote's stolen dreams, so I could marry my human girlfriend...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, LESBIAN MARRIAGE, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
THROATS and SLOT MACHINE: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, two odd dreamlets
THROATS: Men put babies into giant throats inset in a funhouse wall;
SLOT MACHINE: I see a slot machine generating random art-speak phrases...
TRAIL OF POGS: by Wayan; 2004/9/6, my dreams' response to the first Burning Man dream-workshop
A trail toward Freedom has extra markers, for it's three trails, superimposed! Not all the cues are for us...
TRUST YOUR CANOE: by Wayan; 2012/8/16, two diagnostic dreamlets
I ride a magical self-guiding canoe, seeking the right beach and cove for me.
Even when the boat climbs hills so I can explore inland, I expect it to fail...
12 SWALLOWS, 700 DAUGHTERS: by Wayan; 1972/10/14, a dream poem on compassion; Dreamverse #5
Alchemy demands I kill ten swallows. I refuse! Instead, twelve birds and I fuse and fly over a magic wood...
TWILIGHT ANIMA RISING: by Mardi Storm, 2005, a dream leading to artistic defiance
I dreamed of a unicorn rearing in the desert. I wanted to sculpt it and applied to Burning Man
but was rejected. So I sculpted the unicorn anyway, out of playa mud. It was a hit...
TWILIGHT'S OVAL GAME: by Wayan; 2017/10/4, three dreams arguing "Friendship is Magic"--literal magic.
1: I failed to save a magic tree. It fell and killed someone. I'm racked with guilt...
2: A giant pinball game on a tilted oval relief-map. But you can only win as a team of six friends...
3: A Caribbean girl with a weird aura tries to align two magic crystals to heal herself...
CAUTION: BREASTS, MY LITTLE PONY AS ROLEMODEL
UNDERSECRETARY FOR THE ARTS: by Wayan; 2022/2/13, an advisory dream
I'm named the Undersecretary for the Arts. I sift through all the grant applications. But
I'm a webtroll; I hang furry pastel pinups in my office. The humans see postmodern irony...
CAUTION: FURRY PINUPS; UTTER LACK OF IRONY
UNICORN MENTALITY: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/7/16, a dream of unicorn art spilling over into reality
Dreamworkers gawk at sexy unicorn drawings all over my bed. One friend's part unicorn. The other? I wonder...
Ten years later, having learned I have a rare mutation making me not too human, the dream feels half-predictive...
CAUTION: UNIPORN?
UNICORN STAIN-GLASS WINDOW: by Wayan; 1983/4/28, subliminal or predictive dream
The stained-glass unicorns were stunning, sexy... but veiled by a bland, tasteful,
flowery inner stained-glass window. 18 months later I saw the dream window...
UTOPIA: by Wayan; 37 p, 3.9 MB, 2007/5/9, a painted improv exploring... wishes?
An improvised painting-series exploring my obsession for Utopia--and your deafening silence...
CAUTION: IDEAS, FURRY NUDITY, THAT GOSH-DARN MODERN ABSTRACT ART
A VALLEY NEAR HOPE: by Wayan; 1984/10/17-19, an epic dream.
I wander a valley where unicorns love cyborgs but fear giant ants, who love unicorns but
fear cyborgs, who love ants but fear unicorns! And while the Three Tribes squabble, cave-monsters
sculpt them all. I set up peace talks between these four aspects of my tetrahedral soul...
CAUTION: SWEARING, DRUNK LIONS, CYBORG SURGERY, AND GOGGLE-BARFING
THE VAT MESSIAH: by Wayan; 1985/2/27, an epic dream of magic, flight, and sex
In our cult, we lie in vats of goo till we grow wings. But we're feared more than we knew...
CAUTION: SPECIST LYNCH MOB, NUDE IN SCHOOL, LESBIAN FEELINGS, OBSCENE CARROT
VERITY, TOO?: by Wayan; 2000/11/5, a comic nightmare with good advice--if I avoid Freud!
My art mentors turn on me! My mom the painter says I'm genetically inferior,
and then my art teacher Verity sits on my head (ow!) and chants...
WATERMELON MINE: by Wayan; 2023/6/18, a surreal dream with long-term advice
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
WAYAN'S STUDIO: Wayan, 1999/10/6, ink sketches of workspace
These sketches bare my work process: I multitask, but without planning, in a
flow state. I really do just follow my bliss. Works better for me than logic.
WEAVING MATS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2009/3/15; a predictive dream from the Box of Dreams
In a camp, women wove mats. I was tempted to try. But it was
months before I learned what they'd really been weaving..
WHILE THE MEN WERE HUNTING by Wayan, 1981/11/3; a crayon-ink-Xerox art-prayer.
In cave times, while the men were all out hunting, it was
the women who learned to paint the cave walls to summon...
WHO'LL BE MY LOVE?: by Wayan; 1986/4/14, a dream noir farce; part 4 of UNICORN TAG.
I'm a hardboiled detective wincing as I grill a meek little psychic
(probably me) about squish-softboiled topics like unicorns and love...
CAUTION: SMUTTY UNICORN MAKES EVEN COPS BLUSH
WILD MAGIC: by Wayan, 2018/1/8, a dream on finding a place
A teacher drafts me into her magic class to shake up her sheltered wizard-wannabes.
My magic's wild, ignoring spells and rules. I don't think I realized how wild...
CAUTION: NUDITY
WING IT: by Wayan, 1995/12/29-1996/2/14, a 9-page improv comic.
An art experiment--the only rule is DRAW without preconceptions--
no models, no ideas, no plans, not even dreams. Drawing from the void!
WOODCUT: by Wayan; 1998/8/13. Digital "woodblock print" of dream-self.
Cartoony self-portrait as I paint with Persephone's pomegranate paintbrush. A mock woodblock print...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
THE WOODRING LAYER: by Wayan; 2008/7/7. A dream questioning art's job.
Great towers rise into a fog zone--or is it another world with other rules? And how to draw both levels?
A WRITER'S MUSE: by Wayan, 1996/12/7, a dreamfable on creativity.
A writer's found in his office mating with an ash-covered creature! But could she be his muse?
CAUTION: NUDITY OR NOT? SEX OR NOT? NO ONE QUITE KNOWS...
THE WRITING CLASS: by Wayan; 1984/3/27, a grumpy dream.
Most writers search for their unique style. Not me--I struggle to convey unique EXPERIENCES...


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