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Cops and Authoritarians

Dreams of literal police, but also of what Americans call the cop mentality--responsible, but authoritarian and rule-based, willing to sacrifice freedom for security. Police in your dreams often stand for inner attitudes like this--for good or ill. Yet others can warn of real authority figures out to get you. Depends how oppressive your society is! But even in places where you have good reason to fear the cops, it's worth considering the possibility that your dreams are pointing out a cop in your head. After all, that's the one authoritarian only you can get rid of! And you're much more effective fighting oppressors in the waking world if they don't have an ally in your brain.

RELATED TOPICS: guards and protectors - warriors and codes of honor - prisons and freedom - judges, trials and lawyers - war dreams - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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THE ARREST: by Georges Perec; July 1970, a dream of .... huh? Dream #16
I am arrested in Tunisia, essentially for being Jewish, despite my pro-Palestinian sympathies.
My main regret: I face years of dirty socks...
BITTER TRANSFORMATIONS: by Selena; 2017/10/18, a diagnostic gender identity dream
I finally admit who I am, and the truth is bitter...
CAUTION: GENDER DYSPHORIA, MENTION OF COPROPHAGY, POSSIBLE SITCOM SPOILER
BUMBREE SYNDROME: by Wayan; 1984/3/14, a comic dream about dreams.
Princess Chinchilla and I use an umbrella to escape the Wizard. Now to escape the Dream Researchers!...
CIRCUS GIRL: by Wayan; 1993/1/10, a dream of love and trouble.
I fall for a circus girl. Her brother is jealous, so all the dwarves show up with guns...
CAUTION: INCEST ISSUES
COYOTE PAJAMAS: by Wayan; 1983/12/17, a Dantesque dream-epic.
I'm Coyote, keeping the Business Prophet from taking over Dante's Peak. But it turns too personal...
CAUTION: IDIOTIC VIOLENCE
A CRAIGSLIST BARGAIN: by Wayan; 2006/10/1. A dream of another life; possible ESP.
I’m an Asian kid in Pacifica, California. My parents annoy me, so I offer them for sale on Craigslist. A cop appears...
DALLAS GMORK: by Wayan; 1984/8/21, a predictive nightmare
I'm a protester in Dallas, fighting Reagan's cops. A werewolf kills two of them.
I may be its real prey; is police harassment distracting the wolf from me?
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND DISTURBING PREDICTION
A DAUGHTER TO DOTE ON: by Thomas Madden; 2017/9/17, a dream on gender? Family pressure? Both?
My dad saw a mob killing; our family enters witness protection. But why's my new role female? Well, my parents...
CAUTION: WILLING OR UNWILLING DRAG?
DEMON BUDGETING: by Wayan, 2011/9/27, a nightmare on letting things blow over
A demon invades our police station, takes over our captain and lieutenant, and pushes them to fight.
But I know demonic possession can't last long. Our copshow's special effects budget is too limited...
DEMON-SUMMONING IS JUST A MISDEMEANOUR: by Jo; 2017/7/26, a gender-bent diagnostic nightmare
I protect my friends from a demon, but the dream-guardians I summon terrify me...
DESERT SLAVERS: by Wayan; 2015/5/29; a grim dream replayed a bit better
A gang of slavers catch my family. I flee on a bike but it breaks down. Stranded. Replay! This time I have a gun...
CAUTION: GANG, SHOOTING
DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE EASY?: by Wayan; 1995/1/15, a dream of slow liberation.
Our Appalachian town revolts against fundamentalists, but brainwashing takes time to undo...
CAUTION: SEX AND INJUSTICE
DILL: by Wayan; 1988/9/9, a dream-poem about reverse theft
I'm a reporter. In the mall, I get my pocket picked repeatedly--
but the thieves keep slipping mysterious stuff in, not out...
CAUTION: PUN
THE DOGGYSEY: by Wayan, 2009/11/26, a dream Odyssey predicts my own artistic path
I find I'm a fox singing the Disney musical version of a canine epic: the tale of Odysseus the
Mutt and his purebred Big Brother vying for the paw of Penelope--and the throne of Ithaka...
CAUTION: POLTERGEIST
THE DREAM POLICE: by Wayan; 1994/4/6, a dream on persecution.
The police confiscate my therapist's copies of my dreams, and try me for obscenity! So why do I help?...
DRIVER'S TEST: by Wayan; 1984/1/8, a comical Kafka dream.
It's not easy to get a California driver's license, ever since the Dept. of Motor Vehicles went Jungian...
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?
FEATHERHOLDERS: by Wayan; 2020/5/18, a dream of a strange career
My friend Xanthe steals a sorceror's magic feathers and creates a police force
to curb the misuse of magic. But I'm no featherholder; I'm the dispatcher...
FLOWER DREAMS: by A.D. Winans, c.1975, a pugilistic nightmare-poem
I try to pick a flower in Golden Gate Park. But it fights back--plucks an ear, an eye, my nose.
A half-gardener, half-cop hands me shears. But I turn from the flower at the last minute to cut...
CAUTION: SURREAL VIOLENCE
FRAMED!: by Wayan; 2006/10/18, a political nightmare.
To fight the drug trade, cute little blonde cops plant packets on men in the park. And when I resist...
CAUTION: BAD COPS
FREE WAY? DETENTION FOR YOU!: by Wayan; 1997/2/14, a dream of the wages of fun.
Zooming on freeways--carless levitation! But the Principal tries to punish us. And we resist... don't we?
FRIDA'S PRISON PAINTINGS: by Wayan; 2010/11/19, a Frida Kahlo-inspired dreamlet
Frida Kahlo's battered sister Cristina dances nude--and gets jailed by the
Office of Homeland Security! Frida protests by painting her in prison...
FUSE FOREVER: by Wayan, Late Dec. 1975 or early Jan. 1976, a cosmic/erotic dream?
Cops shoot at us, but my first lover Pat and I dive down a rainbow wormhole, making love and fusing forever...
CAUTION: BAD COPS, (non-explicit) SEX
FUTURE BOOKS: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a dream lesson on reading
In a repressive, thought-controlled future I find some old banned books;
I tell my student "Reading these makes life more interesting--and angry..."
GESTAPO, OPERA by a 30-year-old woman, 1933; a dream of isolation & vulnerability
I'm at my favorite opera, The Magic Flute. When I hear the line 'That is the devil certainly,' I think
of Hitler. The Gestapo have a device that reads my thought, and come for me. Bystanders spit on me...
CAUTION: NATIONAL NIGHTMARE
GIRL INTO HERON: by Wayan, 2017/11/7, a dream-poem of an uncertain choice
Four thugs stalk a gawky girl through the Everglades. She treads on a black stone and...
becomes a blue heron! Her stalkers vanish--did they become birds too? Should I step up?
GREENBIRD SAVIOR: by Wayan; 1983/6/2, a divine comedy.
Time-travel the Navaho way! But our bread-pipe gets hijacked, so we call the Bird. Who shows up, all right...
CAUTION: NON-STANDARD SAVIOR, EVIL DREAM PUNS
GUARD ON THE BEACH: by Wayan; 1980/9/17, a dream of moral suasion
Very nearly a nightmare, till the guard on the beach relented in the face of people power...
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...
HEADSHRINKER: by William S. Burroughs, c. 1990? A dream of rage against liars
A CIA man trying to infiltrate a revolutionary group flunks a lie-detector test, so the Headshrinker...
CAUTION: REAL HEADSHRINKER
HELPLESSLY LUCID: by Alder; 2007/6/23, a lucid dream in which I’m powerless!
I’m a homeless elf. We’re a persecuted minority group. I know I’m dreaming and try to change it but...
HIDE THE LIST!: by Anonymous; c. 1550, a recurrent warning dream.
A London Protestant dreamed Bloody Mary would find the congregation's member-list and burn them all...
HOT POT CAT LOT: by Wayan; 1992/8/6, a delayed-action psychic dream.
After a bad writing class, I meet a shy catgirl guarding a Mongolian Hot Pot, and discover who I am...
HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHT: by Wayan; 1994/4/3, a dark dream.
As my grandmother is dying, I have a dream about what really went on in her house...
CAUTION: CHILD SLAVERY
HUBRIS EGGS: by Wayan; 1981/6/11, a short defiant psychic dream.
I'm wrapping my heavy-metal eggs too slowly, so the Judges sink my car! I set out to get revenge...
I HAD A WHITE BANDAGE: by Jack Kerouac, July 1957, a dream of triumph despite adversity
Wounded, bandaged, chased by cops, I end up heading a huge children's parade,
marching to Mongolia. No secret what it's about--On The Road was just published...
INGENIOUS ADVERTISEMENTS: by Elizabeth Kew; 1930s?, a cynical dream come true.
My friend put an ad on her gown, so I try one on our house. I have big ideas for more, but a pickpocket...
JENNIFER MONTGOMERY: by Wayan; 1995/4/24, a film review
Montgomery's film about her teenage affair with a pedophile
is troubling enough before the FBI tries to blackmail her...
CAUTION: MOLESTATION/ABUSE ISSUES
KICK AUTHORITY: by Wayan; 1989/10/25. Early digital painting of a dream figure.
Question authority? Nah. They always have such excuses! Kick authority entirely! Just say no.
LEARNING SCALES: by Wayan; 1985/6/26, an epic dream of Chinese dragons.
I find myself in astral China. The Empress is banished, the Jester rules. Wisdom is lost.
We need an Imperial Dragon...
THE LIZARD LESSON: by Wayan; 1996/12/12, a hard-hittin' shamanic dream.
I'm a shaman in Nunavut who has to teach a guy in a lizard
suit (and his foxy niece) that reparations have limits...
LOVING A COP: by Wayan; 1981/5/5, a dream on initiative.
I'm a cop's wife, having trouble with his need to protect me. He's hurt if I take too much initiative...
MCKILLIP'S NEW BOOK: by Wayan; 2010/7/23, an epic literary dream
I'm inside a magical novel by Patricia McKillip, amid tricksters, cosplayers, spooks, sex changes, levitation and (sigh) cops...
CAUTION: COYOTE SEX
MALWARE IN THE BRAIN: by Wayan, 2017/12/27, a possibly predictive dream.
Dream: tourists in our town use brainware to navigate & translate, but it's infected. Turns you fascist. Whaaaat?...
Next day: the FBI knocks! Our web provider fingered us as a nest of internet criminals. Thanks, Comcast!
Talk about malware...
MEM LOI'S SEARCH WARRANT: by Wayan; 2023/4/2, a dream of my own immune system?
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
MUPPET WITNESS: by Bill Tjaden, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; an absurd dream
I work in a witness protection program. We hide the Muppet on the bottom
of an empty swimming pool, hand him a long straw, and fill it with...
MY PEGASUS: by Regina van der Poel; 2000/6/1, a dream of my Life Painting
I free a friend unjustly imprisoned. On the run, we encounter our Life Paintings.
Mine is a beautiful pegasus flying. But on its back is a monkey in a red suit...
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...
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
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...
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 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
PAD ON THE FLOOR: by Cory and Wayan; 2020/9/13, parallel, apparently telepathic dreams.
CORY: I'm in a government complex. Tired, but guards harass me. At last they let me nap on a floor pad.
WAYAN: I'm in the Student Union. Need to study, but guards harass me. Yet they let my friend sleep on a...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
PORTALS OF THE PAST: by Wayan, 2021/2/6; a timish dream.
The time-caves under Golden Gate Park lead to supervillains, magical girls, miniphants,
bamboo thugs, adorable dinosaurs, and... pandemics. But is there a way back home?
THE REAL MAO: by Wayan; 2006/7/9 and 7/11: two dreams (one possibly psychic) about an appalling book
Jung Chang’s exposé of Mao's brutal deeds and legacy
provoke dreams of leaders who don't listen--till I scream...
RETURN FROM EXILE: by Anonymous #48, early 1994?, a fierce political dream
I'm a rebel leader released from prison only to find my people beaten down
and malnourished. I swear to eject our oppressors despite the price of war. ...
RIBBING: by Wayan; 1992/12/25, an assertive dreamtale.
After seeing 150 years of family photos, I dream of being teased by time-traveling cheerleaders, and...
SAMURAI BULLET: by Wayan; 1985 automatic drawing, 3x5", ink; tinted 2001.
I didn't know myself what this was about, till I had to write this note--and suddenly I got it...
SARITA'S DREAM: by Sarita Johnson, 1980/8/17, epic dream with a surreal ending
Cops hunt my girlfriend & me all over town. Strangely, whenever I ask them to back off,
they do! Alma's resigned--lets them arrest her and put her on a raft. But she turns into a...
THE SECURITY GUARD: by Wayan; 1994/12/30, a nightmare on anger.
A crazy security guard with a squirt gun full of acid kills
freely over and over, for the court system keeps paroling...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
SHIELDS FROM THE GODDESS: by Wayan; 1996/8/3, a dream that's a slap in the face.
A Goddess-worshiping general gets a visit from her twin daughters who bring a puzzling message...
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?
SNAKE APOLOGY: by Wayan; 1972/6/24 or 25, a dream on solving communication problems
I'm a snake being hunted by the FBI. I know English, but I can only hiss.
So I need to find an indirect way to show I'm peaceable...
SOLE RETRIEVAL: by Wayan; 2005/10/6, a punning spiritual dreamlet
Guards in a museum confiscate my goofy purple-warted shoes, then lose them!
I fuss till they find them. For it's vital to retrieve my, uh, soles.
A SQUARE IN THE HAND: by Anna Kingsford; 1887/4/12, an epic nightmare with a twist
I'm a French revolutionary facing a firing squad. But palmistry predicts I'll be strangely saved...
STOP RESISTING; 2000/1/2 by Anonymous #37; nightmare of injustice
I'm sentenced for a crime I didn't commit; then the bailiff beats me for "resisting", though I'm not...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, SWEARING
SUPERHERO TRAINING KITS: by Wayan; 2006/12/17, a wise mishmash dream
I careen from a shamanic laboratory
to a shattered ring round an alien world
to (gasp) an honest politican!...
TAG WITH A BOUNTY HUNTER: by "Caradon"; 2010/3/3, a playful lucid dream
A bounty hunter stalks me through a jungle, but lucidity turns a potential nightmare to joy...
TAROT: THE COP (Knight of Swords): by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
The card of force sparingly needed. The Knight says, "Sometimes ya gotta bust a few heads..."
THREE FLYING DREAMS: by Sharad Chandra, 1988 or before, mystical advisory dreams
1: I ask how to fly. "Breathe air from high levels; its light and purity will wash away earth's heaviness..."
2: To join a flying game, you must cut off your own head! Players acquire new heads and can work miracles...
3: I float up to reach a book in a shop. People call the police but I defiantly soar--over Paris, up to the stars...
TO HELL: by Katie Hofgard; 2003/4/19?, a nightmare of loyalty
I loyally served a demon who punished me until at last he sent me to hell. And STILL I didn't rebel...
CAUTION: BLOODY ABUSE
TRUMP ON THE RUN: by Wayan; 1990/3/8, a suspiciously predictive dream
The manhunt is on for Donald Trump, rich sociopath. But he too is pursuing something: happiness...
TUBA BEANS: by Wayan; 1996/3/24, a Star Trek dream.
Changelings invade our orbital station, selling drugs, kidnapping teachers--but Constable
Odo can handle that. What's weird are the beans pouring out of that kid's tuba...
VIEWPOINT: by Wayan; 1991/6/9, a dream on pastlife amnesia.
I ask to see my past lives, and dream of a viewpoint where I can--but this Mormon ranger...
THE VOICE OF GOD: by Wayan, 1993/1/31, a psychic nightmare-epic.
Half-mad with fear, I massacre a cult, till my gun manifests stigmata: a gory miracle.
Then I'm a cultist, resisting the Voice of God pushing all us mortals to murder in His name.
I woke up haunted, and wondered for weeks what this was about... until the Waco Massacre.
CAUTION: CREEPY VIOLENCE, CREEPY GOD, CREEPY PREDICTION
WERTZ!: by Wayan; 2023/10/14, a night of cartoonist-inspired dreams
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
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
WHY I BECAME THE SEA: by Wayan; 1980/6/19, a vengeful flying/transformation dream.
I get so mad at some gaybashing cops and gangsters
that I become the sea itself and chase them...
CAUTION: UNCHARITABLE REPRESENTATION OF OUR SAINTS IN BLUE
WOLVES EVOLVE: by Wayan, 1983/11/11, a Darwinian dream.
After seeing 'Rear Window', Grace Kelly and I are wolf children in a pack that's quickly evolving into...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, CHILD SEXUALITY, WOLF-SLANDER


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