I dreamt, and knew I dreamt, and I made love to Lady Castlemayne, and had all my desire.
If, as Shakespeere said, death is but sleep, and dreams may come, why then fear death?...
I dreamed that in four days a plague would hit our reservation and people would start dying.
Four days later it happened just as I was warned---the 1918 flu. And my dream caused it...
CAUTION: NOT JUST SURVIVOR'S GUILT, SEER'S GUILT
Qu'lad, dying of flu in the pandemic, dreamt a wolf told him cold-water baths would save him. He staggered to the river. He lived. He told others.
They lived. The shaman Togumalis dreamt his spirit helper, a squirrel, prescribed the same. A century later, hospital records show why it worked...
CAUTION: ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE SHOWN AS SUPERIOR
In a world of wizards, many have gone silent. They seem to forget speech exists. A toxin, a disease? But what explains
people's calm as more go mute? No, it's an insidious spell--with a penumbra making us take its spread for granted...
CAUTION: IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR WORLD
Lost in the rainforest of Olympic National Park, I stumble into the wrong cabin:
the hut of Time herself. Or is she? She asks me to clean up, but spare her web...
VAUGHAN'S DREAM: I visit Kurt Vonnegut. Kids all over. He's going on a trip soon. Mentions of 'Jerome' and an island...
VONNEGUT REPLIES: "That night, childrens' author Jerome B visited; we discussed my upcoming trip to England..."
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
A whimsical spook causes a chain of crashes--a pedestrian dodges an elephant, swerving a car
that shoves a cyclist into a luggage-wrangler whose rolling suitcase panics a dog who runs into...
I see parasitic spirits sickening their human hosts. Can't get rid of them, so I try to teach them how to
keep their hosts healthier. An angel suspects I'm a necromancer, and shows up armed for a shootout...
CAUTION: DISTURBING PREMISE, LOWBROW ANGEL
Donald Trump is Satan. I'm just a low-level devil, under his thumb.
I feel helpless to stop his businesslike plans for the Apocalypse...
CAUTION: POLITICAL RAGE; PREDICTS COVID'S LATER WAVES
In a near-future dictatorship, Democrats are afraid to take any action. But in a suburban lot,
I find a burned-out tank. I need to find these rebels who can defeat military-grade repression...
CAUTION: GRIM
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...
I'm in a construction zone behind the world's largest bookshop, telling a friend that late 2020
& January 2021 will be a mess. I hide that I know it because a unicorn in a dream said so...
A human and a talking giraffe fall in love. But some hunters still shoot animal people.
So he camouflages her with paint. Bright paint. Now she's more visible than ever!
Not that I can criticize his eccentricities. I'm in love with a unicorn songwriter...
CAUTION: FURRYPHILIA
I'm in a cafe listening to a world-famous musician. He wanders the tables
begging for spare change as businessmen talk over his signature song...
CAUTION: TRUMP AND COVID, SIGH...
I find three street parties full of half-naked dancers, jammed together for warmth--and maskless!
Not parties--anti-masker events. Sexy, but their protest risks our lives along with theirs...
CAUTION: FLAMES SCIENCE DENIERS
We flee a tsunami. Inland. Up a hill. Onto a roof. One by one, the flood plucks us away.
Long past hope, I climb a flagpole. As I cling to the very top and the mud rises to my lips...
CAUTION: GRIM PREDICTION
Smallpox is extinct. No need to worry. But the pocked face of the rising moon reminds me
malice, madness, incompetence and black-market greed, our four horsemen, aren't extinct...
CAUTION: ODE TO SMALLPOX, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?
An idiot wizard lures car-sized spiders into town. I find a spellbook that repels them, but have to hide it
so my community college professors, Gandalf & Saruman, don't take it. For I'm no wizard, just a lizard...
CAUTION: HUGE SPIDERS, HUGE SELLOUTS
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?
A woman camps in the hills with her dad, till he hikes off, indifferent. Not amnesia or dementia; he no longer
cares for people. A case of Desocia! As I meet relatives of other cases, I start to suspect I have it myself...
CAUTION: ALIENATION
DREAM: bisexual deer-people go on dates. Despite their fur, they seem shy about breasts.
WAKE: read Alison Bechdel's latest confessional comic. Bisexual phase, shy about breasts...
CAUTION: POSSIBLY PREDICTIVE; TOPLESS DEER
I'm in an alien empire dominated by big lizard-bugs. Humanoids are second-class, but
they're trusted with weapons--I witness a human squad executing a lizard for dissidence...
CAUTION: REPRESSION, OR IMMUNE SYSTEM?
I live in a highrise. But a fox appears on our balcony! Through the glass door,
he flirts with our pet cat-fox. But wild foxes can carry distemper, so I keep the
door locked. Useless! This urban pioneer is talented. He steps through the glass...
I find I'm a self-made... critter. A plushie sewn with zippers so I can stuff any bits of me that
seem flat or limp. But my filling's not cotton, polyester or foam. It's chocolate! So I have...
CAUTION: CRUDE DREAM, AWFUL PUN
In endangered woods I meet deer with bold black-and white feather crests.
Higher up, it's barren--a hard winter. But I taste a medicinal blue-black fruit...
I'm a demon girl out to sabotage a pirate radio station by climbing a tall
wall of glowing wax, carrying a comatose mountain lioness on my back!
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?
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...
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