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Creativity

Dreams (and a few nondream essays) about the creative process--from inspiration and discipline, through the flow-state of active creation (and creative blocks), to the struggle to find time, training, mentors, peers, venues, and an audience...

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ACCIDENT: by Jules Engel; c.1970? Nightmare turns to surreal sport, inspiring animated film.
A large dog was chasing me, but somehow we got turned around and began racing.
As I caught up with the dog, any bit I passed went invisible--but the rest of the dog ran on
unfazed. When I won the dog vanished entirely. Awake, I animated the dog running, then...
AFTER THE BANG: by Wayan; 2001/5/16, a poem on the World Dream Bank.
The Big Bang happens, you're inspired, you make something of it... then what? The Big Whimper?
AGASSIZ’S FISH: by Louis Agassiz, ca. 1840: subliminal, psychic, or just a great guess?
Agassiz, faced with a fossil he had to crack open, was unsure where to strike.
But for three nights he dreamed...
ALICE'S POEM: by Lewis Carroll; 1872, a poem on dreams
Are dreams really so ephemeral? Lewis Carroll, who built the Alice books from dream-shards, wasn't so sure...
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
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...
ANOCHE / LAST NIGHT: by Antonio Machado; c. 1900; a joyful dream poem
Last night, as I slept, I dreamt--illusion blessed!--that I had a beehive, here inside my heart...
THE ANTI-SABOTEUR: by Wayan; 2013/7/19, a diagnostic dreamlet
This giant life-coach says my friends and I aren't self-sabotaging as we suspected;
we just lack certain tools and opportunities. And we're aiming high...
A PEEL FOR APPROVAL: by Wayan; 1990/9/24, a cautionary dream
Ariana's a brilliant young writer, but how she plans to escape her family is alarming...
CAUTION: TEEN PREGNANCY, SKIN MAGS, HORRIBLE CAREER PLANNING
APOCALYPSE IN ST. JAMES'S PARK: by Robin Hardy; pre-1983, a quiet Cold War nightmare
I find myself at a party in London observing two minutes of silence for the dead of World Wars One and Two. But then, in the park,
blowing across the grass like leaves, were people. The windows imploded. Surely, I thought, there should be a flash before the wind?
ARTICHOKE PLATE: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; 1982 (March?); a punning dream
I realize the artichoke plate in my lap is a pun: ART! I CHOKE! I need to peel
off my thorny outer leaves of professionalism to find the heart inside...
THE ARTIST'S WAY: by Wayan; 1994/6/10, a visual-pun dream.
I'm a parade route. A group of child artists walks all over me. But their soles are bare, so I don't mind...
ASTAIRES: by Wayan; 2015/11/17, a dream about... the Web?
A host of Fred Astaires dance mid-air in an endless spiderweb,
then pound on typewriters randomly forever...
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
BEAN BAR: by Wayan; 1985/12/28, a culinary fable.
I don't know beans about right action, so Kokoro, master chef
of the Bean Bar, teaches me the stages of true mastery...
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...
BEET: Five Dreams One Night: by Wayan; 2013/10/30, Halloween dreams as minipoems
Parasites, Rambo, huge fetus-beets, an exhibitionist and a living statue advise me on my love life...
CAUTION: NUDITY
THE BEST CONVERSATIONALISTS: by Wayan; 1984/8/5, a geeky dream.
I'm at an all-geek banquet! We're all shy; we just can't do
smalltalk. Then the hostess explains why she chose us...
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...
BLACKBIRD: by Anna Halprin; 2002-2005?, a recurring dream of a spirit guide.
At first I was afraid of the blackbird, who asked me to come away with him--I wasn't ready to die--
but now I see him as a friend and guide. One day when I'm ready, we'll fly--and I won't be back.
BLACK DUCKS QUACKED FIRST: by Wayan; 1990/9/13, a dream-farce on Shadows of Greats Past.
My sister & I try to sing an original, but every note summons old jazz greats, leaving us
no musical elbow room! So I quack like a duck. Nope! Giant ducks appear, and say...
CAUTION: RACIAL ANXIETY? GIANT DUCKS!
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
THE BOOK: by SAO (Shawn Allen O'Neal); October 1989, a mandala-like dream-icon
The crystalline figure on the cover of the book in my dream seemed to hold as many answers as its title...
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?
BROKE LIKE GLASS: by Katherine Mansfield; 1919/12/15, a warning-dream.
A long terrible shiver, and my whole body broke like glass. I may live months, but in that dream I died...
THE BRUNDIBAR SEA: by Wayan; 2005/12/18, a mystical manifestation dream
Biking, I stray into the steamy Brundibar Sea. My bike dissolves!
But hot-tubbers explain the Sea manifests what you visualize. Yay! Uh-oh...
CAUTION: MYSTICISM AND HOLOCAUST HISTORY
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?...
CALIBAN IN ENGLAND: by Theodore Weiss; 1966 or 67; a dream-play never written
As I wrote a poem on Caliban, I dreamt I was him: taken to Shakespeare's England,
shown as a freak, I must escape to save Miranda and Prospero from assassins...
THE CENDANCERS: by Wayan; 2011-16, a 32-figure sculpture project with 250+ pics
A wild troupe of sexy, surreal, centaurlike dancers mostly built from Barbie dolls...
CAUTION: EXPLICIT NUDITY, FUR, BARBIE
CENTAUR AUDITION: by Wayan; 2012/1/7 and 2012/1/30, two linked Pygmalion dreams
Non-dream centaur ballerinas invade my dreams, because they long to be in the World Dream Bank...
CAUTION: BARBIE CENTAUR NUDITY, CASTING-COUCH OVERTONES
CHICKEN DREAM POEM: by Hastings Wyman, Jr., pre-1983, a dream of liberation
A mass breakout of baby chicks. They say "Now we know how, so we'll
go where we choose." And maybe it's about more than chickens...
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...
CIDER AND WINE: by Wayan; 1974/10/24, surreal undream Aspie reporting
Our writing class meets in this Victorian home. I turn off my filters and describe what I really see around me...
CIRCLES OF BONE: by Linda Puffer, 1977/4/27, a poem on a surreal body-image dream
I realize a bone is protruding between my left armpit and breast. I put Maria's hand on my breast and
ask her to feel the bone. But no one grasps what it really is--something sticking out from my heart...
CORNER TORSO: by Wayan; 1996/9/18 to 1998/7/21; a surreal nondream sculpture.
A surreal statue of a naked body spilling out of the wall as if someone's caught between dimensions...
CAUTION: NUDITY
COYOTISH CANTILEVER: by Wayan, 1991/3/9, dream image forgotten for years then spontaneously painted.
1991: dream of a weird tower like a cantileved skeletal sculpture of a coyote, in San Francisco. Sketch it then forget it.
1993: experimenting with a paint program, I make a peculiar image. No idea it's from a dream...
2020: transcribing old journals, I find the dream-sketches. My nondream experiment... wasn't.
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
CREATORS' BREAKOUT: by Rick Veitch, c.1995, a career-advice dream
The House of Comics has a shabby annex jammed with self-publishers.
We make a human ladder and climb out a high window, but I don't fit;
as the tenement collapses, I must smash the windowframe to free...
CRESCENT CAT: by Wayan; 2011/2/17, a painting critiqued by a dream
My dream critiques a non-dream artpiece. Does it only count as dream-art
when your dream urges changes, or is creativity partly knowing when to stop?
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
CUTTLEBONE: by Wayan; 1999, sculpture, 7", plaster/acrylic; a nondream improv.
If you can't tell what it is from the thumbnail, cheer up. It's indescribable full-size, too.
DANCING ROBBANE: by Emily Joy; 2007/8/1, sculpture of a dream sculpture.
The clay came alive, shaped itself, started dancing...and mutating.
DAWN SAYS 'SCULPT MASTURBATION': by Wayan; 1997/8/3; an advisory dream
I dreamed my sculptor friend Dawn insisted I sculpt a girl really,
um, relaxing. Took me a mere 13 years to act on the dream!
CAUTION: SKETCHED & SCULPTED MASTURBATION
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...
DESTRUCTION OF THE NIGHTMARE TOWERS: by Dustin Shuler; c.1955-1965, recurrent nightmare made performance art
As a kid, when I had a fever I always had the same nightmare: a high brick or stone wall
shaking apart, faster and faster. This scared me very much. Finally, in my teens, I...
THE DEVIL'S TRILL: by Giuseppe Tartini; c.1713, a musical inspiration dream.
I sold my soul to the Devil. On an impulse, I handed him my fiddle. To my
wonder, he played a sonata of exquisite beauty. When I woke I retained only echoes...
DINAH'S ADVICE: by Wayan; 2007/4/14, a false-waking advisory frustration dream
I struggle to write down a bizarre dream clearly and simply, but both pens and paper have mutated. Then a child prodigy explains “dreams don’t always want to be linear”...
DOOR OF ETERNITY: by Marie-Claude Girondé, early 2000s, a painting on dreamwork's layeredness.
"If you put an ear to the door of books and the doors of the night,
if you pay attention, you can hear the conversation of poets..."
THE DOUBT: by Wayan; 2007/2/15, an undream trance-painting
Painting an abstract watercolor, I drifted into trance, and found myself climbing a
thorny slope. Deer in the brush. Great peaks around. Had I gone wrong?
DOWN UNDER: by Kenneth John Atchity; c.1976, a comic on-the-road dream poem
I ride my tricycle all round Sydney trying to get bureaucratic approval
to feed bananas to my friend the grizzly bear, gooey though he gets...
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 HERDING: by Nancy Potter; 1978/11/8 & 11/11, two comic, surreal dreams
FERRY: the crossing is rough, but I'm warned I must find my own sea-legs...
BUZZ OFF: I step into a family photo, but I'm not welcome in the past...
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
DREAMS IN WAR TIME: by Amy Lowell; c. 1917, a chain of seven small dream-poems
Terse dreamlets quietly catch World War I's effect. Faith died in the trenches...
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
DURING DREAM-DROUGHT: by Wayan; 1997/5/7, a journal exerpt.
Sitting in an eviction-lawyer's waiting room, of all places, I discover my next artistic direction...
CAUTION: SEX/GENDER ISSUES
ECCENTRIC: by Wayan; 1990/5/17, a two-page dream-comic.
I'm a small planet in an eccentric orbit: a one-day summer, a two-day winter. Rest and hibernate, or...
CAUTION: SLACKER ETHIC
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...
EIGHT ELFLOCKS: by Wayan; 2007/8/11, an absurd psychic sex dream.
I learn weird sex positions from an abused elf, have calligraphic orgasms, and then I, uh, turn on my stereo...
CAUTION: SEX, ESP, ANORGASMIA, PAST LIVES, ABUSE ISSUES
AN ELECTORAL REFORM: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a dream-idea that came true
In between drawing devil-bunnies, I advocate letting doomed fringe candidates donate their votes
to more viable colleagues, letting voters express their real choices, not vote for the lesser evil...
CAUTION: POLITICS!
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?
EXTRACT FROM A POEM IN PROGRESS: by D.M. Thomas, c.1972, a poem of an advisory dream
As it was revealed that the pianist in Truro Cathedral was T.S. Eliot's illegitimate daughter, her
wretched playing suddenly became beautiful. I knew the dream meant "cleave to the illegitimate"...
FAMILIARS: by Wayan; 1986/4/2, a dreamtale on the dark side of reading.
In ancient Britain, as Christianity moves in, I'm a slave--sailing through centuries, but never free...
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 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
FIRE IN THE CRUCIBLE: by Wayan; 1996/11/5, a confessional essay on genius.
A book's example of a mathematical savant made me stop and try to do what he did. I can! Can anyone?
FLANDERS: by Rachael Dutton, c.1981; a dream painting whose dream is lost
In the field, a huge dog whose markings form the image of
a running horse. So who am I dreaming of? Horse or hound?
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...
FOAM, FURS, DREAMS: by Wayan; 2012-16, a blog on sewing giant dream plushies; 43 dreams!
My dreams urge me to build furry dream creatures with joints,
muscles & bones, then to heal myself by mating with them...
CAUTION: FETISHISM, FURRY NUDITY & SEX
FOR WORLD DREAM BANKERS: by Patagia; 2007/9/21, a praise-poem for dreamers
Dreamwork takes discipline, but writing and painting dreams for others takes even more: courage!
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...
FOUR WHO COULD ONLY GET HALF-WAY by Nancy Price; 1948, a frustration-dream with deep advice
I'm one of four mediocrities: all our efforts come to nought. Mum says "You're netted, but you can fray the ropes...
FRAGMENTATION: by Wayan; 1990? Digital drawing on digital drawing.
The first thing any beginner does with a paint program is behead someone. Why?
CAUTION: PAINFUL SPLINTERS
FRANKENSTEIN'S ORIGIN: by Mary Shelley; 1816/6/16, the (hypnogogic?) dream inspiring a famous book
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing
he had put together; I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out...
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?
FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH: by Roswila, August 2002; a dream-poem illustrating dream reentry
My horse and I dove into a lagoon and sought buried treasure on the sea-floor. What are we really after?
F*CK CALIFORNIA!: by Wayan; 2004/10/15, a surreal, embarrassing dream
I'm trying to hump the entire State of California. In public,
too. What brought THIS on? Well, actually, I know...
CAUTION: OBSCENE SITUATION--AND TITLE. OOPS, TOO LATE.
GENRE NICHES: by Wayan, 2008/4/17, a dreamlet of literary advice
A friend claims literary "personalities"--humorist, craftsman, kook, lowbrow--are really just marketing
niches. So write as you like! If readers like you, industry will make a niche for you, almost arbitrarily...
CAUTION: FOR WRITERS ONLY. OR IS IT?
THE GEYSER: by Wayan; 2014/3/22, a mock Dickinson poem on a dream telling us what to be
I dream my sister has an epiphany--we should relax, blur our boundaries, and just be
sloppy old Geysers of Good. Surprisingly, my financier mentor agrees...
CAUTION: DECLARES CAPITALISM OBSOLETE
THE GREAT DREAM by Victoria, between 1988 & '94, introduced by Gayle Delaney; a sex dream on creativity!
My husband's sweet, supportive, but not that attractive. It's my brother (meaning creativity) who
gives me oral sex to die for, as my parents quarrel and a chorus chants "Ecstasy, ecstasy"...
CAUTION: INCEST
THE GREEN GODDESS: by William Archer; 1919/9/1, a playwriting-idea dream that paid off
I was held hostage in India by courteous revolutionaries who avoided spelling out that we were soon to die...
HALF-ELF: by Wayan; 1996/2/14, a predictive dream fable.
A biracial girl doubts her own heritage; a human friend has to confirm the obvious. So what am I blind to?
HALF'S HARD: by Wayan; 2014/11/24, a frustration dream hiding a diagnosis and prescription
Night. Broken metal sculptures, a welder too horny to weld safely, and a steel panther longing to be whole and loved...
CAUTION: KINKY SCULPTUROPHILIA
HAPPINESS UNBLOCKS ART: by Wayan; 1997/7/7, nondream book review
An insight about a fictional character who unblocks her creativity changes my own life strategy...
HARRY AND THE HORCRUX: by J.K. Rowling; mid-December 2006, a dream of creative ferment
People have asked me if I ever dream that I am 'in' Harry's world. The answer was 'no' until a few nights ago...
HE SAW: by Jeffery Beam; c.1983, a nightmare with three selves
I, sleeping me, watch dream-me find a third me who saw too much
in the kitchen. Unconscious or dead? I just don't know...
HER CUTIE MARK: by Wayan, 2016/8/7, a dream fusing Shakespeare & My Little Pony
After seeing The Tempest with a tattooed Miranda, I dream she has a Cutie Mark on her flank--
a logo showing her life-purpose, her life-path. Except she's outgrowing it...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
HER DEAD BROTHER: by a Bereaved Lady, as told by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1850s?
Saint-Denys pushes a strange theory of dream-incompetence, using as an example
a woman's dream of grief over her brother, killed in a war. But her case suggests
a second explanation a 19th-century scholar isn't equipped to see ...
HER LOVELY AWKWARD SYNTH, by Wayan, 2009/3/9; a dream-poem, Dreamverse #43
A musical prodigy has a gorgeous, unplayable keyboard.
But serious creativity takes a dull, regular, ergonomic instrument...
THE HERBIVORE'S EXCEPTION: by Wayan; 1999/12/6, a dream of snapping.
A beautiful herbivore suddenly eats one of its friends! Bloody. Who or what is this warning me about?...
CAUTION: YUCK, MEAT REALLY IS MURDER
HUNT AND PECK: by Patagia; 1997/6/16, a dream on the creative non-struggle.
I’m a brown sparrow scratching in the dirt, looking for bugs. Focused, tireless, I hunt and peck...
I DIDN’T DIVE IN: by Herbert Read; before 1938, a dream-poem experiment.
I watched her dive into the lake... and fail to come up. Her golden cloak
floated on the water. I hesitated just a moment, and...
I DO, WE DO: by Victor Henderson; 1982/2/16, a dream & painting on swapping faces
A surgeon persuaded me to swap my face with another man's. But I found I felt compelled
to carry on his life, not mine--to pass for him. And when I demanded my face back...
I HAD THE STRANGEST DREAM, AND YOU WERE THERE: by Wen Spencer; c.2016;
a writer's dream comically summing up her own fantasy series.
My characters are all dancing together. Roach is flanked by friends--but they turn into elves.
As dragons, elves, tengu & robot mice join in, Roach slowly freaks...
THE ICE EXPRESS: by Wayan; 1982/5/19, a dream on memory vs. expression.
The trans-arctic Ice Express, blinded by birds, gets off-track and blocked by oddly rectangular ice floes...
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
INACTION PAINTING: by Wayan; 1995/10/29, digital dream-figure collage
When I see that grim museum shit I start giggling "Boy art!" The guards glare, so I go home and paint like this.
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX TALK, LUST FAIRIES AND FLYING TEENY WEENIES
AN INTERVIEW WITH WAYAN: by Wayan; 1994/3/20, an interview.
Dream researcher Stephanie Van Zandt Nelson questions me on the roots of the art of dreaming...
JESSICA THE MERMAID: by Jessica, mid-1977, dream-provoked dream
At a dream workshop for kids, James's trickster dream-figures provoked Jessica to dream one chased her;
fleeing, she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, became a mermaid, and married the trickster...
KEKULE: by Friedrich Kekulé, 1858 & 1865, two problem-solving dreams.
Kekule dreamed solutions to the thorniest structural chemistry problems of his era not once but twice...
THE KEROUAC TREE: by Wayan; 2 ill., 1983/3/18, a dream of fame and time.
The true story of the very first tree-hugger. Not Kerouac! You'll never guess. In fact, you'll say it's impossible...
KICK THE FAERIE BELL: by Wayan; 2015/8/20, a bizarre dream-poem with a practical message
I'm a courier with a message for the Faerie Queen. Can I avoid all these
colorful, sexy, crazy distractions, and focus on the Studio and the Gong?
LEMON PEOPLE: by Wayan; 2008/8/11, a dream poem; Dreamverse #1.
A dream-fable of lemons who are really orange-people infected by a spore turns out to be about me...
LION EYES: by Patagia; 2007/11/??, a serious dream-prank.
Lions trap me in an African cave with only coffee, paper and pens! Is this what it takes to get me to write?
LITTLE BAD DREAM CHARM: by Kathy Fagan; 2001? A slip-filled dream-poem
Half asleep, I scrawl a nightmare of trying to rescue gasping boyfish, but my dreamwriting goes wrong too...
LOEWI’S NOBEL DREAM: by Otto Loewi, 1920, a dream that led to a Nobel prize.
Loewi thought nerve impulses were transmitted chemically, not electrically. But he couldn’t prove it, until one night...
LOSE YOUR TEMPER!: by Emily Joy; 2007/8/30, a tough-love dream.
My mom hires a therapist who really goes for my throat! Why is she so desperate to make me lose my...
CAUTION: OVER-THE-TOP CONFRONTATION
LUCID LIVING: by Wayan; 2007/4/8, a quasi-lucid dream of the future with 9 illustrations
Honesty induces a joyful state with lucidlike powers.
So I bike across the Lake of Time, open the book of my future, and see...
CAUTION: SEXY SKETCHES FROM THE FUTURE
THE M9: by David Parkinson, 1940; a dream-designed invention.
Parkinson dreamed his new telephone device got added to an anti-aircraft gun. He told his dream;
guns with M9 units turned out to be so accurate it gave the British hope against the Luftwaffe...
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...
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...
THE MAN WHO DESERVED TO DIE: by Jim Shaw; c.1994; a dream of moral rescue
I don't want to kill my friend, though his clothes say I must. But
a sculptor lets us sit on her metal trees and drink tea instead...
MARIAH: by Wayan, 1994/9/23, a mystical flying dream.
An un-jealous wind lifts me above the San Francisco hills, so I can hunt for my love: the Muse...
MARVEL PATROLS: by Rick Veitch; c.1995; a punning nightmare on being an independent cartoonist
The comics industry degenerates into civil war. We peddle all night to avoid the Marvel...
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...
MONKEY WITH A GUN: by Wayan; 2010/8/7, a predictive nightmare
A monkey who stole a handgun aims at a troopmate and fires, ignorant of the consequences.
The next evening I hear gunfire for real, and...
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...
MY DESIGN FOR THE DOME: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2009/5/1; a painting from an advisory dream
At first no one seems interested in my mural-design for the inside of the City Hall dome, but...
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...
MY LIFE CHANGED: by Wayan; 1993/6/15, the plain truth.
Advice from a successful writer of worstsellers to all you aspiring failures: unfame has its price...
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?
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...
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
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 sexual at all...
CAUTION: SEXUAL SYMBOLISM
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 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...
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
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...
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
PEACHES AND CHERRIES: by Phyllis Davidson, 1977 and early 80s? two dreamlets of being inanimate
PEACHES: after painting a peach all day, I find I AM one, reclining on a mound of cottage cheese...
CHERRIES: after a day in Reno, I find I'm a wheel in a slot machine, whirling, coming up cherries...
PENTALEMMA: by Wayan; 2002/3/10 to 2006/5/1?, a 13-page nondream improv-comic on deep goals
Hypnotized in therapy, I saw AT LEAST five competing goals tugging at me like gravity fields.
Naturally I drew them. Come tour the Inner Solar System of our desires...
CAUTION: NUDITY (BODY, HEART, BRAIN, SOUL)
THE PERIODIC TABLE: by Dmitri Mendeleev; 1869/2/17, a dream solving a key scientific problem
"I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down..."
PHOTOS LURE SOULS: by Wayan; 2016/3/12, dream of summoning spirits
I'm photographing lifesize furry statues. How explicit, how sexy? If I get shots they like,
souls will be lured to enter their bodies and bring them alive...
CAUTION: NUDE CREATURES
PIANOBED: by Wayan; 2012/1/22, a health-advisory dream.
I forgot how to play my pianobed, so I just thrash around in it. And thus thrash music is born (sorry)...
PITS OF POWER: by Wayan; 2005/11/16, a dream of rival miracles
One tribe builds earth-magic pits that can teleport you or grant wishes.
But the other tribe's more powerful flow-state magic is harder to define...
CAUTION: SEX FANTASY GRANTED
RABBIT-EARED DOE: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/4/29, a dream of statues come passionately to life
A hunter catches a Rabbit-Eared Doe by her yard-long ears, pulls on them like reins, and mates with her!
She doesn't object; maybe ear-pulling's normal for her. Should I intervene? I can't tell if this is love or rape!
CAUTION: STRANGE FURRY SEX
RAINBOW SPLASH: by Wayan, 2023/4/23, a furry-porn dream hiding art advice!
I'm in an alt-world Berkeley where mythic creatures shop on College Avenue. Marigold
the unicorn flirts with me. Rainbow Dash the pegasus has turned male. Very very male...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY (AND CRUDITY)
RANGE: by Wayan; three 2019/8/19 advisory dreamlets plus 2020/1/8 followup
1: My dad can't see my world. Literally can't see my world...
2: The House of Busyness is unlivable--busy, crowded, noisy...
3: Achievement takes twelve factors; any one can block you...
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
READABLE DREAMS: by Wayan; 1989/10/12, 1992/9/1-9/18; a 3-year meditation on treating dreams as art
How do we make dream narratives readable, when so many
readers are brainwashed to think they're nonsense?
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
REJECTED! SO?: by Wayan; 2004/11/12, a dream of political AND personal advice
A middle-class girl rejects me, and a newsman declares my politics irrelevant. "Liberal media" my ass...
CAUTION: POLITICS
ROBERT’S PLAN: by William Blake; late 1788; an advisory dream...
Blake was broke. Couldn’t typeset Songs of Innocence and Experience.
But in a dream, his brother advised him...
SAMURAI LIBRARIAN: by Wayan; 1982/10/20, a dream that dreamwork is samurai discipline
I wrote my dreams each morning no matter what--even if I it made me late for work.
They assumed I was sloppy, lazy, spacy. No; disciplined about priorities!
SAT UP CONFUSED: by Wayan; 1995? Erasable crayon, 8.5 x 11"; self-portrait of waking-up state
I wake up with my head swollen, full of vivid bewildering experiences, without a clue...
SATISFACTION: by Keith Richards, 1965/5/7, a famous dream song (and a well-prepared dreamer)
I always kept a guitar and tape recorder by my bed. I wake up and see the tape's run to the very end.
I ran it back to the start and there, in a sort of ghostly version, was...
SELF-PORTRAIT AS A YOUNG COYOTE: by Wayan; 2000/1/23; portrait of recurring dream self.
I'm more a dream artist than a realist, but one day I set up a mirror and looked in it...
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH CONVOLUTED TONGUE:
by Wayan; 1999/9/1; pencil mirror-drawing.
Einstein's tongue got its own poster, why shouldn't mine?
After all, even the Ein Tongue can't do this...
SEWING ADVICE FROM CANNIBALS: by Elias Howe, 1845, an inventor's helpful nightmare.
His sewing-machine design failed--until dream-cannibals caught him & jabbed him with weird needles...
CAUTION: OUCH!
SHE IS THE SNAKE: by Sharon Stricker, 1980, a warning dream from a censored goddess
Should I try to keep Janine out of jail? But outside, she'd gotten back on drugs. That night I dreamed
a huge beautiful snake bit my writing hand, and said "Don't go to court. Stay home and write"...
CAUTION: JUNKIE, RESCUER
SHIP OF JADE: by Wayan; 2009/11/7, an illustrated dreampoem on dreampoetry! Dreamverse #64
My dreams are made of lovely carvable jade. Too bad my tools and skills suit our plastic age...
THE SHOP SPILLED OVER: by AE (George Russell); early 1890s, a telepathic flash
Closing my eyes I saw an old man and a red-haired girl in a shop. My workmate was writing home...
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...
SIGNALS: by Patagia, 2009/11/5, a dream-poem on the conflicting demands of creative life
I dream I'm trying to understand how I write poetry, but then I recall my daughter's sick
from a bad prescription. So I try to research her illness, but our library's renovating...
SILKY'S MASSAGE: by Wayan; 1981/2/2, a dream on workaholism, with 2/16 follow-up
I tried to cartoon a joyful dream but nightmares kept intruding. Finally, aching, I half-slept...
My spirit guide Silky came, and said the obvious, and stretched my sore neck and back...
CAUTION: NUDE ANIMAL DANCE TROUPE
SLAVES DON'T DANCE: by Wayan; 1999/8/1, a 17-page Shakespearean dream-comic (or ill. text)
Stolen by the Fairy Queen, I'm forced to nurse her great project: creating life! But her synthetic baby is...
SLEEPERS ALL: by Wayan; 2008/8/22, a dream poem, Dreamverse #12
I dream I'm an insomniac trapped in a flat full of snoring writers and reporters. Wait a minute...
THE SMILING SHAW MACHINE: by W.B. Yeats; 1894/4/19, a nightmare about popular success.
After Shaw's Arms and the Man eclipsed my own play The Land of Heart's Desire, I dreamt I was haunted by...
SNAKE COIL: by Wayan; 2000/11/1-14, dream-sculpture.
I tried to be like my classmates--use tools, control what I made. But I couldn't. It came alive, and...
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 IN CLAY: by Wayan; 2017/2/25, a dream urging me to face my heritage. Also sculpt!
I'm a half-sphinx--human dad, sphinx mom--stuck in human form so far.
Will I ever learn to shift? I practice--sculpt my elegant feline future self...
CAUTION: SPHINX NUDITY
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
A SQUIRRELY BUSINESS PLAN: by Wayan; 2009/3/2, a Looney-Toons dream
I'm slow to catch on that this skunk's slidetalk isn't a business pitch; it's about seduction...
CAUTION: ABSURD LOVE TRIANGLE, KINKY SKUNK
THE STARMONT TRIATHLON: by Wayan; 1984/7/2, a magical marathon dream.
I meet the Red God of Running and Holly Golightly; we're in the triathlon up the world's greatest peak...
STEVENSON’S BROWNIES: by Robert Louis Stevenson; 1850s-1880s, a series of dreams
Stevenson’s dreams changed over decades: from childhood nightmares into
creative collaborators dreaming whole stories...
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...
SUN AND MOON: by Katherine Mansfield; 1918/2/9, a dream-story
I dreamed a short story--even its title. Not that I read it. No, I lived it, through the eyes of a 5-year-old...
SUPERNOVA ERA: by Liu Cixin; 1989/6/4, a dream inspiring a science fiction novel
During Tiananmen, I was in Beijing for a conference. I heard chaotic noise outside, and the muffled sounds of gunfire.
I dreamed a star painted the sky an eerie purple-green. Children sang, marching over snow, rifles fitted with bayonets...
SUPPORT TEAM: by Wayan; 2005/6/6, a dream-comic on what creative leaps need
I'm a married couple--the cook and laundress for an English observatory in 1948.
Why are we testifying to a Labor Party committee that we WANT to be servants? Well...
SWORD IN MY BACK: by Franz Kafka; 1915/1/19, a surreal but un-Kafkaesque dream.
I slept late and felt a bit stiff, but until my friends pulled it out of my neck I had no idea...
TANGUY: by Wayan; 1963-4, childhood surrealist drawing.
No, not a guy with a tan. Yves Tanguy was a sailor who became a Surrealist.
When I was nine or ten, his work inspired me to try my first landscape drawings...
THE TAO OF DENNIS THE MENACE: by Wayan; 1986/4/17, a dream of a wise mentor.
Chased by purple squid from Jupiter, I seek refuge with a guru the Goddess recommends for me...
TAROT: THE ANOREXIC DANCER: by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
The card of excessive self-denial, whether compulsive or artistic or spiritual...
TAROT: THE BUILDER: by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", of a 1974/5/19 dream.
The card of building your dream no matter what. I dreamed I met the Primal Builder...
TAROT: CHAOS: by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
The card of big messes, confused beginnings--and fertilization...
TAROT: THE EXPLAINER (The Page of Swords?): by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
Using the mind's blade humbly, minding ideas and people, clarity's disciple may not see her full power...
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...
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?
THAT WIND: by Wayan; 1986/8/29; an undream poem on a daymare
Nightmares can warn. But when awake, what warning can you get from nonstop ill-luck?
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?
THERE I WAS: by Michelle Brand, 1972, stream-of-consciousness lucid dream comic
Kaleidoscopic constellations? No thanks! A nudist town in Italy? Ugh.
Ah, but singing vaudeville in a monk's robe & roller skates...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
THEY FEED THEY LION: by Philip Levine; summer 1968; a poem from two dreams
A workmate said "They feed they lion"; two dreams later, the poem emerged as you see it...
CAUTION: POLITICAL RAGE, SURREALISM
THE THING ABOUT DREAMS: by Julia Wertz, a dream autobiography, 1980-2010
As a kid, my nightmares were of Sesame Street characters. In my teens I graduated to
slasher nightmares and recurring lucid dreams. Alcohol trashed my dreams for years, but
now they're not nightmares--just surreal. Hitler wrecks my sex life! What a spoilsport...
CAUTION: (MOSTLY FRUSTRATED) SEX
THIS DREAM HAUNTS THE DAY: by Roswila; 1999, a dreampoem on transference
My father's trapped in a crashed car. But I'm distracted by a young man whose palm cups a living flame...
THREE-EYED WOLF: by Wayan; 1992/12/14. Digital comic of a dream, done movie-poster style
A 'toon liberation dream. I cartooned a new self and slowly she grew realer, until she ran Disney...
CAUTION: FRANK SINATRA SWEARS
THREE WAYS TO FLY: by Wayan; 2010/11/10, a dream urging the World Dream Bank to shift
I'm shown pictures of three different magical ways to fly. But the third
shows no actual flight--just someone giving away the magical means...
TILT THE GLOBE TO MAXIMIZE BIOMASS: by Wayan,
1987/8/15, 1990/3/31 & 6/10, 1993/8/10, four dreams prompting Planetocopia
I dreamed I took a globe off its stand, drilled new poles, and put it back on tilted, so that
most continents are greener; Tokyo, Alaska and Tierra del Fuego are now all tropical...
Over a decade later, dreams forgotten, I start what I think is a nondream art project, by tilting...
THE TRAIN: by John Hollander; spring 1974; a poem based on a shared dream
A couple slips in and out of sleep, dreams, one another's bodies and dreamworlds, trying to connect...
CAUTION: FREUDIAN SYMBOLISM, LITERATE WRITING
TRISKELION: by Kristopher Saknussemm, c.1986, a surreal false-waking dream
Only up close do I see that the map of these mysterious continents is made of moths. I wake
in Polynesia. By the bed, in a jar, floats one of my hands. For no reason, I begin to cry...
TRITONIAN FOXTAUR U.: by Wayan; 2016/9/10, a wish-fulfilling dream set on Triton
I'm an exchange student at the Solar System's best university for
the magic arts; my classmates are methane-breathing foxtaurs...
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...
TUCCOTINE: by William Archer; 1917/1/14, a tasteful dream.
The innkeeper insisted I try a strange-looking liqueur, a house specialty called "Tuccotine"...
TWENTY-SIX LETTERS, or, A Complete Summary of Poesy; by Cory & Wayan, early Aug. 1992; a haiku slam
You get 26 dice with letters on every face. Roll them all. Your haiku must use every letter. Go!
TWO-HEADED BEAST: by Wayan; 1997/7/31, a 5-page Gothic dream-comic (or as illus. text)
In Castle Frankenstein, will Mary Shelley wed Elmer Fudd? His two-headed monster has marital advice...
UNGHOSTS OF CHINA: by Wayan; 2009/9/2, a ghost-dream poem; Dreamverse #53
THAT DAY: art nonstop! Put myself down for obsessing. Empty man!
THAT NIGHT: I'm in rural China. Two women tell me their village declared them
dead, killed by demons. So are they ghosts, or just written off by idiots?
MORNING: wait--have I been calling me dead? Oh...
AN UNPRODUCTIVE SQUIRREL: by Wayan; 2013/11/27, an advisory shamanic dreamlet
I meet a giant squirrel. But a Committee condemns the squirrel for such long periods
of unproductive hibernation. The squirrel points out a teensy flaw...
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
VANDERMEER'S STAIR: by Jeff Vandermeer, 2013 or before,, a nightmarish creative prompt
I was on a spiral stair. The walls had scrawled messages, not sprayed,
carved or painted but living tissue--and getting fresher as I descended.
Whatever was growing them was still below me, and still writing...
THE VEGETABLES OF SHADOW: by Wayan; 1999/10/4. Nondream surrealist art technique.
Make silhouettes of your beloved vegetables; then listen to the spaces between...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUASH
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...
THE VIDEOGRAPHER'S APPRENTICE: by Wayan; 1994/7/29, a predictive/warning dream.
Blondie Wiggle builds a Video Igloo. But I'm allergic--TV kills me! A BAD omen for our video project...
CAUTION: TV KILLS (BUT YOU KNEW THAT)
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.
THE WEEPING BRAIN: by Wayan; 2010/12/5; an anti-workaholic nightmare poem
My sister just bought a biocomputer: an enslaved human brain in a box of weeping skin...
WHAT E.S.P. IS FOR: by Wayan; 2012/12/10, three dreamlets on my real nature and purpose
I dream ESP isn't just for oneself.
A romance between a wolf singer & a deer guitarist.
I'm furry too, and better accept it!
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...
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!
A WISE WRITER PROTECTS HER EYES: by Wayan; 1998/8/19, an advisory dream.
A writer I meet either starts flirting with me obscenely,
or advising me about eyecare, or... are those the same?
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM
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?
WORLDSTONES: dreamed fall 1895 & Aug 1898 by Mark Twain, & 2002/6/27 by Robert Moss
Mark Twain dreams we're cells inside God, and writes of Huck Finn among the microbes.
A century later, unaware of Twain's dreams, Robert Moss...
THE WRECK: by Denise Levertov 1980 or before; a surreal dream-dilemma
We go swimming in a sea full of wrecked tankers. We explore one derelict, but ebb tide pries it off the bank,
out to sea. Do we swim for shore, or wait, hoping high tide will wash it in again? Guess wrong and we die...
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...
YESTERDAY: by Paul McCartney; c. March 1965, a dream-song.
"I liked the melody a lot, but because I'd dreamed it, I couldn't believe I'd written it..."
YOU CANNOT STAY FOREVER: by Ursula Le Guin; c.1970, creepy hypnogogic verses
You cannot stay forever / on this side of the river
with darkness coming over / and salt has lost its savor...
YOUR DREAM LIKES YOU: by Wayan; 3 ill., 1991-2007; three maxims from my anima.
You say you want to remember your dreams, but do you write down what you DO recall? And ACT on it?


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