Doctors and Health Care
Dreams of health care--doctors, nurses, bureaucrats, witch doctors, quacks... even dentists. Dreams aren't fussy.
Most dreams listed are from a patient's viewpoint; but some address research, like Loewi's Nobel Dream, Hitler's Getting Crispr, Jack Daniels, while Stevenson's Brownies critiques medicine as a career, and The Suicide Track & Bonobocare, though surreal and obscene, flame capitalist healthcare as a whole. Note that psychotherapy and spiritual healers have separate lists--see Related Topics.
RELATED TOPICS: weird dream diseases - chronic & recurring illnesses - diagnoses - prescriptions and healing advice - surgery - drugs - addiction - nutrition - metabolism - therapists & therapy - nurses & nursing - shamans & healers - healing from abuse - eating disorders - gender dysphoria - miracles - 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.
THE ADDICTION: by Wayan; 1988/1/26, a thoughtful nightmare I'm addicted to faraway trains. I quit cold turkey, but I shake the house down! Junkie poltergeists... CAUTION: DRUG ADDICTION. SORT OF. |
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ANGEL SHOWDOWN: by Wayan; 2020/4/2, a dream mixing shamanism and Barbarella 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 |
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AT LEAST HE'S A DOCTOR: by Wayan; 1982/4/7, a sharp warning dream. I'm a Puertorriqueña who falls for an Anglo doctor, but he's not what he seems... CAUTION: UNDERAGE SEX, CREEPY GUY, VICIOUS FIGHT |
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AYRES: by Wayan; alarming nondream discovery 2006/5/4, and subsequent revelations The therapist my parents made me see as a kid got convicted of molesting his child clients. But not all. I played an evasive waiting game for three awful years under his leering scrutiny. So, can evading a molester still traumatize? Oh yes... CAUTION: CHILD NEGLECT & ABUSE |
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BAT AND UMBRELLA: by David Small; c. 1960/3/1, a nightmare exposing deadly child neglect I'm an orphaned bat in an alley in a storm. I mistake a broken old umbrella's ribs & flaps for... my Mom! I unfold Mom, and discover... CAUTION: LIFE-THREATENING CHILD NEGLECT |
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THE BEES' ANSWER: by Wayan; 1994/8/2, a diagnostic dream. A bee-doctor in the city of Propolopolis diagnoses me as having a rare syndrome, Ambition Denied... |
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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 |
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BONOBOCARE, or, THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE: by Wayan, 2015/8/8, a dream's "Modest Proposal" Tax-funded child prostitution ends war--sex calms men down from mean chimps to nice bonobos. Rough on street kids, though... CAUTION: SEXPLOITATION, SATIRE HARSH AS JONATHAN SWIFT. UNICORNS, TOO! |
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A CAT AND HER GIRL: by Wayan; 1979/5/15, a deep little dream. I'm a doctor in the future, trying to heal the neurolink between a girl and her cat... |
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CHUNKS, or, BABEZILLA!: by Wayan; two dreams 1990/10/4 and 1991/9/4 told as digital comics. I meet a giant psychic baby feared by 12-step people. So I go to the beach and find I'm a shark-bit girl who can have her missing chunks sewn back in--if I still have room for them... |
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CITY OF BEES: by Wayan; 1994/8/2, a diagnostic dream-comic. A bee-doctor in the city of Propolopolis diagnoses me as having a rare syndrome, Ambition Denied... |
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CURSES!: by Wayan; 1995/7/29, a rant on how we fear the power of wishes. Studies confirm that prayer can heal. So can curses harm? Yet the fear of curses fueled the witch hunts... CAUTION: DISTURBING IMPLICATIONS, IF TRUE |
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CUT-RATE TREATMENT: by Wayan; 1993/8/10, a tale half-dreamed, half-lived. That day, I met a wildly neurotic therapist; that night, I met a woman forced to get discount ob/gyn exams from her stingy husband's doctor buddy... can you say "boundary violation?" CAUTION: SEXUAL HUMILIATION |
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DIPHTHERIA SPECK: by an Outback man; pre-1961, a diagnostic dream with a tight deadline I dreamed our physician said our son had diphtheria. When I woke, we found only a tiny white spot in his throat. But by the time the doctor arrived... |
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DISEASE OF THE HEART: by Virginia Woolf; 1929/11/2, a false diagnostic dream--or is it? I dream I have just six months to live. I go through a dozen phases and moods, preparing for death... |
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DOCTOR VENTRIL: by Wayan; 1978/9/22, a nightmare where I'm the nightmare. A doctor lures me into his office. What he turns out to be scares me less than how I defend myself... CAUTION: VIOLENCE, ARACHNOPHOBIA |
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THE DOCTOR'S ADVICE: by Wayan; 2011/5/23, a tricky double-diagnostic dream that changed my life. My doctor says (no exam, no tests) "hidden desires inflame you." I'm skeptical--suspect an infection. Awake, I test both hints--repression and infection. Antibiotics work! I'm still weird--but not sick. |
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DON'T CRY, IT'S ONLY A DREAM: by a Massachusetts mom; pre-1961, a dream not predictive but telepathic! As soon as I gave birth I had a nightmare my brother would be in a serious auto crash. When I warned my mom... |
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DREAMING TO SURVIVE: by Christoph Gassmann, 2001/8/13 & 2003/9/2: two lifesaving dreams A spot on my elbow triggers a dream of being in a suicide clinic, getting the injection, starting to die. Yet for two years, I put off having that spot checked! Only after a second warning dream do I go in to find... |
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ECTOPIC: by Wayan; 1996/7/3, a tragic transsexual dream. My stomach ache is an ectopic pregnancy. The embryo's doomed. Surgery. And I'm a man... |
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ELBERETH PAUSES: by Wayan; 1989/6/26, a dream on postwar ethics. After the Lord of the Rings falls, Elbereth herself is sent to heal the land. But she has a troubling neighbor... |
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THE EUCALYPTUS WARNING: by Wayan; 1993/8/6, a punning health-advice dream. Bad puns link an ecological dream of a forest being murdered by inches, and a dental exam... |
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FAERIE: by Wayan; 1995/7/18 & 95/8/6: two linked dreams of postmodern Faerie, with sketches I'm the daughter of a mortal doctor working in Faerie as it faces social upheaval (and I look for a decent date...) |
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FEVER DREAMS: by Wayan; 1993/9/8, a set of wild feverdreams. While my body expels a kidney stone, weird scenes happen on the astral plane. At least I get to dip the pope. CAUTION: PAIN, PEE, POPE |
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FISHERGIRLS: by Wayan; 2.6M, 42 illus.; 1996/7/15; a sexy dream epic. I had an epic dream lasting subjective weeks--a true other life. It wasn't Earth and we weren't human. I was a teenage lemur, sailing with two friends into unknown waters--a rite of passage. One night, my friends curled round me, I saw I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a woman, marry, and have pups. I loved my girl friends. In a world lacking the very word, I was groping toward queerdom. Sailing into unknown waters! "Here be dragons," the old maps say. And they were right... 2600K loads slowly? Try it in parts: 1: HOME, 650K, 2: VOYAGE, 1200K, 3: BACK 750K. CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM |
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FIVE HEARTS: by Wayan; dreamed 1989/1/11; sexy psychic unicorn dream-comic (text only: FIVE HEARTS) I'm a nurse pulled through a glowing well to a world ruled by a five-hearted unicorn, who wants me to... CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX FANTASIES, LONGING, MELANCHOLIA |
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FULL MOON KIDNAP: by Wayan; 2018/4/30, a dream warning that recurrent illness shapes the psyche Every full moon, kidnappers jump me. Sometimes I escape, but when they succeed, they torture me till the moon wanes. They're careful to leave no physical scars... |
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HITLER'S GETTING CRISPR: by Jennifer Doudma; fall 2015, a nightmare on CRISPR by one who'd know It was Hitler. He had a pig face, and he was taking notes. He said 'I want to understand the uses and implications of this amazing technology'... |
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HOLY ZEN MONK: by Wayan; 1978/4/24, a dream of suicide as political protest I'm a Zen monk riddled with holes from a weird disease the government denies is real. So as a protest, I stand naked atop a wall and let the air-sharks take me... CAUTION: SURREAL SUICIDE |
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JACK DANIELS: by Wayan; 1983/10/14, three dreams critiquing a (real!) ESP experiment gone awry A car crashes & burns--but the driver bailed! No one to save... A miner stabs a baby "because everyone not underground is evil"... Radar O'Reilly from MASH, President Calvin Coolidge and I confuse who's who... |
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JESSE'S DEATH: drawn by Joey Epstein from her father-in-law's dream; 1983/7/31, an apparent psychic dream As Joey's infant daughter Jesse died, her father-in-law woke up 500 miles away and announced, "The baby..." | ||
THE KEYRING OF ATTACHMENTS: by Wayan; 1974/5/31, a dream gone too far. Swayed by sinister surgeons, I go all Buddhist and give up my attachments, including various organs... CAUTION: DIVESTABLE GENITALIA |
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KISSINGER+DENTISTRY=WHY: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, a dream within a dream I dream I go to my NY dentist, but the novocaine sends me into a dream of having dentistry in Tel Aviv! I 'wake' and my NY dentist explains he can't do me today: sore hands from doing Henry Kissinger... |
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THE LABORATORY UNDERGROUND: by Anna Kingsford; 1880/2/2; an animal-rights nightmare. I find myself in a vault with tables where half-dissected animals writhe. Hidden in each was a human shape... CAUTION: GRUESOME |
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LET THERE BE LIGHT by Nancy Price; 1948, a nightmare of helplessness Snakebite! I'm hooked to a health-monitor. If a red light comes on, I'm doomed. But voices start whispering... |
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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... |
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MAFIA DENTIST: by Wayan, 2007/7/10; a predictive comic nightmare. My dentist (a Haitian Mafia leader) sends a message to my dad (also a Mafia don) by dental cruelty.... |
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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 |
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MENDELIAN CHIMERAS: by Wayan; 2015/1/1, a New Year's dream warning of medical uniqueness I meet a girl who's a Mendelian hybrid of human, animal and peavine! But I'm no more human than she is... |
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MINOR SURGERY: by Wayan; 1999/2/25, a dream misinterpreted. A man goes in for minor surgery and wakes up changed. I feel creepy, but for all the wrong reasons... |
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MOLLUSCUM FIBROSUM: by Havelock Ellis; c. 1920? A surreal dream of... sex? medicine? A woman models an elegant gown baring her breasts. All five of them. Wait, those aren't breasts, they're... |
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MOLLY'S PROSTHETIC: by Wayan, 1994/9/22, a dream predicting a mood drug will fail My dad's new wife is a collie. Naturally, she wants a prosthetic arm. But she has no site to bind it to... CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY, LEERING BUSINESSMAN, DOG WIFE |
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MOOD ELEVATOR: by Wayan; dreamed 1982/5/12, a surreal/comic dream opposing mood enhancers Dinner with the Lightbulb Heads. When we leave, the Mood Elevators welcome us... but won't let us out! And in the struggle to escape, heads will roll--and shatter... CAUTION: HARSH WORDS ON WESTERN MEDICINE |
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MUTISM'S PENUMBRA: by Wayan, 2019/9/9, an otherworldly dream of a curiously familiar malaise 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 |
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NEW BODIES: by Dreamy; around 2007/1/25, a transformation dream My best friend and I qualify for new bodies. The new me is taller, but poor Ken may take years adjusting to his new... |
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NOT THROES; RECOVERY: by Wayan; 2013/6/1, a telepathic, diagnostic dream In a grassy depression, a small animal is thrashing. Death-throes? No. Calisthenics! But not under the animal's control. Someone's testing... |
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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... |
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OPHIDIOPHOBIA: by Wayan; 1986/2/12, a dream on race and religion. I'm a therapist with a client diagnosed paranoid--but are his doctors racist? He's not just black, but scaly... |
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OVARIES: by "Ann", as told by Gayle Delaney, 1979 or before, a curative dream Ann had inflamed ovaries and faced surgery. She asked her dreams for a second opinion. She dreamt of voices and images saying "there's plenty of time for all this." She bathed peacefully in a river, meditated, gave easy birth to an infant, climbed a ladder to her law degree. She woke cured. Her next doctor said "you must've been misdiagnosed; you just thought you were in pain." CAUTION: SEXIST GASLIGHTING | ||
OWL SHOT: by Wayan; 2007/2/15, a predictive dream DREAM: I'm hiking in a local preserve when a jay with a handgun shoots an owl... A MONTH LATER: the first owls to resettle my urban county nest in a nearby park... A MONTH LATER: they're dead. One was shot; its mate died of grief. |
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PLESIOSAUR: by Wayan; 1985/9/5, a comic medical nightmare. An itchy patient of mine insists he's turning into a four- headed, man-eating plesiosaur. He left one thing out... |
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PREEMIE; 1951/10/30 by an Oklahoma woman; a predictive dream We were looking at our three-pound premature baby girl. Though tiny she was bright-eyed, active, perfect... |
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THE PRODIGY-ALLERGY LINK: by Wayan; 1994/7/21, a clipping and reactions Child prodigies may develop allergies due to immunosystem damage from too much testosterone in utero... |
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THE RECURRING DREAM (CAT-BABY): by Julie Doucet; 1994/8/23-9/23-12/23, 1995/4/16: theme & variation! Julie keeps dreaming that she gives birth to a cat, or a part-cat baby... CAUTION: NUDITY, BIRTH, UNBIRTH, REBIRTH... |
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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... |
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SAW HER IN HALF?: by Wayan; 2008/8/28, a warning dream-poem, Dreamverse #15 A sorceror's apprentice describes a medical procedure her teacher plans. Yow! I sure wouldn't trust anyone to try that on ME... CAUTION: TALK OF BLOOD AND SEX |
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SELVDROLLA: by Havelock Ellis; before 1922, an ignored prescriptive dream A doctor tells Ellis to try "selvdrolla", but he's so focused on the strange name he forgets the prescription... |
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THE SHAMAN INSPECTOR: by Wayan; 1996/7/31, a dream on core values. My work as a federal shaman inspector involves judging a rainbow of traditions by a few basic principles: |
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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... |
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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 |
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STEVENSON’S BROWNIES: by Robert Louis Stevenson; 1850s-c.1887, a series of dreams Stevenson’s dreams changed over decades: from childhood nightmares into creative collaborators dreaming whole stories... |
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THE STROKE: by Lesa; 2005/6/1, a predictive dream A vivid nightmare that turned out a week later to be devastatingly true ... |
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THE SUICIDE TRACK: by Wayan; 2023/2/25, a disturbing non-nightmare My clinic's euthanasia program is so warm and cuddly I barely notice I'm drifting toward death til I reach the final form... and it's in Russian. They think I'm a refugee! Don't know me at all... CAUTION: FLAMES ANTI-ABORTION AND HEALTHCARE IDEOLOGIES |
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SUNLIGHT'S THE CURE: by Wayan; 1990/12/29, a surreal, sexy dream I find the cure for an alien plague, then visit its homeworld, to find it has a curious variant... CAUTION: SEX CUSTOMS OF THE NEWT PEOPLE! MY COUSIN'S GAY WEDDING! |
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SUSHI CIRCUS: by Wayan; 1982/2/17, an illustrated psychic dream. To avoid being stabbed, I flee the Psychodrama Circus. Wisely--the place explodes! But it's the filling of the sushi roll that really upsets me... CAUTION: CANNIBAL MAKI |
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TERTIARY INFECTION:by Wayan, 2016/4/28; a therapeutic/advisory dream of a helpful disease Flying saucers land, and give us weird compulsions. I catch an unusually mild case, a tertiary infection, and find I'm actually better off... |
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THANOS: from Dream to Performance: by Lili Berko, 1988 or before, a dream of birth & death The ship carrying my mom to America sails on, as I drown in the sea; They strap me down to pull out the pieces of my stillborn baby Obdale; A family/gang called Thanotos invites me to join them... CAUTION: MISCARRIAGE, DEATH |
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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 |
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THUMBSUCKER!: by a patient of William Hammond, c.1868, an epic comic taste dream I paint my thumb with bitter aloes to break my habit of sucking it at night. I dream of wormwood, ox gall, mineral salts. I consult Dr. Save Me and even the Pope, but... |
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THYROID: by Marc Ian Barasch, c. 1985; a set of life-saving diagnostic nightmares In 1985 I was flooded with nightmares about heads and necks. They had an unparalleled intensity... |
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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... |
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UNDO THE PARALYSIS: by Wayan; 1985/7/14, a dream on persistence. In a future society, I'm deliberately, permanently paralyzed. Yet my home-grown cure slowly works... |
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VIVISECTION: by Bob Stickgold, c.1979, a nightmare dismissed as the brain at play After a class where students are forced to vivisect anesthetized dogs I dreamed I'd made a mistake; I was sawing open my daughter... CAUTION: CREEPY DREAM, CREEPY DISMISSAL |
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WHAT REALLY HAPPENED: by a Coon Rapids woman, early 1993; a psychic, near-lifesaving dream I dreamed my husband told me he'd been in a car crash and was in a frozen ditch not visible from the road near our house. I woke and called 911 who found him just twenty minutes later... |
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WHY I LIE: by Wayan, 2016/10/7, a dream on privacy-guilt In a class, asked to share a bit about myself, I lie. Why? Not only are people like me illegal, my particular story would be seen as impossible... |
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WINGED DANGER: by Emily Y. Chan, 2024/3/30 or before; dream painting We found an injured girl with wings. We took her to the hospital and I warned them she might be dangerous, but no one listened to me... |
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