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Empathy and Compassion

Kindness, compassion, empathy, sympathy and concrete offers of help in dreams. Sometimes this mean an aspect of yourself is offering to integrate with your ego. On the other hand, what if it's a real native of a dreamworld being nice or interested in you somehow? Who knows? Don't jump to the conclusion it's all in your head! The life you save may not be your own. Maybe you're helping your inner child--but maybe a kid on a far continent will wake up remembering you. In dreams (and perhaps elsewhere) an open heart is wisest.

RELATED TOPICS: friendship - love - gifts and giving - advice - rescues - mentors and teachers - animas and guides - responsibility - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ABREAST OF THE COMPETITION: by Wayan; dreamed 2013/10/9, a dream on appeasing others
A tall busty girl's younger, part-unicorn friend starts developing breasts at last. She makes
boob jokes, mocking her own body to reassure her herdmate she's no competition...
CAUTION: SELF-PUTDOWNS
AIRPLANE DISASTERS: by Jack Kerouac, early Aug? 1954, a helpless-witness nightmare
An indestructible camera relentlessly shows me what passengers feel on every crashing plane...
CAUTION: PAINFUL READING
AMPLIFIER: by Alder; 1999/11/13, a dream on self-underestimation
I was always the weakest magic-worker I knew. But when demons threatened my grandchild...
ANTIGRAVITY RESEARCH: by Mary Arnold-Forster; 1905?, a dream of teaching dreamflight
I’m showing the Royal Society how to levitate. Confidence is the main thing. I teach a hesitant Fellow to lift off...
THE ARRIVAL: by Elizabeth Gibbons, 2014; a spiritual dream about dreams
I'm a priestess from an island of women; I meet an angel
who charges me to harvest all the dreams of the world...
ATLANTIS; c. 1993 by Mark Doty; six elegiac poems, three dream-based
In our marshlands, tides, birds, dogs come and go; but must our friends and lovers, too?
CAUTION: AIDS DEATHS
BACKWARDS CAUSATION: by Jo; 2008/3/3, a dream where I dream a dream in which I dream
No matter who I dream I am, twin secret agents dog me, eating my soup, playing my games...
CAUTION: PHILOSOPHY!
BAND-AIDS: by Bagheera Pardus; c.1985, a lucid re-entered nightmare turned to joy.
Giant snakes chased me. I go lucid, turn & slay one. As I woke, the snakes cried. So I re-entered...
CAUTION: SNAKES, BEHEADING, REHEADING
BASTARD UNICORN: by Wayan; 2012/6/28, a dream about ambition
Since I'm half-unicorn, my ambition drives me to share power and help the whole
herd--that's how unicorns rise. But among human politicians...
BIRD ASSASSIN: by Adam Shaw, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a no-kindness-goes-unpunished dream
I'm a giant cartoon bird. I had to assassinate a friend--twelve times!
Eleven times I killed him, but I spared him the twelfth. He said...
BREAD CHESS: by Helen's fiancé; 1930-33, a detailed psychic dream
Stalin's police held my fiancée incommunicado. But I dreamt of her prison, cellmate, and the odd game they played...
BREAK / FAST: by Roswila; c. 1987, a poem of a predictive dream
My friend stuffs a broken feeder with birdseed. I worry it'll attract too many wild birds. He laughs "Exactly!"...
BRIGHT BEAST, PATIENT BEAST: by Edwin Muir; c.1920, a dream of our primal struggle
Two beasts eternally fight, the proud bright peacock-tailed beast and the sad-eyed, ever-defeated sheepdog of...
BROKEN GLASS by Nancy Price; 1948, a dream of working to death.
Helping out talking animals until I'm exhausted, I suffer a fatal accident. What am I being warned of?
CELLPHONE HEAVEN: by Alder, 2008/8/28, a dream of practical sainthood
I visit a Tibetan monastery with great cellphone reception from the gods.
But all their calls are messages to pass on to others--none for us...
THE CIRCUS HUMANS' DESERTION: by Wayan; 1988/2/19; an epic holy dream.
I join a circus, but soon all the best carnies sail off to the Blessed Isles. The circus animals pitch in
and carry on--clumsy and lonely. Then a divine herald arrives from the Isles: Donald Duck! He says...
CLAIRAGONY: by a Philadelphia woman, Aug 1951, a sympathetic heart attack her mind misattributes
I had a heart attack--but it faded in minutes! The phone rang. I knew at once my dying mother was gone...
THE CRANE SPOKE: by Thomas Takashi Tanemori; 1945/8/5, a child's dream foreseeing Hiroshima
A crane came and spoke to me, reassuring me "I'll be back" even as a great fire burned it. It returned
as a white butterfly. Next morning, as we played hide and go seek, I shut my eyes and counted to...
CAUTION: CIVILIANS MASSACRED
CROWBOTTLE: by Wayan; 1998/1/2, a dream of a wise foolish act.
It was on a beach. Inside, a black thing squirmed and boiled.
Despite all the tales of vengeful djinn, I pull the cork...
DAD'S DATES: by Wayan; 2008/8/17, a dream poem, Dreamverse #8.
After my mom's death, my dad starts dating again, while I hide out and wince. Can't I do anything positive?
EASTER HEALING: by "Clairity"; 2008/03/23, a joyful lucid dream
I will a clay cat to come to life, then start healing real cats and dogs and...
THE EYE by Nancy Price; 1948, a nightmare of resisting torture
A staring Eye tries to break me; his cats & robots flay me. Yet his birds rebel in sympathy, & I refuse to die...
FAIRY WIFE: by Wayan; 1985/1/17, an epic dream of love and choice.
A fairy woman and a mortal man? Can't work! They're flighty, we're crude. Doomed, right?
Well, some people are so sure of it they decide to help things along a bit. Or a lot...
FAMILY STORE: by Mark Ian Barasch's father, c. 2000; a subtly psychic dream healing a family
I dream my son the writer's living above our old family store, the one that failed in the Depression...
FISHEL AND FRISH AND FIREBIRD: by Wayan, 2003/12/4, a seven-year dream.
Why do the guests arriving for our seven-year reunion include
part-time giants and dog-headed gods? They tell me...
FLY AWAY HOME: by Wayan; 1996/12/26, a dream of flight and kindness.
I'm an alien castaway, hiding my wings. But Earth feels like home now! If I could fly here, would I stay?
THE GOLDENE BOOK OF VENUS: by Anna Kingsford; 1881/3/15-16, a poem read in two dreams
Poem from a book on how love can save lives & souls, read in two dreams of a Renaissance astrologer's library...
HELP, NOT CURE: by Wayan; 1996/12/26, a dream on autism.
Gay angels try to help an autistic woman. Change her past? Only if they pass the Ass-Backward Guardians!
HOCKEY: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a flirtatious dream-scene
I'm a hockey player. A woman strips to a bikini, wondering if she's attractive. My erection says she is...
CAUTION: BRRR!
THE KENNERBIRD: by Wayan; 1973/5/20; a naive shamanic dream.
I'm a cartoon flamingo; with my sisters, the frog and the rabbit-squirrel, I meet our Maker--the cartoonist...
KIOSK: by Wayan; 1994/5/1, a 4-page dreamcomic on the power of song (or illustrated text version)
I'm a sexy singing beast, the Krelkin, trying to lure the Reading Man out of his Moral Kiosk...
CAUTION: NUDITY, INTERSPECIES FLIRTATION
KITTENS OR MOM?: by Jesse Reklaw; 1976-77, recurring nightmares of a choice
I was in Hell. My mom was in a cage suspended over lava. The devil
gave me a cruel choice: "Fry up these kittens or let your mom drop!"
CAUTION: CRUELTY
LOST ANT: by William Blake; late 1780s; a dream-poem, one of his Songs of Innocence
A glowworm and nightwatch beetle help out a lost crying ant-woman. It's not always a bug-eat-bug world...
THE MOUSE: by Paul Nash; Feb. 1913, surreal bedtime experience triggers surreal nightmare
We save a mouse from a man who claims he eats them. Later I dream I am the mouse...
MUSTARD VAMPIRE : by Wayan; 1984/3/1, a warning dream.
I love a cute vampire. She's willing to go on a diet. Even so, do I have enough blood to spare?
NEW LEVEL!: by "Julian"; 2006/5/22, 3 gamelike dreams in one night, two of them epic
My mom and I road-duel an alien beetle, then investigate a deepspace Marie Celeste;
then I spy for the Angevin Empire to protect the Crown Jewels...
NEWS AT ELEVEN: by a widow-in-process; 1948/10/27, a somatized empathic waking nightmare
My heart began beating like a sledge hammer. I couldn't imagine what was happening, and got frightened...
NEWT WEDDING: by Emily Joy; spring 1995, a six-year-old's epic dream
Through wild jungles and over the Mattress Mountains, I lead a giant purple newt to love...
OCTOPIA: by Wayan; 1996/3/21, a spiritual dream-comic on play; ill. text version
I'm a stratospheric bat who finds a flying swastika. Is it creeping fascism?
Or a Hindu blessing? Neither! It's an Octopian frisbee. I return it...
ON BEING NEEDY/NEEDED: by Roswila; February 2002, a dream-poem
In her kitchen she offers me shortcake. She's short herself, for she gives away all
to everyone--only her bodiless head is left...
PIXY CONCUSSION: by Wayan; 2006/3/11, a diagnostic sex-dream comic, 9 p. (or illus. text)
Janet's obsessed with a creepy guy till her pixy friend Kay decides to "knock some sense into her cunt"--literally...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, NASTY LOVE SPELL, PIXIE NUDITY
"POOR MRS TIMMS!": by JD Beresford's 4-year-old son, Jan/Feb 1918
Our son woke in the night crying "Poor Mrs Timms; poor Mrs Timms!" We knew no
such woman, but it turned out she lived nearby. That day, her son had died in France...
CAUTION: IMPLIES WE'RE TRAINED OUT OF A 6TH SENSE
SENSORIA: by Wayan; 2023/1/6, a dream doing science
A book about the psychology of creatures with different sensory arrays
persuades me that all of us creatures build models of one shared world,
for understanding your neighbors vastly ups your odds of survival...
SORB TRUCE: by Wayan; 2008/9/1, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #20
In a desert crawling with aliens who can absorb your mind, I propose a truce, and gain...
STUCK SNAKE: by Wayan; 2011/9/8; a set of dreams that out-Freud Freud
Girls flash and strip and crawl into bed with me, but I'm blind to their interest--
till I become a snakeboy and discover the real limitations of phallic symbolism...
CAUTION: NUDITY, STUPIDITY
TANDEM DREAM IN KATMANDU: by Clancy Cavnar; 1998, two parallel dreams not acted on
Two of us meditation students dreamed one night that we were ice skating in Holland, helping each other...
TRANSPERSONAL PUPPIES by a dog breeder; pre-1961, a cledonic dream of a ghost
The stranger seemed to know me. He said "Tell her about the little dogs, it will comfort her." Two weeks later...
TRUE LOVE = CHOICE! by Ms. Mira; Jan. 2008, a dream-lesson on compassion and free will.
I'm on an alien world inside the minds of two women and a child struggling with moral choices in a civil war...
CAUTION: DEATH, LOSS
TWO GUITARS: by Marc Ian Barasch, c. 2000; a multileveled psychic dream
I dream my daughter's selling two unused guitars. They seemed symbolic until I told her the dream and...
UNCERTAIN ONEIROMANCY: by Denise Levertov; 1993? a dream poem
I led a blind man through a vast art museum underground. But guiding him, I too was blind to the beauty...
THE VERDURE IS ACCOMPLISHED: by Jenny Badger Sultan; dreamed 1996/4/21 and 5/11
A dream voice announced "The verdure is accomplished." Green is a healing color for me...
In the next dream we sat round a green pool, talking of healing. But the snails troubled me...
A VISION: by Denise Levertov, 1965 or '66, a poem from hypnogogic vision? daydream?
Two archangels meet; one red and gold winged, one blue and green. In heaven, form reveals
worldview. Yet these two souls in dispute are great; rather than fight they appreciate...
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
WINGS by Nancy Price; 1948, two bird-people dreams, one psychic
I have a long chat with two songbirds. Next I'm a parrot, living in rainforest. Then the mail comes...
A WORLD DIES WELL: by Wayan; 1981/12/6, a dream of reconciliation.
A world-mind I never really liked dies generously, helping others; so I make my peace with it...


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