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Labs, Experiments, Inventors

Dreams of laboratories, experiments, inventions, inventors, and the occasional mad scientist. Or at least grumpy scientist. My dreams seem to prefer the mad to the sane.
Come up to my lab
And see what's on the slab...
But they're not all mad. You'll also find real-life inventions and discoveries inspired by dreams, like Elias Howe's sewing machine.

RELATED TOPICS: science and its values - biotech dreams - weird dream surgery - monster dreams - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ADORABLE CYBORGS: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/10/5, a dream-poem on inner teamwork
A child dreamer and two different kinds of cyborg must cooperate
to free the hostages imprisoned under San Francisco Bay...
AFTER THE FLOOD & THE PIG-EARED BABY ALLIGATOR: by Skiznot; c.1995, an oracular dream
My hometown floods. I swim after some strange fish and find
a scientific community where a scaled baby tells me who I am...
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 APPLIANCE'S EFFECT: by Wayan; 1996/8/20, a teasing little dream.
Why has no one noticed that the side effects of a household appliance violate all known physics?
AT A CALIFORNIA CAMP: by Jack Kerouac, spring 1955, a nuclear testing nightmare
My family and I are prisoners in a camp that will be H-bombed so our remains
can be studied. I write a Buddhist poem preparing for death...
CAUTION: GOVERNMENT ATROCITY
BANANA CREAM PIE: by Anonymous #59, c.1960, a set of experiment-protesting dreams
An experiment to see if pie can substitute for REM seems to work at first, but after the third slice
the subject grows less enthused. By slice six, he dreams he's forcing that pie down the experimenter...
BONYTAUR PERSPECTIVE: by Wayan; 2023/6/8, an aesthetic-clash dream
I look down on scrawny centaurs with cropped manes & tails: butch minimalism. Unsexy! Then I'm
down among them. Now they have big eyes, luxuriant manes and tails: femme excess. I find this sexy...
CAUTION: CENTAUR NUDITY
BUGS AND ROOSEVELT: by Wayan; 1982/5/2, a wild predictive dream illustrated as an epic poem
I'm Bugs Bunny. I torment Daffy Duck till I learn that in many time-branches the New
Deal happened late... or never. I decide to prod a reluctant Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
CAUTION: FIRESIDE PETTING, DUCK TORTURE, BAD POLITICS
CAT AND MOUSE: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, early 1860s?, a startling dream image
A lab. The cat doesn't mind a swim in this liquid harmlessly rendering it clear as glass. It catches
a transparent mouse I didn't even see! So now I faintly see a glass mouse inside the glass cat...
THE COIL: by Wayan; 1999-2000. Mad instrument design that might just work
A spiral dream-instrument I'm building, that's easier to play than a piano or guitar, and a lot snakier...
DEVANGELS: by Wayan, 2017/4/27, a numinous but ambivalent dream
After a hard day in the recording studio, I dream of powerful yet obedient devil-angels;
quiet for now, but I fear they'll decide shamans like me are abominations...
CAUTION: ANGELS? GOLEMS? DEVILS?
DINO FOR A NIGHT: by Wayan; 2017/7/9, a sci-fi-movie dream poem
I'm turned into a small dinosaur and treated as a guard dog. But I meet a dino girl. We have fun,
once we see it's a movie--they won't kill off the love interests. Hollywood rules make us invulnerable...
ELF CIRCLE; 2011/3/19 by Wayan; a complex advisory dream.
After trespassing in a staff-only part of Faerie, I'm cast out.
Only I'm cast like a seed, meant to grow a new elf circle...
EXPERIMENT WITH TIME by Nancy Price; 1948, a shamanic-initiation dream declined?
I meet a girl who's 16 and 61, who tells me dreams are lives, not messages.
But then I must fly over a sinister parade...
FLY & ULTRASOUND: by Wayan, 1987/9/4, a surreal dream on chucking out experts
THAT DAY: I test my hearing range; it turns out to be more dog than human...
DREAM: To banish a teacher & her giant fly, I summon a musical goddess...
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
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...
GODEVILLE: by Wayan; 2013/9/1, a nightmare of that Old-Time Religion
I'm at a vaudeville for gods. Cthulhu the squid-god nearly tramples me--and then gets horny...
CAUTION: GROSS GOD, GROSS GOO
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...
HORSE-DOG: by Wayan, 1982/2/1, a rambling, scattered but predictive dream
I cross the Mushroom Desert, meet a blue-tailed squirrel & a horse-size dog, then zombie-vampire suburbanites.
NEXT DAY: an artist sends me a flyer with a new dream painting--a huge dog whose fur-patterns depict a horse...
CAUTION: SYNCHRONICITY
HORSESHOE MAGNET: by Wayan, 1983/12/3, a predictive dreamlet
I'm badly disoriented because I'm seeing through walls! My sixth sense is from a high-tech helmet
shaped like a horseshoe magnet. Four days later I see Brainstorm, a movie about a high-tech helmet
shaped like a horseshoe magnet, recording and playing back mental experience. Talk about disorienting...
HORTA'S EGGS: by Wayan; 1984/1/17, a dream of re-evaluation.
I fight to save a nest of 50,000 eggs that'll hatch... psychics!
But my friends want to exterminate them! Who's wrong here?
IN THE SHADOW OF MAN: by Wayan; 1994/3/4, a dream on how to escape the cage
I'm a lab animal who discovers voice software and creates a personal zine, testifying for our rights...
INERTIAL DAMPER: by Wayan; 2017/8/26; a dream warning for another.
I'm trapped in a mad scientist's car that squeezes through wall-cracks. But when
she aims at a wall with NO cracks, I have to pull out the smuggled alien device
in my pocket. Just before impact I switch on the Inertial Damper...
IT'S TOO LATE!: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a surreal apocalyptic dream
I'm in World War II, asking a reporter to keep quiet about our secret weapon.
But it's already gone off, melting and distorting the whole cartoon world. It's...
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...
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 KING OF PERSIA: by Wayan; 1990/4/1, an annoying family dream.
My dad has a time machine, so he generously invites the King of Persia over. And offers him MY room...
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
LACED WITH TERROR: by Wayan; 1999/5/3, an anti-nightmare.
Researchers show me weird little objects like shoelaces that drive people mad with fear...
LARRY'S MULTIVERSE: by Wayan; 2008/2/16, a dream poem, Dreamverse #14
My shamanic teacher lures me into a labyrinth ruled by wizards whose magic-monopoly's about to fall...
LIGHTEN UP, ROADS!: by Wayan; 1994/6/28, a dreamed eco-proposal.
Recycling used paint to lighten pavements could lower continental temperatures a fraction of a degree...
LILY OXYGEN: by Wayan; dreamed 1984/1/19, drawn 2000; a strong psychic dream.
I'm Emily Dickinson reborn in 2100 as a breeder of hydroponic lilies, till my dad drafts me as
an Arctic energy-prospector, where I meet a ghost, a fiery Beast, a new me, and the girl of my dreams...
CAUTION: QUEER-POSITIVE, NUDE PROSPECTORS, GNOMIC DICKINSON QUOTES
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...
THE LONGEVITY INSTITUTE: by Wayan, 2019/5/7; a dream on a family mutation
On the show Finding Your Roots, it turns out my dad's a genetic experiment born in...
1880?! The experiment worked; my sisters and I are slow-maturing, long-lived mutants...
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...
THE MAN WITH THE GUITAR: by Wayan; 1992/7/4, a psychic dream-comic (or illus. text))
A volcano erupts in San Francisco! No human could survive the blast, but one researcher does--what IS he?
MOUSE WORKOUT: by Eric, ca. 2005/9/28, a nightmare for my own good?
I'm a mouse trapped and tortured in a maze/machine who gets killed four different ways at once...
CAUTION: OW, OW, OW, OW
A MERMAID DISH: by Wayan; 1994/11/13, a parabolic dream
A mermaid friend invites me to see an underwater experiment in the Golden Gate...
CAUTION: MERMAID BREASTS
NICHE: by Wayan; 1990/5/9, a nondream poem on new art media, or crashing your computer. Same thing.
A poem linking the dawn of digital art to early, tinny phonographs, cranky film cameras...
CAUTION: IDEAS
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
PERFUMES: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, early 1860s? Experiments in scent-triggered dreams
I trained myself to associate one scent with the mountains, one with an art studio. On a random
night my servant applied both secretly, and I dreamt artist & model burst into a mountain scene...
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..."
PLANETOCOPIA: by Wayan; 2002- (ongoing Sisyphean project)
19 nondream imaginary worlds rendered in text, art, & sculpture. Most teem with intelligent life--alien Edens!
CAUTION: ANARCHISM, NUDITY, MATH, SOCIALISM, EVOLUTION
THE PLOWSHARES PROGRAM: by Wayan; 2017/11/12, a nightmare on tech disasters
Looks like this underground nuclear test will leak. Minutes from detonation,
we flee up the spiral stair and out across the sand. Can we run far enough in time?
PONYGIRL'S DIET: by Wayan; 2010/3/31, a furry health-advice dream
I dream of a half-pony half-human girl who can't eat either hamburgers or hay. She figures out an appropriate diet...
QUIT THAT LAB!: by Wayan; 1999/5/2, a deductive nightmare.
I'm working alone in the lab at night, when the lab gear wakes up and tries to kill me...
THE RED SPHERE: by Madeline; 2006/12/13, twin (diagnostic? psychic?) nightmares
Calmly, I watch a girl trapped in a lab try to escape, and die; and watch a man lose his head to a hungry thing...
CAUTION: GRUESOME
RHINZL'S SHADOW: by Wayan; dreamed 1984/8/28; two unlikely predictive dreams.
DREAMS: 1: I can't afford language classes. 2: A beautyqueen rigs a stargate; I kill monsters & sell their bones...
NEXT DAY: I'm asked "Why don't you get a language degree?" I can't afford it! I go home & watch Dr Who...
A stunning girl fixes a spacetime portal. Smugglers kill alien monsters & sell their ashes as a drug...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND CREEPY DISPOSAL OF BODIES
SABOTEUR: by Chris Wayan; dreamed 1991/4/18 & 5/12, dreamsong 2012 (MP3 + lyrics)
I dreamed I got to meet my inner saboteur. Educational! But in the next dream I BECAME my saboteur.
I wasn't out to crash myself--just stay low, never soar. Since success is wicked...
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!
THE SKIN SECEDES: by Wayan; 1990/1/30, an unappetizing dream.
A baby's own skin secedes, forming a snake. It prepares to eat the skinned baby. Shall I intervene?
THE SKIN'S COMPLAINT: by Wayan; 1996/11/17, a dreamtale.
A huge rubbery mass of skin complains I made it sick. I get tired of its whining, and...
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...
STOP OBAMA'S ASSASSINATION: by Wayan; 2012/2/10. A dream about politics? Or health?
Two child prodigies fail to stop the killers stalking President Obama, but a geek with a homemade laser...
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!...
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...
TAROT: THE MAGE: by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1979.
Jung said most people let one aspect of life dominate them. The Mage balances them...
TITANIA: by Wayan; 1981/12/7, 83/1/7 & 2/13 and 84/10/2, a dream-epic in installments
Clarence the sappy angel from It's A Wonderful Life and Milton's Lucifer land on Earth, offering treaties.
Who to sign with? Clarence thinks we're fine as is, but the Devil's a tinkerer, learning from failures. Failures
like me and my girlfriend Titania, the first android with a full palette of feelings. Like the feeling she's fake...
THE TOMBSTONE TEST: by Wayan; 1986/8/18, a deceptive dream.
I walk in a vast graveyard full of history's most famous
people and treasures. But it's all fake, built to test your...
TRANSFUSION by a New York woman; 1950s? 3 predictive dreams over a 5-year span
I dreamt of the Du Pont lab where I'd work, and my neighbor's future coffin,
and the hospital where my sister-in-law would get a transfusion...
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...
UNCLE MAC'S SECRET GENIUS: by Andrea McFarland, 2023/1/22, a surreal dream
My uncle Mac has a secret scheme to free us all from the Rat Race, but
his dancing mouse-headed robots (and climate change) get out of hand...
THE UNICORN MASK OF IGNORABILITY: by Wayan; 2009/10/13, a predictive dream; Dreamverse #59
My family home's invaded by ancient Egyptian architects. So
I put on my unicorn mask and eavesdrop on their plans...
VACUUM DOG: by Laura A. Dale, 1942/12/19; a surreal nightmare labeling itself psychic
DAY: I'm an experimental subject given a drug in hopes it'll induce ESP. I just babble stupidly. Humiliation!
DREAM: my vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack my terrier & me. I flee, but there's an explosion...
TWO DAYS LATER: at the movies, a cartoon: a vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack a terrier. Then, BOOM...
CAUTION: WILL REALLY BOTHER E.S.P. SKEPTICS
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 VERIZON EXPERIMENT: by Wayan; 2014/3/31, three linked dreamlets, the last self-flagging as predictive
1: A nature spirit's physics experiment proves that time forks. But how much? How dense is the multiverse?
2: I sculpt a model of this multiverse. A physicist likes it; the nature spirit likes it more. So she swipes it...
3: A 'friend' offers refugees my bedroom, crowding me and my work into a corner. I wake. The phone rings...
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
WALKER'S DREAM: by Madame C.J. Walker; c.1895, a dream-cure that worked AND made her rich
My scalp had an infection that just wouldn't heal. I tried everything. Then I dreamed I met
a big, black man who advised me to use certain ingredients from Africa...
THE WHITE DEER'S EXPERIMENT, or, FAWN OF A LESSER GOD
by Wayan; 2013/4/13, an epic shamanic epiphany dream with tinges of ESP
I meet my Creator--a were-deer. No wonder I'm a shy, horny herbivore
so unlike these naked apes! She tells me my divine purpose...
CAUTION: MONOTHEISTIC BLASPHEMY; E.S.P. FLASH; NUDE DEER
XALGRIIN IN THE LAB: by Emily Joy, 2006?, odd dream scene
Xalgriin is a sweet stegosaurus boy locked up in a research lab, planning to free not just himself but others...
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..."


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