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Masks and Disguises

Dreams of masks and disguises... or should I use the ancient word for mask: persona?

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AHAB: by Wayan; 1994/1/10, a shamanic dream on the ethics of Moby Dick.
When I was a kid I was already a mystic and knew what Captain Ahab was REALLY after, but...
AMERICAN TANKA: by Wayan; dreamed 1989/7/26, painting-poem-story on 30" disk, 1995.
I dreamed I circumnavigated the entire Buddhist wheel of existence in a single night...
ANNIE, GET YOUR GOWN!: by Wayan; 1988/9/14, a comic dream.
I'm Annie Oakley, sharpshooter, facing something scarier than gunmen: a formal ball
introducing me to my new husband's family--Austrian aristocracy! What's an American gal to do?
ARTIE SHAW: by John Wren-Lewis, 1971/8/17?, a comic predictive dream
DREAM: I write a book involving spies and Lord Snow, but give him a cover name: Artie Shaw.
TWO WEEKS LATER: My wife & I go on the Tonight Show; unexpectedly, Artie Shaw shows up!
I tell him the dream. He turns pale, saying "No one knows this--I wrote a book under the name..."
CAUTION: WILL BOTHER E.S.P. SKEPTICS
THE BARRINGTON BUNNY: by Wayan; 1988/8/30, a world-saving alien-abduction dream
Alien robots kidnap me... and make me the mascot for a college football team.
But my Channel Changer slowly infuses us all with nerdy trust...
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
A BIKE ODYSSEY, or, ARABELLA'S ARTIFACT: by Wayan; 1994/7/24, a day trip echoed in a dream.
DAY: I bike across San Francisco writing down what I actually see.
DREAM: I'm an abused English heiress with a dangerous alien artifact...
CAUTION: HAUNTED BY CHILD ABUSE
BLACK PUPPETEER: by Anonymous #2; 1930s, an eerie dreamlet.
My friend F. saw a child whose every move was controlled by a weird figure behind her...
THE BLIP: by Wayan; 1982/5/4, a brief surreal dream on... beautyism?
A bubble of spacetime distortion lands in an awkward place,
making people mistrust the unlucky recipient...
BLUE LIPS, GOLD EYES, ORANGE JUICE: by Wayan; 1997/5/8, a warning dream.
In a world where respectable men wear masks, an old, old man rebels in the crudest way he can...
BOAT PEOPLE IN THE TUB: by Carl Linkhart, 1998 or before; dream poem/painting
I'm trying to bathe, but there are Boat People in the tub!
And my inner Grandma's spying on me, behind her fan...
CARRIED UP: by Wayne Miller, 1972/3/3, epic nightmare turning transcendent
I'm in a huge colonnade. An army of blood-painted men sacrifice the dove of peace. Their masked leader drinks its blood.
But then I'm carried upstairs to meet... the prophet Daniel! I'm amid the angels, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...
CAUTION: BLOOD-DRINKING THUGS
CARTWRIGHT'S HARLEQUIN: by Rosalind Cartwright, 1927? to 2020/12/5? Lifelong recurring dream
All her life, Cartwright dreamed of a figure disguised in a harlequin costume; she never saw his face.
He always drove her to self-sabotage. But near her death, she dreamt she gave a lecture, and he...
CLOTHO AND THE POOL OF DREAMS: by Jenny Badger Sultan;
a 2015 painting weaving seven dreams (2014/5/4, 6/9, 7/1 & 9/4; 2015/5/23, 6/26 & 8/25)
A portrait of Clotho, the Greek Fate who spins our life-threads, by a pool woven of my dreams from this time...
COMPLIANCE: by Wayan; 1984/12/20 & 2021/1/9, twin dreams 36 years apart showing cryptomnesia
2021: I dream I'm confessing to friends how I'm over-compliant. I wake, and start transcribing my
1984 journal. Turn the page and find a dream of a horny stallion who's disturbingly over-compliant...
CAUTION: KINKY STALLION
COOL: by Wayan; 1997/9/23, a waking-world street observation.
Suddenly I see the notion of "cool" as just another Euro theft. Being cool shouts "I'm insecure"...
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
DANCING WITH EMILY BRONTE: by Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree; 1943?, a literary love-dream
Alli/Tip could only imagine loving the strange, intense, and unavailable--and Bronte was all three..
A DAUGHTER TO DOTE ON: by Thomas Madden; 2017/9/17, a dream on gender? Family pressure? Both?
My dad saw a mob killing; our family enters witness protection. But why's my new role female? Well, my parents...
CAUTION: WILLING OR UNWILLING DRAG?
DEERMAN'S CHALLENGE: by Melissa McClanahan, 2002?-2007?, a recurring nightmare figure
I used to dream of this violent anthropomorphic being. At times I'd put on his deer-skull head
and become him, inflicting and inciting violence. Naming him gave me some control...
DEMON BUDGETING: by Wayan, 2011/9/27, a nightmare on letting things blow over
A demon invades our police station, takes over our captain and lieutenant, and pushes them to fight.
But I know demonic possession can't last long. Our copshow's special effects budget is too limited...
DOCTOR WHO AND DEATH: by Wayan; 1984/6/30, a hopeful dream of betrayal.
Dr Who, that lovable BBC alien, grows a sappy flower-face and
allies with Death. An alarming turn-around! What's he up to?
CAUTION: GOOD DOCTOR GOES BAD?
DREAM OF THE DANCE: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 2006/10/16, a dream-painting
After our trip to Turkey, I dreamed I was dancing in
a heavy black robe like those the Turkish women wore...
DREAM OF THE DANCING GODDESSES: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1988/12/19, a dream-painting
I sneak into a dance rehearsal. Huge colorful cloth goddesses dance,
while four fat women wearing only scarves weave round them...
CAUTION: NUDITY
DREAMKU, JANUARY 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to January 2007; 31 dream-poems--mostly haiku
A month of dreams full of science fiction: galactic navigation, spacedragons, oppressed fairies, alien love...
EAGLE AND GEESE: by Penelope of Ithaka; c.1240 BCE, a subliminal, self-interpreting dream
I dreamt an eagle slaughtered my twenty geese. I wept until he spoke to me: "Take heart! I am thy husband..."
THE FACTORY: by Sunshine; 2015/9/25, a metaphorical dream
Elegant, ancient, the tower rose into the clouds. Inside? Smoke & darkness. Workers roast meat...
A FILM-ORIENTED DREAM: by William Desowitz, spring 1980; dream collaging four diverse movies
I fondle the noses of two masked girls in red leotards--parodying part of a Clockwork Orange...
I'm excited to see Last Year at Marienbad, but either the actors mumble or the sound is bad...
Night. I fly, as in Fellini's , but out of control. The wind takes me, I'm terrified...
My grandmother attacks me with her crab-claw, then retreats, chanting the film title Shoeshine!
FIREBIRD AND MINOTAUR: by Wayan; 1996/9/29, 4 images; a diagnostic dreamtale.
I'm a cripple watching a sexy Greek Opera starring Whoopi Goldberg. Then I realize I'm in it...
FISH REMAINS: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; 1985/9/18; a ritual closing-dream
On my 45th birthday, at the end of my eight-year dream-art project, I dream of a women's rite
turning scraps of chewed flesh into a whole fish I offer to the fishbowl in the heart of the Vatican...
(A DREAM OF) FRANCES SPEEDWELL: by Robert Graves; 1971?, a dream-poem
Decades ago, I was too shy to talk to Frances. Now I'm going upstairs with a girl who looks like her but...
GINSBERG UNMASKED: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a diagnostic dream
Comics character Doctor Blasphemy, on stilts, bares his secret identity:
poet Allen Ginsberg! But who chopped off his missing fingers?
CAUTION: BLOODY FINGERS
HAWKING COUNTRY: by Wayan; 1994/2/3, a quantum-level dream.
I read Stephen Hawking, and dream I'm in the Quantum Desert, full of bridges, holes & loops--
like the microstructure of spacetime. But it's not counter-intuitive at all--it's HOME!
THE HEAD FACTORY: by Wayan; 2014/8/24, a dream-poem on changing your mind
I toured the factory where they make the spare heads you put on and
take off to change your mind. Nothing creepy about it, nothing at all...
THE HEDGE KING: by Wayan, 1992/6/14, a gender-bent dream epic.
I change sex to infiltrate a sinister castle, unaware its Lord can spot a shapeshifter--being one himself...
CAUTION: A DISTURBING BEDSIDE MANOR. I MEAN, MANNER.
HER FINAL EXAM: by Wayan; 2015/9/8, a dream of a goddess in hiding--and why
During our final exam, my second sight tells me our dance teacher's really
a Greek goddess in disguise. But she has her own final exam to face...
HERSELF IN REVERSE: by Wayan; 2013/6/13, three surreal future-prompting dreamlets
1: In a theater I meet weird big-eyed ballerinas, & realize I'll choreograph for them soon...
2: A sorcery student & her powerful future self flying back through time meet & fuse...
3: A squirrel-mage meets his future self too. He gives us a mild fever to protect us against a deadly plague...
CAUTION: NOT FOR TOTAL SKEPTICS ABOUT PREDICTIVE DREAMS
HIS MINE: by Wayan; 1985/12/2, an epic Wild West dream
I'm a hobbit seeking Henry Fonda's haunted gold mine. And find it. Or is that chocolate?
But then I'm caught in a shamanic showdown in a bar where they serve real spirits...
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...
IS GOD GOD?: by Wayan; 1984/6/17, a dream of the school of hard knocks.
God watches over me--to slap me down. If God is even God. So I set out to learn about this jerk-God...
LION SUIT by Wayan, 1987/5/4; a short dream-poem; predictive or clairvoyant?
DREAM: A series of old films with Erroll Flynn looking shy in his glasses, and his... lion suit?
NEXT DAY: Hunting pumas is legalized; the paper shows a sit-in full of people in lion suits...
THE LIZARD LESSON: by Wayan; 1996/12/12, a hard-hittin' shamanic dream.
I'm a shaman in Nunavut who has to teach a guy in a lizard
suit (and his foxy niece) that reparations have limits...
A LOVE AFFAIR: by David B.; 1993/3/23, a 11-page comic of a dark dream
My lover's face is shadowed and we are never alone together. Things slip from film-noir to open nightmare when...
CAUTION: SEX, DEATH, GUILT
THE MAD UNVEILERS: by Marie-Claude Girondé, early 2009, a dream painting.
The dancers, in a frenzy, stripped themselves. Not just their clothes; themselves...
MARTHA'S FALL: by Barbara, Martha, and Wayan; 1977/5/18. 3 linked warning, sex, and flying dreams
Wayan makes love to Martha's double, then sees her soul watching from the shadows...
Barbara can't reach Wayan to say farewell...
Martha falls off a mountain and decides to let herself die, just to see what happens...
CAUTION: SEX, ABUSE ISSUES
MARTIAN AIRLOCK and JAGUAR MASK: by Wayan, 2015/6/22, twin shamanic near-nightmares
Jaguar Mask: a were-jaguar stuck in human form asks me to sew a new jaguar face on."But won't it hurt?...
Martian Airlock: I'm suitless on Mars. Freezing, choking, I dive into an airlock & slam the switch--but it's sabotaged...
MARTIAN ROBOTS DRESS LIKE FREUD: by Wayan, 1975/8/16, an absurd dream... predicting my life-path?
Martian robots pester me. I flee through the Asteroids, leaving chaos, cratering Earth.
Years later on my farm, a bot shows up disguised as Freud. I start mudslinging...
MASK: by Wayan; 1989/11/21, digital print of dream-me trapped in the day-world.
I'm a unicorn in a life-drawing class, feeling more naked than the model...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
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
THE MERMAID'S DRESSING ROOM: by Wayan; 1993/12/18; a dream on how to evolve.
At Sea-Dragon State Park, I climbed down to the sea serpent's dressing room after the show, and found...
CAUTION: MERMAID BREASTS
MUSICIAN AND FOXTAIL, by Wayan, 2009/2/14, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #40
In Palo Alto I meet strange musicians in the rain, and realize kitsune aren't born but made...
MY DRAG-QUEEN COUSINE: by Wayan; 2012/4/8, a dream about tomorrow
At our family reunion's parade, a tropical float goes by with a drag queen
who turns out to be physically female--but still drag! The next day...
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM, DRAG OF COURSE
MY GLASS HEART: by Carl Linkhart, 1998 or before; dream poem/painting
My glass heart survived the rocket's blast, but I'm stranded on this barren world.
Wrapped in glamor, we climb a steep forbidding stair into a rosy, fake tomorrow...
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...
NOSER: by "Anonymous #13"; pre-1963, a predictive dream
An orange tiger with wolf ears jumped on me. I was surprised but not scared, as if it were just a big dog.
The next day, shopping, my daughter thrust an orange wolf-eared hand-puppet in my face, jaws open...
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...
ONE-EYED BOY: by Roswila; 2009/4/5, a dreamku on the limits of desire
You'd think his Christmas wish would be "a new eye"; well it was, in a way...
PEELING HER SKIN: by Wayan; 2020/10/20, a dream about the MeToo movement?
A spacy friend rolls on the floor with me. Seduction, or play, or what?
She peels off patches of clothes and skin, exposing a new realer self...
CAUTION: TRUMP FANS WILL HATE IT
PENIS IN A BREADBASKET: by Beverly, 1994 or earlier, as told by Gayle Delaney; a marriage-advice dream
Beverly dreamt her party guests all wore masks. What were they hiding? Next she dreamt they passed around a
breadbasket. In it was her husband's penis! She woke, asked around, and found he'd had affairs with half their guests...
CAUTION: GENITAL SYMBOLISM
PIGEON SHAMAN: by Rick Veitch; Feb 1974, a dream-comic on Jungian shadows.
Bums tap on the diner window. I tell them to buzz off, until I really look at
the latest--a shaman dressed as a huge pigeon. He's no panhandler!...
THE PLACE OF SPROUTING CORN: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1989/1/10 & 1989/6/28, twin initiatory dreams.
I'm shown corn plants growing from skulls, and it seems like I must plant some skull-corn myself...
POIROT AND THE DICKHEADS: by Wayan; 2010/3/11, a comic antilucid dream
I'm detective Hercule Poirot, but I'm losing my case and my brain--
because my story isn't by Agatha Christie, it's a knockoff...
CAUTION: PINK DILDO HATS
PRAY: by Wayan; 1992? Digital nondream image--childhood memory?.
I don't know what this scene is about--but it's not a dream. A stage, I think. Something from childhood.
CAUTION: BARE BEAR
RASPUTIN CLAUS: by "Sally Anne", 1990s?; a warning dream
Bob is at the window asking to be let into my house. He is dressed as Santa Claus; but I think he's really...
CAUTION: MURDER ATTEMPT
REVELATION: by Anna Kingsford; 1885/11/27, a prophetic, almost messianic, dream.
Dreams and other revelations shouldn't be dissected--they need to be reveiled, not revealed...
CAUTION: INTENSE MYSTICISM
SANTA CLUMP: by Wayan; 2009/9/16, an absurd dream-poem; Dreamverse #54
I find myself sitting on toy trains and fake snow as I'm told a fable:
how a herd of department-store Santas got tragically lost in a blizzard...
SELF-MADE COW: by Wayan; 2013/4/10, a surreal psychic dream.
I'm in Santa Cruz with my friend, a shocking-pink stuffed toy cow
with sewed-on accessories: big red lips, a floral wig, and a third eye. I wake,
draw the dreamcow--and my sister calls from Santa Cruz to sing me a song about...
SHY NO MORE: by Wayan; 2008/8/13. A dream poem, Dreamverse #3
I play the lovers in a teen romance: shy abused boy, insecure girl. But I get tired of the script, and...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE
SNAKE TREE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1989/10/31, a dream revisioning Eden
A woman up a tree has white flaky stuff camouflaging her.
It cracks and peels like snakeskin. What tree is this, exactly?
SOUL RESTORED: by Wayan; 2016/12/4, two dreams on deep change
MY SOUL RESTORED: To hide me as I grew up, someone transplanted a shard of redwood-soul
into me, and part of my soul into the tree! But now I'm grown...
RED ROBE OF INITIATION: I came to play music, but I'm dragged to the magic-school portal & draped in...
CAUTION: MYSTICISM
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...
SPRINTERS AND SPHINX: by Wayan; 2009/11/13, a dream poem.
Divers made of ice win the Traffic-Leaping Olympics. But
I think they cheated! I seek my friend the Sphinx...
TEACHER-BIRD: by Wayan; dreamed 1986/9/7; a cyclic dreampoem
Seeking my lost teacher-bird, I dabble with the time machine in the basement.
Oops! I summon Bigfoot. But the monster rips out her fur...
THE TEMPLE COAT: by Gayle Delaney, fall 1972, a pastlife dream
A ship-captain insisted some castoff clothes were mine. They fit. As I put on an elegant coat,
I recalled it was made in a past life to disguise me so I could enter a temple excluding women...
TENNIS UNDER STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES by Nancy Price; 1948,
(A comic frustration dream hiding a warning)
Our tennis game's spoiled by rubber rackets, fierce grandmas,
Good and Evil (those identical twins) and a bully on stilts...
TIAMAT'S REBELLION: by Wayan; 1988/1/1, a dream about neoteny.
That day: I read of a young healer in rural Indonesia harassed by the local mullah.
That night: I dream she leads a revolution on a starship against her elders...
TIGER TALL: by Wayan; 1992/7/3, a marathon dream.
I'm a tiger from Planet Cat, visiting Earth to run in San Francisco's "Bay to Breakers" race.
I knew racial tensions were high, but why is William S. Burroughs out to kill me? Oh. Because...
TIME IS A CROC: by Wayan; 1993/3/29, a dream on time.
Golfing in the basement with Giselle! But her ball goes through a Stargate
to land on a world where the water hazards are hazards...
TRI-GUARDIANS: by Wayan; 2005/8/5, a stalking nightmare that peels away layers
Three men follow me. But they're not men; they fly. They shapeshift into teenage archeologists...
then into pure energy-beings! "We don't care about you; we're watching another entity
you let into your dreams." Wait--I've got FOUR foreign entities stalking through my psyche?
CAUTION: ALARMING, IF TRUE
UNDER THEIR MASKS: by Wayan; 2000/3/17, an ecdysiastic dream
Masked champions of Good and Evil fight, peeling off layers till they're
elven-thin--what's left to hide? They can't keep stripping forever...
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...
WHITE-FACED: by John A. Symonds; 1861/7/3, a mutation nightmare
My face was leprous white like parchment; my eyes shone with
a cold blue eerie light. I shrieked "Papa, don't you know me?"...


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