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Naming

Dreams on the power of true names--of the act of naming. Or of being named truly, by someone in your dream...

RELATED TOPICS: language - souls - shamanism - alter egos and doubles - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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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...
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
CELEBRITY ATTACK!: by Pierre Dalcourt, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a complex dream on celebrity
As a mob of Hollywood stars beats me up, I ask for autographs--and get them.
I sell the autographs to fund a statue of the beating--but with me smiling...
CIRCUS GIRL: by Wayan; 1993/1/10, a dream of love and trouble.
I fall for a circus girl. Her brother is jealous, so all the dwarves show up with guns...
CAUTION: INCEST ISSUES
CLAIRE'S NAMES: by Wayan, 1998/1/11, a dream of love and pushing limits.
My skateboard-riding mermaid girlfriend and I bind ourselves together by the magical power of names...
COUNT COUP!: by Plenty Coups, 1857; a child's defining dream
I sought a dream of Helpers. But rather than give me gifts, they gave me a daunting challenge...
CRANE CRASH: by Anonymous #33; pre-1961, a predictive dream with a crucial hole
The crane toppled and fell onto the riverbank. I saw the number, but not if the operator got free...
A CROOKED BAND: by Wayan; 1996/8/21, a dream of chutzpah.
A spinoff band sues the original group for playing their own songs and using their own name...
DEAD OR ALIVE? by Nancy Price; 1948, a surreal, poetic dream from the borderzone
Troutmet the moon-pigeon, Burtra the blackbird, a talking acacia,
my dead father and my dead gardener all give me afterlife-advice...
DEATH DATE: by Jim Shaw; 1994 (early?), a possibly predictive shamanic dream
I become a werewolf and climb into a strange attic. I find a grave marker for
an old friend--but her death date is two years in the future...
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?
DISTRACTUS: by Wayan, 2004/5/5, a comic sexy diagnostic dream... that baffled me.
Sex in a meadow? A protest march distracts us. But a friend warns me of a disease, Coitus Distractus...
CAUTION: (DISTRACTED) SEX
DO YOU LOVE ME, JOHN?: by Wayan; 1991/7/6, a dream on the courage of the shy.
I dream of a future where blondes are a too-cute endangered species. How can they survive? Like this...
CAUTION: NUDITY
DOPPELBRUDER: by Wayan; 1985/5/9, a dream of a self at war over... labels?
Lured to a parallel, feudal world by a marriage-vow, I'm trapped in my double's arrogant, twisted mind...
EBON EBON THALUD: by Samuel Coleridge; 1800/11/28, a nightmare struggle leaving physical traces.
Ebon Ebon Thalud, a woman blended with darkness, tries to gouge out my right eye. I wake screaming. My right eyelid...
EDITH KEELER: by Wayan, 1975/10/8, an incubated dream giving multiple answers
I asked my dreams to show me my Shadow--what I deny. It showed me at least FIVE! And in every
time-branch, a runaway truck crushed me--the Truck of Ideology. Not that I seemed able to avoid it...
CAUTION: RECURRING DEATHS
EIGHT TO A HORN: by Wayan; 1986/4/25, a magical dream, Chapter 7 of UNICORN TAG.
In the middle of Nowhere Desert, I meet a telepathic unicorn who's stuck with a false safety-tag...
EMPRESS AND PIG: by Doug Williams; 2006/10/10, a dream of romantic beginnings
A pig led me off my path to meet a lady. I told her my true name, and felt something shift...
EQUESTRIAN NUNAVUT: by Wayan, 2017/4/27, a dream of a utopia in an unlikely place
After a hard day in the recording studio, I dream of our wiser successors,
after we drown America: the sentient equines of Greenland and Nunavut...
CAUTION: SKINNYDIPPING UNICORNS
ERMINE, or, GOTHMOG'S GHOST: by Wayan, 1984/2/11, a gender-bent & species-bent warning dream
I'm a delicate little ermine-chinchilla whose best friends are all sewer rats.
They push their food and drink on me, and I nibble to be polite...
THE ERTHEDNI: by Wayan, 1977/1/8, three transformation dreams, the last with advice
1: I'm starving in a lush valley; a cult claims all the food, the water, even the air.
2: I'm drowning in a cage but find a corner with water I can breathe--just barely.
3: I'm a merman with a wise friend who hints I need to leave those who starve & drown me...
CAUTION: DOMESTIC BATTERING (OFFSTAGE)
THE EVEREST MARATHON: by Wayan; 1986/4/12, a wild dream epic, part 3 of Unicorn Tag.
In the great race up Everest, I become an e-snake, cross 3 eco-bubbles, beg a wary deer-taur to splice my spine,
help Ariane (my childhood crush), and solve the Dream Equations. Climbing Everest takes not strength but... trust?
FAR ALONG IN THE STORY: dreamed before 2009 by W.S. Merwin; a surreal dream poem
The flock of cranes called to the boy but he could not hear what they were telling him...
GOOGLE DREAMS: by Michael Flora; early 2010, three (psychic? cryptomnesic?) dreamlets on names
After an article suggests we roam the multiverse in sleep, I dream of three strange names. Awake, I google them...
HOGAMUS HIGAMUS: by Mrs Amos Pinchot, or Claire MacMurray? Nov. 1939, a disavowed dream-poem.
She dreamed she'd written a wise and beautiful poem. Half asleep she scribbled it down. Awake, she found it read...
CAUTION: HOGGEREL
HOW THE WAYAN GOT ITS NAME: by Wayan, 1986/5/23, a predictive dream on names (& manes)
A telepathic unicorn-lion says my true name is Wayan. And my true species? I'm like him!
I wake, change my name to fit the dream, move to a new city. Near my new house,
my dream-name is scratched into the concrete sidewalk...
THE HYPOTHALAMUS: by Georges Perec; October 1971, a dream of embarrassment. Dream #95
I learn my book A Void, supposedly written without the letter E, has lots of them--
crawling with errors. But at least I can spy on the neighbors...
INGENIOUS ADVERTISEMENTS: by Elizabeth Kew; 1930s?, a cynical dream come true.
My friend put an ad on her gown, so I try one on our house. I have big ideas for more, but a pickpocket...
JUMBLE by Nancy Price; 1948, a comically exaggerated predictive dream
A bewildering dream of a boy's borrowed bath, absconding renters' furniture and fly-eating turns real a few weeks later...
LYIN' WAYAN: by Wayan; 1996/4/10, a warning nightmare.
A mob of kids chases me chanting "Lyin' Wayan!" I get dizzy and fall off a bridge... THEN comes trouble!
CAUTION: FATAL FALL
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...
THE MATING GAME: by Wayan; 1992/3/18, a dream of spillover.
A TV crew invades the house, setting up for a special. I didn't expect to see a president on the work crew...
MINOS, EAQUE AND RHADAMANTHE: by James Joyce, c. 1934/7/8, a short, precise, predictive nightmare
Joyce, in Paris, dreamed he was attacked by three madmen, Minos, Eaque and Rhadamanthe. Three weeks later,
a madman mailed explosive packages around Paris--signed Minos, Eaque and Rhadamanthe, the Judges of Hell...
NAMELESS HAT: by Elizabeth Kew; 1930s?, a comic dream.
Giant worms put me on trial for wearing a nameless hat, but I like their punishment, so I taunt the judge...
NANCY AND KIT: by Wayan; 1994/1/3, a dream about mislabeling.
In a psychodrama scene, I try to stop a furious guy from hitting an exhibitionist girl. But I'm bleeding...
NEUTRALITY'S ROOMMATE: by Emily Joy; 2007/4/19, a spooky dream.
At our commune's new house, pandemonium breaks out when
our matriarch meets a spook. Can we live together in peace?
NUCLEUS: by Wayan, 1979/3/18, a surreal psychologically insightful dream of the inside of an atom
I dream my theatre friends are particles dancing inside an atomic nucleus--
particles that reveal their character, motivations and power. And I'm one too...
OLD ADAM: by Robert Southey; 1804/12/7, a comic dreamlet.
I meet the original Adam. He complains Eve neglects him, but he hopes to meet one of his cleverer descendants...
OLD AND IN THE WAY: by Wayan; 1999/5/3, a veiled predictive dream.
On the street called Old And In The Way, I meet a psychic I crushed on as a kid,
and then, in a hearth, fight the tentacled alien who's been stalking me...
PAPA: by Hélène Cixous; 2006/5/15; a revenant dream
I'm in my papa's waiting room. I beg him to take a break from his patients now that he's dead, and walk with me...
PASSIONVILLE: by Wayan; 1982/7/10; a surreal dream written as a poem
We're stuck in an empty town whose streetnames are all emotions. And they change.
Rage becomes Giggle. Tedium, Terror! Devious town...
MR. PERCEVAL'S MURDER: by John Williams; 1812/5/2-3, a recurrent predictive dream.
Thrice I saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer shot in the House of Commons. I nearly went to London...
THE PLAY: by Georges Perec; February 1972, a dream with the attention span of a gnat. Dream #108
I'm in a play. Fear, then joyful sex, then ranching, then silly hats, as a man drones on
about class struggle. Weird chairs, pingpong, coffee, impossible double utterances.
At last I tell friends my dream--backwards. Then I write the dream down on slices of cheese...
CAUTION: SEX ONSTAGE
POLYGAPO: by a Washington woman, fall 1951, a detailed unlikely predictive dream
I sat thinking "Now that boy will jump the fence"--and he did; "that boy will chase the dog"--and he did...
REBORN IMMORTAL: by Reneta Scian; 2010/1/3, a three-stage flying dream
First I try to break the sound barrier like my girlfriend. Nope!
Then I fly slowly to her apartment. Nothing flashy, but I make it.
Last, I zoom back to ancient China, where I find a candle-lit shrine dedicated to... me?
SAINT BARBIE: by Wayan; 2016/6/19, a dream of a meme we need
After a living Barbie doll dies while campaigning for niceness, I find myself invoking her
to shock people into decent behavior: "In the Name of Saint Barbie!"...
CAUTION: BARBIE, UNICORNS, IMPLICIT TRUMP CRITIQUE
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...
STEPHENSON AND BELL: by Matthew Talbot; 1768, a recurring predictive dream.
A man in a blue coat on a white horse delivered papers from a nearby wrecked ship, signed Stephenson and...
THE STONE BRIDGE: by JL; 1968, as told to Georges Perec; a surreal, haiku-ish dreamlet. Dream #39
A stone bridge, at the crossing of a road and a river. A signal sign indicates the name of the place: (YOU)...
THERAPHOBIA, OR GOOD SENSE?: by Wayan; 1994/5/30, a journal extract
I misname my feelings: depressed for sad, paranoid for wary, phobic for scared. It has consequences...
TINA FEY TRIES TO FLY: by Wayan; 2017/4/24, a mystical feminist farce of a dream
In a world where speech is in Mayan glyphs, comedian Tina Fey (dressed for prom night)
climbs a Tibetan peak to learn levitation. But the flying monks are scared of women...
CAUTION: COOTIES; ROWDY JESUS; MAY FLUNK THE BECHDEL TEST
TRIGO: by Edith L. Willis; 1929/6/4, an induced automatic-writing prediction (profitable, too)
In an idle moment I held a pencil and asked the air who'd win the Derby.
'Trigo' meant nothing to me, but was listed at 32 to 1, so...
TUCCOTINE: by William Archer; 1917/1/14, a tasteful dream.
The innkeeper insisted I try a strange-looking liqueur, a house specialty called "Tuccotine"...
TWO TANKS: by "Anonymous #19"; pre-1963, a small but precise psychic dream
Two photographic developing tanks disappear. I assumed theft
until I dreamt they were in a room I'd never seen, in locker FJA 39...
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?: by Carla Young, 2010/3/16; painting of a political dream pun
My friend's ignorant of our local Congressional race. I loathe Pombo
and like his rival McNerney, but can't pronounce his name right...
WHOSE DREAM IS THIS, ANYWAY?: by Anonymous #25, c.2005, as told by Patti Allen; a cledonic dream
A dreamer I know dreamt she was fired by a Mr Bleeden. Baffled her, but made shocking sense to me! My dad...
WISH AND WAKE: by Wayan; 1998/7/9, a dream within a dream.
I wake up praying for love--and then realize my wish is contradictory, and revise it to...


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