A witch & I duel with blades of spiral horn. But we both just want
to create an utterly truthful oracle. Can't we find a way not to fight?
Sarashina dreams (again) she needs to leave court life and a spiritual path. Her skeptical mom sends a
priest to the temple to dream for her! But he too dreams the Goddess shows two life-choices--happy or sad...
It was a dark and stormy night. I was lost, till I stumbled on God
in her underground control room. God was helpful. Too helpful...
A party for me and my shadow, to celebrate that we haven't killed each other, just HATE each other...
I love a girl in a big Singapore clan whose matriarch hates me.
But the omens say confronting her will be disastrous...
Rajiv keeps trying to convince me it's the best hotel in India: the orgy of biters, the
bowls of twitching fingers. But it's only the oracular spirits that really impress me...
CAUTION: CREEPY FINGERS
At 17, Xiao Dao dreamt he rode a black dragon as the sun set. A dream interpreter said sunset
meant the end of the Liao Song dynasty, and that Xiao Dao would rise to found the next dynasty...
Throw a dream-crystal, or dangle it by a thread, and it'll point the way to go...
CAUTION: NUDITY
Traders were vanishing. Newly installed Viceroy Zhu fasted, focused, and dreamt
the gods sent him a riddling poem. Each line suggested one word--together, they...
CAUTION: BRUTAL ORGANIZED CRIME
Plutarch says Caesar dreamt of sex with his mother; it was interpreted as "you'll take the motherland". So he crossed the Rubicon...
But Suetonius says he dreamed it way earlier, at age 33, after seeing a shrine to Alexander (who died at 33); Julius felt inferior...
CAUTION: INCEST; DREAM USED FOR PROPAGANDA
1521: I ask a talking ape how long I'll live. "Four years" he says. "No longer?" "No."
26 years later, I'm still hoping to get truth from dream-figures--two dead guys tell me...
CAUTION: JUNGIANS BEHAVING BADLY
Our Star Trek team explores alien ruins covered in cat scratches. Or are they writing? I uncover
Roman letters, Arabic numerals, I Ching trigrams, Chinese characters, Chumash pictographs.
Reading them turns us into cats! One cat lays eggs, but two more try to smash them...
CAUTION: CAT-EGG VANDALISM
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 day after my mom outed me to my dad, I dream a great storm has passed and everything's just glowing...
One of the Time Vaults has opened. That means a historical crisis is at hand. Guess who gets to go in...
I'm the receptionist for a research group of small oracular animals
in an Icelandic rift, who can sniff out the answer to any question...
My little sisters tell the detectives, "Daddy's ghost has
a message for you" but at first they don't listen...
Croesus dreamt his heir Atys was slain by an iron blade; he locked them all in the armory. But Atys went
hunting; his guard Adrastus's spear went astray. Did Fate kill Atys, or superstition rattling poor Adrastus?
I dream of a future where blondes are a too-cute endangered species. How can they survive? Like this...
CAUTION: NUDITY
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.
Daily dream-poems in haiku style, nonstop for a month. A flood of animals, revenant ghosts, sex changes...
Distilling a dream to one key image can clarify it. But don't be ruled totally by traditional haiku form...
King Ethelfrid bribes Redwald to turn over his guest, Edwin. Edwin dreams an angel warns him, swearing to save him if
he'll convert. Redwald's wife tells him "Don't betray a guest." Once Edwin's king, that dream-angel demands his fealty...
CAUTION: SHODDY SPIRITUAL BARGAINING
I'm a migratory girl who's lost my tribe. I find eleven coins, cross the world, and pay the Oracle...
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...
An elephant sinks in the North Sea, and the Oracle Mink says a wizard did it. Can old Lady Gandalf help?
I meet a forgotten goddess--outlived all her cults. Today she passes as a psychic, reads a crystalball...
CAUTION: NUDE CHALK SKETCH
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...
At a benefit for Rock Psychiatrists, the Spirit of the Convention explains why I can't go on stage yet...
My anima sends me on peculiar journeys--smoke rings, islands, conversations with a stone--
but at last it's just us. She has something more she wants to teach me. On that bed...
CAUTION: ASTRAL COME-ON
I dream my sister has an epiphany--we should relax, blur our boundaries, and just be
sloppy old Geysers of Good. Surprisingly, my financier mentor agrees...
CAUTION: DECLARES CAPITALISM OBSOLETE
God built 3 dials to check: body, soul, and time. But the Holy Spirit's lazy, only checks one! It's up to us...
I hear voices: "The road to success is in Kafkat, in a place called Goshen." I look back, and see seven male shadows...
An ancient rite has headgear that today picks up radio stations. What'd it pick up in ancient times?
I was ordered to join Hitler's army. I dreamt a booming voice proclaimed, "This train is going to Hell!" So I...
A witch advocates honesty, but kids mock her; one boy tries to rape her. We fight mid-air, riding her broom...
CAUTION: RAPE ATTEMPT
Jill, pregnant, got a high fever. She dreamt her child's soul was locked out of the house. That fetus died.
Jill, pregnant again, got a high fever, but dreamt a chorus of children happily sang. That fetus lived...
Jung was told in dreams and visions that Europe would soon drown in blood. But he just couldn’t believe it...
DREAM: I run into a couple I know. I get gridlocked. R.D. Laing gives me a transpersonal message.
DAY: I bump into that couple, get gridlocked, and hear R.D. Laing speak on transpersonal messages...
I find myself in astral China. The Empress is banished, the Jester rules. Wisdom is lost.
We need an Imperial Dragon...
Li Bai's mother dreams of Venus shining, and names her unborn son Bai, 'white'. She dreams he'll ride a
red dragon, too: greatness, but what kind? Li Bai when young dreams the answer: his brushpen flowers!
Deep in the caves, a Voice announces I've gone as far as the human mind can stand. But ahead, I see...
I befriend author Andre Norton--an ageless high-school kid writing enthused fan fiction, forever...
I find my Niche--the stone nook that decides if I'm a journeyman mage! Here comes my prophecy...
We went to visit a well-known psychic. As an afterthought I asked about an upcoming race. The answer was firm: "Marco to win..."
We made a lot off her tip. But when I thanked her later, we were shocked to learn she'd never heard me! Then who had spoken?...
CAUTION: WEIRD EVEN FOR SPIRITUALISTS
A park in San Francisco has melted into a bizarre mutation-zone. Its guardian is a lonely elf-woman...
CAUTION: ELF NUDITY
My dreams support a radical break from my past--to let go of possessions and friends in a cross-country move...
Nebuchadnezzar dreams a voice from heaven commands a great tree be cut;
Daniel interprets this as a prediction the king will go mad for 7 years...
Vespasian dreamed he and his family would rise only when Emperor Nero lost his teeth.
The next day, a surgeon happened to show Vespasian a tooth he'd just extracted from...
The sea pours in the house, but Lynette swims and floats in the sun. When the flood ebbs, the
land blooms into paradise. An oracle says "Your mom will die, but you'll help her through it"...
CAUTION: SUBLIMINALLY SENSING ILLNESS, OR PSYCHIC?
DAY: I see Avatar: the Way of Water. Two films in one: Blue Lagoon alternates with Mad Max...
DREAM: As an oracle, I have to go topless so the magic mini-ravens can perch on my nipples...
CAUTION: BRR, OW!, BREASTS, and SNIPING AT JAMES CAMERON
After lifeline and heartline, the palm-reader points to a rope ladder heading for Orion. I climb. But
it goes brittle, splinters. I flail. She reads, long-distance, one more line: "Wings", she calls. "Wings."
I had fun playing fortuneteller, until David. My hands turned icy. I asked "Where are you going?"
Night. A massive crash on the highway. Bodies strewn. Sickened, I descend a spiral stair to the Pool
of Truth. It gives no answers. Women spout platitudes. I go on, in pain, down past the polar bears...
CAUTION: THE DEAD
I dreamed a tired soldier visited an oracle or priestess,
who hummed a simple tune and provided refuge...
Predawn. The beach. A gypsy goddess rises from the waves. She says
"Begin to ride the gods of the Hand, in London." I say "What?"...
CAUTION: CRYPTIC BUT FIRM
I'm not ambivalent--I'm confused! I live here by the Rift Zone and I don't. I'm single and not. Two lives!...
Gloom clung to me & I skipped the dance. I begged Frances to ride in a safe car, but coming home...
I'm a faun, the oracle for a Greek village. But my predecessor set up rituals I want to change...
CAUTION: SEX, PAGANISM, SELF-SATYRE
Three successive attacks! I escape the Roadrage Nut, I withstand the mob of Angry
Ghosts, but the Tsunami floods all. Strange--that angry, glowing, blue Sea-Sphinx
who summoned the flood is really sexy. Why is she mad at me?...
Sharp seams between realities cross Silicon Valley; I end up in the Dark Castle of the Oracle. When I wake...
Should I try to keep Janine out of jail? But outside, she'd gotten back on drugs. That night I dreamed
a huge beautiful snake bit my writing hand, and said "Don't go to court. Stay home and write"...
CAUTION: JUNKIE, RESCUER
A strange transforming thing appeared in the sky--a light, a sheep, a man. It told me to stop burning my head...
I was a missionary in South Africa, staying overnight in a remote village high in the Drakensberg. A man rode up;
Six nights ago he was told in a dream to find me here in six days. He gave me a single gold coin, and left. Why?...
CAUTION: FAILURE OF IMAGINATION?
A voice told me, "Human beings have a spark of the divine"...
I bike round the ring of women on the stage. Oracles! Whoever speaks, levitates.
One advises me, but I can't act on it--too ill. "Gotta heal!" I blurt. My own oracle..
In 1985 I was flooded with nightmares about heads and necks. They had an unparalleled intensity...
A voice tells me I have 100 months to live. I vow it'll be enough to finish my work here...
CAUTION: THAT VOICE WAS WRONG
Psychics give me an incomprehensible reading. A book from the tree-library gives only Victorian dating advice.
At last a madman gives me a treasure-box holding a tooth that unfolds into slices carved in unreadable symbols...
Hecuba dreams she gives birth, not to a child but a flaming torch! But she lets Paris live...
CAUTION: MORAL NO-WIN SITUATION
My mind and my soul both apply for a job in Stanford Cathedral. Their rivalry grows to a shamanic duel...
I dreamed my mouth was full of typewriter keys and a typewriter ribbon issued from the back of my head. Joan
was hanging out the window by the ribbon. I reached for her, but my hands kept hitting the space bar, and down...
A friend buys a frozen used Pope, to navigate her starship with Papal infallibility. Call me a Luddite, but..
CAUTION: SACRILEGIOUS PUN
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...
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
I find the Well of Women's Wisdom. Lucky I'm female tonight! A girl sneers "Narrow!" Is it, or her?
I flew joyfully over Sun Valley. But when I landed, I wore a uniform. As I slept in our barracks,
I dreamed--within my dream--of finding two friends in the lake, tangled in a net, long dead. I
"woke" and told a friend my dream. She said in tears "I know someone has to die, but why me?
I never find girls I dislike hot... so why do this smugly seductive witch
and all her pointy-hat minions simultaneously attract and repel me so?
CAUTION: JUST... WRONG.
A man dreamed he was the River Xanthus at Troy. I interpreted it to mean he'd bleed for years, but not die of it...
I'm in line to meet a shockingly accurate psychic. But she's running late, so as I frame my question...
CAUTION: I'M NOT GAY BUT I SURE AM QUEER
I careen from a sacrificial marriage-altar to the Oracle Harper's secret pool,
into the jaws of Leviathan and the joys of lucid flight, shifting from male to female
and gay to straight--till I meet the Dragonfly People themselves...
CAUTION: STUPID, STUPID SEX CULT!