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Rejection and Outsiders

Dreams of outcasts, refugees, outsiders, untouchables, pariahs, and ostracism--people kept out or pushed away. How do we survive? More importantly, can we do more than survive? How do we flourish?

RELATED TOPICS: orphans, runaways, and feral kids - voluntary loners and hermits - belonging and community - loneliness - prejudice - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.


THE ABUSE PANELISTS: by Wayan; 1997/2/6, nondream journalism
A whole convention of adults abused as kids shows me how hard it is to hide the damage...
CAUTION: ABUSE ISSUES
AI ZHONG!: by Wayan; 1989/7/21, a short psychic dream
A small, clear, simple precognitive dream... and its un-small, un-clear, un-simple cause...
ANCIENT MARE-KIN GRAVEYARD: by Wayan; 2008/9/1, a dreamsong (MP3+lyrics), Dreamverse #18
I'm a ghost watching future archeologists dig up a site of my people--and get it so wrong...
APOLOGETIC OGRE: by Wayan; 1990/3/1, a nightmare.
I hop on a bus in mythical Greece, and this woman's guardian angel acts racist. OK, I'm an ogre. So?
CAUTION: ANOTHER HANDGUN TRAGEDY
ARCTIC CHANGELING: by Wayan; 1981/6/30, a dream on roots.
I'm a shy woman in a truckstop town who learns why I don't fit in. But will I, among my real kin?...
AUTISTIC THUNDER: by Wayan; 2018/2/12, a predictive shamanic dream
DREAM: a concert by autistics admits my bandmate Mike but locks me out! I summon thunder & quakes till they open up...
AWAKE: I called it metaphor--till it happened. I was sitting silent in our band's recording session and Mike asked me to leave...
CAUTION: AUTISM & APPARENT E.S.P.
THE AZTEC EMPIRE'S RESERVATIONS: by Wayan; 1998/3/19, a parallel-world dream
The modern Aztec Empire is as bad as Anglos toward other Indians, for it's not poverty that hurts...
BESS: by Forrest Bess, 1947, '57, '67 & '70; five hypnogogic dreams
Bess painted images that look like abstract symbols
but actually flashed in front of him when half asleep...
BLOOD RUNAWAY: by Wayan; 1994/8/8, a non-nightmare.
Some men get squeamish about menstrual blood, but this girl's plight was extreme...
CAUTION: EWWWW!
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...
BOILING MY FRIENDS: by Wayan; 1983/6/7, a nondream poem of letting go.
Giving up a circle of friends is like the collapse of a sun--do you dry up like a raisin... or explode?
BONOBOCARE, or, THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE: by Wayan, 2015/8/8, a dream's "Modest Proposal"
Tax-funded child prostitution ends war--sex calms men down from
mean chimps to nice bonobos. Rough on street kids, though...
CAUTION: SEXPLOITATION, SATIRE HARSH AS JONATHAN SWIFT. UNICORNS, TOO!
BURN: by Sierra Loucks; 1990?, a five-year-old's nightmare
I was at the beach with my friends. It was fun. But gradually they were
laughing at me, not with me. Then they picked up burning sticks...
CAUTION: GRUESOME
BURROWCATS ON A HIGHER PLANE: by Wayan; 1991/10/25, a shamanic dream of levels.
By twisting strangely, humans can slip into a higher plane. Ten feet higher!
So unless you climb on the roof, you end up in the tunnels of the burrowcats...
CAMERA STRIKE: by Wayan, 1996/10/19, a dream within a dream with a point.
I dream I'm a lemur-girl in an emotional maze.
I wake to find I'm really a satyr cartoonist.
Funny, we have a lot in common! I wake to find...
CAUTION: PHALLIC SATYRE
CATRISE: by Wayan; 2000/2/21, a sexy flying dream; acrylic painting.
I'm an alien exchange student in Palo Alto High School. I get stared at--they wear clothes, they don't fly...
CAUTION: FELINE NUDITY
CENTAUR BY SARTRE: by Wayan; 1989/3/28; an oracular dream
A sea-centaur explains why some dreams don't LIKE to surface to so-called consciousness...
CAUTION: WET T-SHIRT, EXISTENTIALISTS, HARPOONS
CENTAUR QUARTET: by Wayan; 1982/2/26, 83/12/24 & 84/10/16, recurring dreams of my spirit family.
Can our interspecies family survive? Our very instincts clash around solitude/boundaries, sex and incest
CAUTION: SEX, INCEST, REPRESSION/DENIAL
CHANGING IDENTITIES: by Mary Arnold-Forster; 1910-14? a dream of alternating selves.
I was the new girl among rich students, then an adult among snobs, then a girl again--always craving freedom...
CHEETAH: by Wayan; 1978-86, a poem on turning dreams into art.
I'm a cheetah working as a baker in Coconino County, Arizona, haunted by Krazy Kat...
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
CLIFTON: by Wayan; 1997/9/6, a journal entry on a 20th Century man rather like me.
Mark Clifton wrote science fiction tales of mutant psychic geniuses--only he wrote from life...
CURSING ISABELLA: by Wayan; 1992/8/19, a thoughtful dream of sorcery.
How I cursed Isabella the sofa sorceress, cursed her with a blueberry. And why that stinks...
CAUTION: UNDER THE MAGIC, IDEAS
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?
DANCE OF THE SUN: by Wayan, 1972/10/23, an epic mystical dream
I cross a hostile continent to a magic commune, fall in love with a flying girl who slaps a
soul-spark into my head, and follow an alien goddess leading the Dance of the Sun...
A DATE IN MINSK: by Wayan; 2009/8/23, a possibly psychic dream of adaptability
A spacetime traveler inadvertently strands his pacifist vegetarian date in a gun-crazy mob-run town...
CAUTION: DEFAMES BYELORUSSIANS
DEAD RIGHTS! DEAD RIGHTS!: by Wayan; 1983/10/1, a dream of the other side.
I die young, to get it over with, like chickenpox. As I slowly revive, I face bias against the dead. So..
THE DEER PARTY: by Wayan; 1986/4/10. A magical dream
Chapter 1 of a nine-story series: UNICORN TAG.
A sentient factory shows me a gene-tweaked future where the Deer Party agitates for
liberty, equality and fertility. In that future I learn I too may not be human...
DESERT EYES: by Wayan; 1984/3/4, a dream of portals.
We desert-hobbits break through to a world of jungle giants who
see differently from us. Will they believe us about the UFOs?
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?
DISCARDS: by Wayan; 2008/3/24, a rap heard in a dream--Dreamverse #39
A Marin girl finds a dirty secret in the school library--they discard the unpopular.
She kinda identifies with the discarded books. And discarded people...
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
DOME: by Wayan; 1999/1/31, a dream peeling off a lie.
I'm actress Nicole Kidman, clinging to the dome of City Hall like King Kong, ripping it to shreds! Why?
CAUTION: VANDALISM, REVERSE SEXISM, EXHIBITIONISM
DON'T GET UPSET: by Wayan; 1996/4/10; a warning-nightmare comic (small screen, slow loading? Illus. text)
A mob chases me chanting "Lyin' Wayan!" I get dizzy, fall off a bridge, and wake. Then comes REAL trouble!
CAUTION: FATAL FALL
DON'T WANT HIM TO SOAR: by Wayan; 1991/4/18, a dream of sabotage.
In a parallel world, a visionary's building the first plane only now. I'm his assistant. But I don't WANT...
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...
DRAGON/WOMAN: by Pam Cardiff, 1994/6/20, a dream of a dad's curse
A mage turns his daughter into an ugly dragon. She pines for a sailor, but
though they make beautiful music with magic crystals, he rejects her...
DREAM?: by Kjartan Arnorsson; fall 1993, a dream in shocking contrast to waking life.
On my way to a wedding, I dream I'm in a war. I liberate a camp of prisoners. But one man's so injured
he can't be moved. We have to leave him behind. My rescue of his fellows has effectively killed him...
CAUTION: GUILT AND LIFE-QUESTIONING
THE DREAM: dreamed by Yadwigha, painted by Henri Rousseau; 1910, collaborative dream art
Rousseau's painting of a woman on a red sofa in a glorious
jungle really was dream-based--just not his dream...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SLACKING
DREAM HERDING: by Nancy Potter; 1978/11/8 & 11/11, two comic, surreal dreams
FERRY: the crossing is rough, but I'm warned I must find my own sea-legs...
BUZZ OFF: I step into a family photo, but I'm not welcome in the past...
A DREAM SESTINA: by Donald Justice, late 1950s? A nightmare-poem.
"But what is wrong with my friends' faces? Why have they changed that way to wood?"
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...
EVOLUTION'S DULL: by Wayan; 1997/7/22, a science rant.
Evolution is like baseball--a game of inches, efficiency, constraints. Surely we can do better....
CAUTION: CONTAINS THOUGHT
FALSE ALARM: by Wayan; 1996/5/23, a nightmare I lived as a kid.
In school, I'm seen as a freak--lied to, set up for little pranks. Not just by my classmates--my teachers...
FETAL PAUSE: by Wayan; 2008/8/31, a nightmare-poem, Dreamverse #17
As I write a sad sex dream, a madman curls up fetally in the road outside my window. I'm slow to call 9-1-1, and...
FINAL EXAM, WRITTEN IN BLOOD: by Wayan; 2019/6/16, a dream on systemic bigotry
My classmates stole my pen. My teacher condones it. I am, after all, a hated minority.
They won't even SELL me one. So I write my final in blood--three huge, crude letters...
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...
FISHERGIRLS: by Wayan; 2.6M, 42 illus.; 1996/7/15; a sexy dream epic.
I had an epic dream lasting subjective weeks--a true other life. It wasn't Earth and we weren't human.
I was a teenage lemur, sailing with two friends into unknown waters--a rite of passage. One night,
my friends curled round me, I saw I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a woman, marry, and have pups.
I loved my girl friends. In a world lacking the very word, I was groping toward queerdom.
Sailing into unknown waters! "Here be dragons," the old maps say. And they were right...
2600K loads slowly? Try it in parts: 1: HOME, 650K, 2: VOYAGE, 1200K, 3: BACK 750K.
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
FISHERGIRL IN WATERCOLOR; OVAL: by Wayan; 1996/7/26 pencil & watercolor
Leaf and me, on our boat in the lost city, from the epic dream FISHERGIRL. My first sketch of the dream...
CAUTION: TRIBAL NUDITY
FIVE ELVISH DREAMS: by Dolores J. Nurss; 2005/6/10-2005/6/19, an incubated lucid-dream sequence
1: I visit Elrond and Bilbo in Elvenhome, but overthinking traps me in a timeloop;
2: Elrond says he renounces seriousness for joy, and plans a great, inclusive party;
3: I feel unworthy, but set out on a desert quest with Elrond's young apprentice;
4: I meet joyful, drunken, singing elves but hide in a tree, too shy to join in;
5: I meet a nervous elven singer and a dolphin trapped in a tiny pool in my bedroom...
FLY-PARADISE: by Wayan; 1978/12/15, an automatic-writing poem that worked like an advisory dream
I'm a fly lured to a bright but sealed window. The only way out is to ignore the light
and brave the dark--and only when a door opens. Patience AND boldness...
FOSSIL BARBIE: by Wayan; 1978/9/27; a dream of non-teamwork.
I dreamed our medieval football coaches blamed the ugly Potato Person for all evil...
CAUTION: NUDE POTATO
THE FOREST BRIDE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1994/7/23 & 1994/12/10; opposing solstice dreams
In the midsummer dream, I'm at a wedding in the Russian forest;
in winter, I dream I hold an emaciated girl as she breathes her last...
FOX ON THE TRAIN: by Wayan; 2015/1/9, an advisory dream painted & poemed
I'm a guard on a train crossing the desert who falls in love with a refugee fox-girl,
despite heavy specist peer-pressure and the archaic Railway Code...
CAUTION: NUDE FOX
FULL MOON KIDNAP: by Wayan; 2018/4/30, a dream warning that recurrent illness shapes the psyche
Every full moon, kidnappers jump me. Sometimes I escape, but when they succeed, they torture me till
the moon wanes. They're careful to leave no physical scars...
GARDEN OF THE GODS: by Wayan; 1995/10/6, a dream of slowth.
In the Garden of the Gods, I sit through sun and rain. For gods aren't the gardeners, they're the crop...
GALLERY GAWKERS: by Wayan; 2003-5; sketches of San Francisco characters
For two years, I sat at the desk in our co-op gallery, and
secretly sketched our bewildered, art-assaulted customers...
GARGOYLE GO-BETWEEN: by Wayan; 1996/11/22, a Hogwartish dream.
I'm odd kid out in my wizard school till gargoyles raid us, and I puzzle out their tongue, to become...
GESTAPO, OPERA by a 30-year-old woman, 1933; a dream of isolation & vulnerability
I'm at my favorite opera, The Magic Flute. When I hear the line 'That is the devil certainly,' I think
of Hitler. The Gestapo have a device that reads my thought, and come for me. Bystanders spit on me...
CAUTION: NATIONAL NIGHTMARE
GIFTED CHILDREN NEED...: by Wayan; 1980/8/6, a journal extract on geniuses.
Advice of a specialist on the care and feeding of child prodigies, embarrassingly relevant for adult geniuses...
GIRL IN THE WATER: by Wayan, 2000/10/7, twin dreams on... dreamwork?
In a California with no Gold Rush, wild deer carry a girl over the San Fernando hills to a secret dream-pool...
Then in a Japantown hotel lobby, that girl floats meditating in a huge aquarium, as local gossips lie about her...
GISLI THE OUTLAW: by Gisli the Outlaw of Iceland; 966-973, a series of at least ten life-saving dreams.
Gisli had two spirit-wives who told him in dreams how to evade the bounty-hunters after him... for 13 years!
GLASS EATER: by Wayan; 1982/12/10, a dream on managing ESP.
I live in an asylum for fragile psychics. When one man over-uses his talent, he compulsively eats glass...
CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME
THE GOLDEN PAW: by Wayan; 2009/4/12, a dream on speaking up
An Oxford teaching assistant sexually blackmails one of his law students, but to his shock she goes public...
A GREAT NIGHTMARE, or, The Autistic Dream Lecturer: by Wayan; 1997/1/2, a diagnostic nightmare.
I dream I'm addressing a dream convention, but I'm autistic! I MUST act bizarre, just to function...
HAMM: by Wayan; 2008/9/26, a dream poem; Dreamverse #31
A lecturer tries to help the homeless founder of Hamm's Beer, robbed by bankers. But the talk may harm more than help...
HUNT OF THE UNICORN: by Wayan; 1989/5/18, an overlooked psychic dream.
I marry, just to get into a clannish world where I'm seeking symbiotic unicorns. I end up fleeing...
Next evening, a TV movie--Goldie Hawn marries into a clannish world and ends up...
HUNTERS' FIRE: by Wayan; 1987/9/8, a nightmare that may be a memory.
I'm an orphan shot at by hunters. They shoot my sister! But no one believes me...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
I CAN'T JOIN THE TRIBE: by Wayan; 1997/8/12, a nightmare on madness.
After the eco-crash, I try to join a tribe in the jungle that was Oakland. But they reject me, for good reason...
I DREAM OF DERIVERRANS: by Wayan; 1982/11/16, a Joycean dream of surrender.
I must rescue Ann Soforth from righteous rapists, then Paul McCartney from a musical curse...
CAUTION: ABUSED CHILD, JOYCEAN LANGUAGE
I FIGHT FOR BEAUTY: by Wayan; 1990/1/1, an incubated dream within a dream within a dream.
From Hawaii to Wyoming, I fight for beauty, always waking to find I'm someone new...
I GOT OUT: by Wayan; 1992/1/4, a psychic dream drawn as a 9-page digital comic
I flee our love triangle when Abe turns mean. He's telepathic, but
I have my escape all planned: the goldfish, the snakepit, the caves...
CAUTION: THREESOME, SNAKES, MOTORCYCLE FATALITY
I THOUGHT HE LIKED ME: by Wayan; 1994/8/16, a dream of rejection... or worse.
I join the Seattle Tribal Council, which of course means marrying them all. The husband I'm to sleep with
on our Council Honeymoon seemed to like me, till he pulls that practical joke...
CAUTION: GROSS!
I WANT MY INHERITANCE: by Wayan; 1989/12/18, a dream on family brainwashing.
My family calls me a blonde bimbo and won't give me my inheritance, so I take drastic steps...
CAUTION: MORAL HAIRSPLITTING
I WANTED TO STEAL: by Jack Kerouac, early Nov. 1952, a class-envy dream.
I wanted to steal this pink woolen sweater. I didn't need it;
what I really wanted to steal was middle-class security...
I WAS A SEX SLAVE: by Wayan; 1994/11/20, a dream on isolation
I'm a slave dancer. I run for it, and make it over the border. But my owner comes looking for me...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SLAVE SOCIETY
I'M A VESTA, NOT A MAN!: by Wayan; 1980/1/6, a dream of when it's over.
I'm the animal guardian of a deep crater, but when a human girl rejects me, I set out to leave...
CAUTION: ORAL SEX, UNREQUITED LOVE, SPECISM
JOVE'S LIMBO: by Wayan; 1994/11/27, a dream of astral muckraking.
Half elvish, rejected, I wander the worlds, and find a limbo built by Zeus--but do the inmates deserve it?
THE KEY TO OUR INHERITANCE: by Wayan; 2010/9/12; a nightmare whose victims organize
The dead treasure-hunter's will ordered us, his heirs, to convene in the wood.
Attacked there by a knight in armor, we near-strangers must unite to win our...
KICK HER: by Wayan; 1994/8/9, a gameshow nightmare.
I'm a blonde gameshow bimbo. Each week, I'm beaten up. Ha ha ha! But my bruises are real. At last, I...
CAUTION: GAMESHOW FROM HELL
THE LEMON SEA: by Wayan; 1982/2/22, a dream warning.
I wake up as someone else. I go through her working day, till Captain Kirk comes to take me to...
THE LIMP: by Wayan; 1986/7/18, a dream on difference
I was working for a London architect. His son thought people shunned him for his limp, but...
THE LION KING: by Wayan; 1995/9/15, a time-travel dream on social skills.
When I wake up, animals rule the earth. How do they cope with specism? Well, it's complex...
LONELINESS HAIKU by Anonymous #52, 1975/3/26; a haiku in a dream
THAT DAY: I landed in Japan, but felt an outsider, cut off.
THAT NIGHT: I dreamt a haiku expressing my loneliness...
LOUSE: by Wayan; ink, 1982/5/21: an embarrassing true story.
Getting rid of lice was easy. Harder was quelling the gossip and rumors from my co-workers and boss...
CAUTION: A LOUSE OF A BOSS
THE MELTING POT: by Wayan; 1982/7/30, a dream warning of a conformist circle
They were swimming in the glowing, molten pool of the Melting Pot, and beckoned me to join them...
CAUTION: SUICIDE SOUP?
THE MORAL INTELLIGENCE OF CHILDREN: by Wayan; 1999/5/24, a rant on giftedness and fragility
Robert Coles wrote a book on kids' moral sense, but his examples don't tell me what they tell him...
THE MUMMY: by Wayan; 2003/10/13, a Rarebit Fiend nightmare.
A horror film and Rick Veitch's dream-comix provoke a nightmare
warning me that guilt about my dad is wrecking my life...
MY THREE HUSBANDS: by Wayan; 1981/2/26 & 1991/5/26, dreams drawn as a 15-page comic
I'm three women at once! We marry a unicorn, a goat philosopher,
and a magic talking cat. But cops raid our furry commune...
CAUTION: INTERSPECIES MARRIAGE, TEEN SEX, BAD COPS
NET PROFITS: by Wayan; 1998/7/14, a dream of family values and Web credit.
At a family picnic, my sisters and I fish for scholarships and grants. They put down my art, my website...
THE NOTE: by Wayan; 1976/12/31, a psychic nightmare.
On New Year's Eve, I dream my college no longer welcomes me.
New Year's Day, I wake to find it's true...
OHLONE AT THE MALL: by Wayan; 1994/2/1, a dream of what matters
I see two Ohlone women around 1900, starving, naked, despised, their land stolen--and still way happier than...
CAUTION: NUDITY
ONE-PERCENTERS: by Wayan; 2014/5/2, a dream on how egalitarianism can drive the gifted crazy
A sociologist exposes the smugness of Britain's 1%, but the writer's denial of any innate differences
can be just as pernicious as elitism...
CAUTION: EGALITARIANISM ON TRIAL
OPHIDIOPHOBIA: by Wayan; 1986/2/12, a dream on race and religion.
I'm a therapist with a client diagnosed paranoid--but are his doctors racist? He's not just black, but scaly...
OSENTO: by Wayan; 1991/2/15. Digital painting based on a dream.
Osento is a bath house that my friends all love. But women only. So I dream I change sex just to...
CAUTION: NUDITY, GRATUITOUS HAPPINESS
OUR BEST SONG: by Wayan; 1983/10/25, a decade-long dream of song and flight.
The artcops search-and-destroy our flying band, and my wings are shorn. But ten years later,
songless, apathetic, I climb through my TV--and the women of Vietnam show me a new way to fly...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, ATTITUDE, ALTITUDE
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
OVERLAY: by Wayan; 1984/2/11, 1995/8/26, and 2004/9/11, 3 dreams shape a 9-page comic on living with ESP
Dreams of translucent fairies, centaurs, robots & gnomes prompt me to cartoon
on transparent overlays to show how dreamworlds overlay ours...
POD WAR: by Wayan; 1979/10/14, an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" dream
Emotionless pod-people surround the last free humans. I fight for humanity, but I'm not human or pod--I'm...
POLYGON DREAMS: by Wayan; 2007/4/23, a 32-page comic on the effects of shapes
What if comics panels and layouts weren't so square? I try triangles,
pentagons, hexagons, circles, spirals--and some serious stuff pops out...
CAUTION: IDEAS, OCCASIONAL NUDITY, MENTIONS ABUSE
PONYBOY: by Wayan; 1982/12/9, a dream about the control room of dreams.
The child who runs with wild horses finds the secret spy-room of dreams! But no one's watching...
POPEYE MUSCLES: by Wayan; 1986/7/14, a grotesque dreamtale.
My body turns protean: big Popeye muscles pop out as needed, relaxing into stick-figureness...
THE POWER OF ART: by Wayan; 2016/8/29, a dream-poem about the longtern effect of dreamwork?
At a museum, a weird art project shows me how observing and documenting life
in art can improve that life--just from being taken seriously...
PRISONS AND STRIPES: by Emily Joy; 2007/10/4, a lucid dream.
In a museum full of spacetime-bubbles holding lost souls, the museum-goers are as weird as the exhibits...
PRODIGIES' ODDITIES: by Wayan; 1994/2/2, a confession.
I suspect we child prodigies and geniuses are as unlike the gifted as normal people. So here's a checklist...
CAUTION: BRAIN REQUIRED
THE PRODIGY-ALLERGY LINK: by Wayan; 1994/7/21, a clipping and reactions
Child prodigies may develop allergies due to immunosystem damage from too much testosterone in utero...
PRODIGY SUPPORT: by Wayan; 1994/7/21, a clipping and reactions
News of a child prodigy who was given the support I wasn't, triggers a flood of envy and bitterness...
THE PROWLER: by Wayan; 1997/2/4, an anti-nightmare.
My sister hears a prowler. I go out blind in the dark, and learn she's right. But what a strange intruder!
PUPPY: by Naoki Higashida; March or April 2015, a role-reversal dream
I walk home with a puppy to meet my mum, who addresses the dog by my name
and invites him in, while I head for my doghouse in the garden...
HIS RACIST SON: by Wayan; 1994/1/8, an incubated dream offering two diagnoses
Suddenly I hate and fear black kids in school! The counselor says I'm clinically paranoid: I need drugs!
My dad says "How strange, how sad." And goes home to light a candle at his shrine to the Confederacy...
CAUTION: INDUCED RACISM
RESCUE FEVER: by Wayan; 1994/2/3, a dreamtale on rescue fantasies.
A refugee girl crawls into my bed. We become lovers. I protect her. But over time... am I holding her back?
CAUTION: ABUSE? OR NOT?
REVOLUTION IS MESSY: by Emily Joy; 2006/4/26, a political dream
When whites invade, two shapeshifting Native American cubs resist architecturally...
SADDLED WITH AUTISM: by Wayan; 1999/10/1, an embarrassing yet advisory dream.
I'm autistic; a TV host encourages me and another autistic kid to have sex on the air...
CAUTION: UNDERAGE SEX ON NATIONAL TV; SERIOUS FINGER-POINTING
SAFETY GETS ME HOT: by Wayan; 1997/3/27, a dream on sensitivity.
I'm trapped in a post-apocalypse pulp story! Fun for my readers, but not for me! How to escape?
SALIA AND CHUR: by Wayan; 1989/2/25, a psychic Star Trek dream.
Our starship signs up a strange new woman whose quirks turn out to be fallout from slavery...
CAUTION: SEX, ABUSE ISSUES
SAMURAI LIBRARIAN: by Wayan; 1982/10/20, a dream that dreamwork is samurai discipline
I wrote my dreams each morning no matter what--even if I it made me late for work.
They assumed I was sloppy, lazy, spacy. No; disciplined about priorities!
THE SATURATION DIAL: by Wayan; 2015/11/7, a surreal lucid dream with a control knob!
Night. Two moons. I go lucid! Find a knob adjusting the dream's color saturation.
Dial it up--and meet ghosts of pure color, invisible til I luridified...
SATYR: by Wayan; 1999/4/1, a frustrating wish-fulfillment dream (yes, both).
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
SHELDON SUES: by Wayan; 2016/6/23, a dream on meritocracy, egalitarianism & class war
I'm a kid in Italian high school. A gifted classmate, Sheldon, provokes
bullies. He sues the school to stop it. The prosecutor's reluctant...
CAUTION: GIFTEDS AS A HATED MINORITY
THE SHIP'S BOY: by Wayan; 1996/12/1, a dreamtale.
Dinosaur people demand to take our Ship's Boy with them. But he knows them! They RAISED him?
SILKY CROSSES THE ATLANTIC: by Wayan; dreamed 1982/8/24, painted 1994 (acrylic/ink/xerox).
After I fled my batterer, I was afraid to love--afraid I'd give up my freedom again for mere kindness...
SILKY AT THE MIKE: by Wayan; 1983/12/23, sketch of recurring dream
Ours is a mixed-race family, and my sister takes after the horse side. No hands, but can she sing!...
SILKY RELENTS: by Wayan; 1997/3/8 a dreamtale on undoing old injustice.
My anima Silky plans to kill a man who hurt her. Instead, we make them re-enact it, with variations...
SILKY'S REVOLUTION: by Wayan; 1995/9/4, a historical dream.
I'm in an alternate-history American Revolution with Silky the
talking black mare. We sail for Europe as diplomats...
SILKY'S SONNET: by Wayan; 1983/6/15, a love-poem to a nightmare.
A love poem to the black mare I keep meeting in my dreams, who finally married me...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
SILKY SHIELDS A VANDAL: by Wayan; 1994/8/6, a cautionary dream.
I'm a kid in a classroom someone's trashed. Our teacher goes ballistic. But was the gypsy girl framed?
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...
THE SOLE FISHER OF THE EIGHTH NODE: by Wayan; 1986/9/25, a prescriptive dream.
The pier jutting into the sea of dreams has an 8th chakra at the end, where a lonely woman fishes for, um, sole...
SPACE: by εmaxu.lag.Ilis, before 1925, an early dream of spaceflight
In my dream, I flew upward. It was as though I was going to the place where stars are, for the stars
were showing in the daytime. I saw all around our world. Then I wished in vain to go down again...
SPIROGRAPHY: by Wayan; 1997/9/29, a one-page cartooned spiral autobiography
Laying my timeline in a Fibonacci spiral, it's clear great changes come in a pattern--
as soon as I've digested the last couple, a new revelation/revolution appears...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY, HEAVY ISSUES
SPOCK'S SPIRITS: by Wayan; 2000/3/12, a financial-advice dream.
Lost in a dark maze of machine-shops, I follow Mr. Spock, who's drunk, and talks to tree-spirits...
CAUTION: ALCOHOL AS INSPIRATION?
SPORECOUNT: by Wayan; 1990/1/5, a dreamtale on patience through change.
I'm a hot archeology student till I open the wrong tomb. A plague
turns us into green moldy monsters--at first...
CAUTION: DISEASE, DEATH, GRIEF, SHAME
THE STACK: by Emily Joy; 2006/11/28, two small synchronicities
ESP? Weird luck? Subliminal perception? Whatever it is, it kicked me right out of a bad day...
STAGE FAILURE: by Dana Hughes, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a dream of surrender
I'm on stage. I have to sing. They just stare. I try dancing. Stony silence. At last,
a second me leads me offstage, saying "You can only fail so many times"...
STRUCK BY THOUGHT: by Wayan; dreamed 1956-7, 71/11/26, 78/12/28, 82/10/5, & 83/9/12
A picture-poem experiment: one dream per stanza!
Five short dreams exploring the weight of culture on our animal selves...
THE STUTTER: by Wayan; 1995/9/7, a religious dreamtale.
Half our religion-founders were just one guy, repeating till he got it right. Practice makes perfect!
SUCK MY CONE!: by Wayan, 1995/1/11, a bluesy dream.
Nerds built the blues. Rick Moranis, famous blues-nerd, makes a groupie suck his ice cream cone...
CAUTION: MOCKS MUSIC, RACE, VANILLA ICE (CREAM)...
SUN AND MOON: by Katherine Mansfield; 1918/2/9, a dream-story
I dreamed a short story--even its title. Not that I read it. No, I lived it, through the eyes of a 5-year-old...
SWAN: by Wayan; 1995/4/8, a transformation dream; 3-page dreamcomic (or as ill. text)
I wake amnesic in a cabin in Alaska, in a dress printed with self-putdowns.
I track down the wizard who cursed me. He turns me into a swan! Worse?
No! His first curse was on a human being, and now I'm a bird. My mind is free!...
THE TALE OF A MISFIT COCK: by Wayan; 1999/1/25, a media-fable dream.
I'm in Japan, where Rumiko Takahashi tells me of a tragic chicken
who longs to be a lounge singer...
TELEKINETIC KIDS: by Wayan; 2017/9/8, a warning and exploratory dream
A black separatist commune hides two little girls who are psychokinetic.
They fear I'll expose them. But I've spent my whole life passing too...
CAUTION: PARAPSYCHOLOGY, RACIAL SEPARATISTS
THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME: by Wayan; 1989/10/4, an unbelievable dream with 15 illus.
My dog and I are abducted by aliens who turn us into cats. We escape & go feral to survive.
How we got back, and what happened along the way, even my own shrink refuses to believe...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUID AND KLEPTOMANIAC BUGS
THIRD-PARTY DEFENSE: by Wayan, 2004/9/11, a dream challenging lifelong pacifism
DAY: At a party, this stranger keeps sniping at me. I see no gain for me in fighting him, and just leave.
DREAM: Aliens attack. They've wiped out other planets, so we fight all-out! Not just for us, for the next species...
THROUGH WALLS TO SEX CLASS: by Wayan; 2017/6/22, a therapeutic/advisory dream
A trusted college advisor says "Slip through cracks in the classroom walls!"
There's no direct route. Yoga to taekwondo to ballet to... a sex workshop!
CAUTION: ABOUT SEX
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...
THE TRAIN ON TIME CAFE: by Wayan, 1981/12/20, an epic political dream.
Silicon Valley goes enthusiastically fascist. I hide in a berry patch. They build a shining world, and then...
TRINITY: by Nashoba Hostina; 2002? A nightmare of losing best friends to romantic love
We were inseparable: the tiger, the fox, and the wolf.
Together our magic lit up the darkness around us, until...
TWILIGHT ANIMA RISING: by Mardi Storm, 2005, a dream leading to artistic defiance
I dreamed of a unicorn rearing in the desert. I wanted to sculpt it and applied to Burning Man
but was rejected. So I sculpted the unicorn anyway, out of playa mud. It was a hit...
UNCONTROLLED TIME TRAVEL: by Jo; 2007/7/13, a time-slipping dream.
I’m a drug-addicted amateur dramatist. A fat balding businessman and I bring humanity back from extinction, but...
CAUTION: TORTURE (brief), ADVOCACY OF WAR, HUMAN EXTINCTION (offstage)
UNFINISHED DREAM: by Walter de la Mare, before 1922, a dream of Faerie cast as a poem
The dream land was beautiful, but seemed empty 'til I heard piping voices.
An elven band! I gazed in wonder. But they could not (would not?) see me...
UNGHOSTS OF CHINA: by Wayan; 2009/9/2, a ghost-dream poem; Dreamverse #53
THAT DAY: art nonstop! Put myself down for obsessing. Empty man!
THAT NIGHT: I'm in rural China. Two women tell me their village declared them
dead, killed by demons. So are they ghosts, or just written off by idiots?
MORNING: wait--have I been calling me dead? Oh...
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...
UTOPIA: by Wayan; 37 p, 3.9 MB, 2007/5/9, a painted improv exploring... wishes?
An improvised painting-series exploring my obsession for Utopia--and your deafening silence...
CAUTION: IDEAS, FURRY NUDITY, THAT GOSH-DARN MODERN ABSTRACT ART
A VALLEY NEAR HOPE: by Wayan; 1984/10/17-19, an epic dream.
I wander a valley where unicorns love cyborgs but fear giant ants, who love unicorns but
fear cyborgs, who love ants but fear unicorns! And while the Three Tribes squabble, cave-monsters
sculpt them all. I set up peace talks between these four aspects of my tetrahedral soul...
CAUTION: SWEARING, DRUNK LIONS, CYBORG SURGERY, AND GOGGLE-BARFING
THE VAT MESSIAH: by Wayan; 1985/2/27, an epic dream of magic, flight, and sex
In our cult, we lie in vats of goo till we grow wings. But we’re feared more than we knew...
CAUTION: SPECIST LYNCH MOB, NUDE IN SCHOOL, LESBIAN FEELINGS, OBSCENE CARROT
WATERCATS: by Wayan; 1987/9/10; an epic, clear predictive dream
I dream I find a few 'extinct' watercats--in a slum! They talk. They say I'm one of them,
brainwashed to think I'm human. I wake, go to a dinner, and hear a tale of... watercats!
WE MARCHED THROUGH THE CITY OF SAINT FRANCIS: by Wayan; 1982/5/1?, a dream-tinged poem.
After a peace march in San Francisco, I saw us as deer, and Americans as dogs. Yet WE frighten THEM...
'WE'RE ALL HUMAN': by Wayan; 1987/3/13, a dream trial.
For flirting in the astral cafeteria, we all get sentenced to group therapy--
till I catch the lie in my life. What lie? Read the title...
WHARTON TOWER: by Wayan; 1985/7/24, 3 surreal dreamlets on gender & class?
1940s reporters almost trap me in a mob shootout. I shelter in a gender-segregated hotel.
The owner of Wharton Tower shakes the hotel so it swings between its butch & femme halves.
I fall off the Hudson Palisades, but I land safely on the Glass Ceiling...
THE WHEEL by Nancy Price; 1948, an early, intense dream of Future Shock.
Lost in an industrial maze, my memories hopelessly outdated, I resign myself to the Wheel...
WHERE'S IT COME FROM?: by Wayan; 1995/3/19, a dream squared.
Why am I an outsider? Can I change? Even my dreams don't know. I wake to find my
meditation was a dream, and as much of an answer as dreamwork can give...
WHITE HORSES, FIVE TALENTS: by Regina van der Poel; 1999/10/29, a dream equinifying talents
I meet a man in a box. A mob wants to attack him. But five white horses defend him! Well, one's
really a unicorn. I know each horse is a talent, but only recall one when I wake: clairvoyance...
WHOSE DREAM WAS IT?: by Wayan; 2008/10/18, a nested-dream poem, Dreamverse #35.
I'm a Chinese kid fleeing the Japanese Occupation in 1938. As we near San Francisco,
I wake to find it's all my dad's dream. Wait--he's alive again? But he was never a refugee.
Is it a pastlife memory? If so, whose--his or mine?
WHY COWGIRLS LOVE BROCCOLI: by Wayan; 1987/8/19, a surreal dream of love.
I'm a cowgirl in Nevada circa 1900. In the canyon below Haunted Mansion,
I meet a broccoli-green lizard girl. Naturally I help a lady in distress...
CAUTION: QUEER-POSITIVE
WHY I LIE: by Wayan, 2016/10/7, a dream on privacy-guilt
In a class, asked to share a bit about myself, I lie. Why? Not only are people like me
illegal, my particular story would be seen as impossible...
WITCH, FLY FREE!: by Wayan; 1997/5/3, a predictive dream.
A castle of witches in Europe. Persecuted for centuries, they're wary.
Still, such a treasure-trove of kindred spirits! Can I find a witch to love?
CAUTION: PAGANS CRIPPLED BY SIEGE MENTALITY...
WOLVES EVOLVE: by Wayan, 1983/11/11, a Darwinian dream.
After seeing 'Rear Window', Grace Kelly and I are wolf children in a pack that's quickly evolving into...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, CHILD SEXUALITY, WOLF-SLANDER
ZILLIONAIRE'S TOWER: by Wayan; 2012/2/9, a financial climbing dream
My mild yuppie friend Lou climbs a bank tower to reach his rich mentor,
and wins an internship. But as he swears his oath to Get Rich Quick...
CAUTION: DISSES CUTTHROAT CAPITALISM


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