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PAIN

Dreams about pain, its diagnosis and cure. But you'll also find a sort of dream popularly believed to be impossible: pain inside a dream. "Pinch yourself to see if you're dreaming," the saying goes, but it won't prove a thing--it's quite possible to feel pain in dreams, as some of the following will prove; and what dream-pain means can be surprisingly instructive.

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ALL THE ANIMALS: by Sharon Lynn Pugh; c.1986, an epic, species-bent, funny, feminist dream-within-a-dream
I'm a fox-woman. A human man courts me--insultingly. I dream my brain grows till my head hurts,
till it splits open, till light gets in. I rant at the last dragon. Strange but kindly, he gives me a picnic...
ARIEL and THE UNICORN COMMITMENT: by Wayan; 1983/12/26-27, an epic psychic dream & sequel
DREAM: to stop an idiotic bout of war-fever, I have to take on the power of the Goddess herself...
NEXT DAY: I stumble on a fantasy book, Ariel, full of details straight out of the dream...
THAT NIGHT: I sign the Unicorn Commitment, but personalize the magical contract...
CAUTION: DISSES REAGAN & SOUTHERN MASCULINITY
AWAKENING HURTS: by Wayan; 1993/7/4, a dreamtale.
An old friend's awakening from anorexic asexuality. Puberty at 30? And wait a minute... is she me?
BACKACHE DIALOGUES: by Wayan; 1993/12/10, four bizarre diagnostic dreamlets.
I asked my dreams why my back hurt. They told me: pregnancy, marsupial pouches, snapping turtles...
BROKEN GLASS by Nancy Price; 1948, a dream of working to death.
Helping out talking animals until I'm exhausted, I suffer a fatal accident. What am I being warned of?
BUT AS YESTERDAY by Nancy Price; 1948, a dream of being sacrificed
Our gods demand sacrifices. I let Mother mutilate me so I'd be unfit. But the priests turn out to be blind...
CAUTION: YOU CAN FEEL PAIN IN DREAMS
CAT REPELS DINOSAURS: by Wayan, 1984/8/12, a film-inspired surreal dream
DAY: I thorn-puncture my hands while gardening, and write stupid poetry about it...
EVE: I watch Little Darlings, a teen sex farce that turns weirdly serious...
DREAM: a Mysterious Pussy guards us librarians from stinky alien dinosaurs...
CAUTION: SEXUAL INNUENDO???
CATS AND DOG: RECURRING DREAM: by Lee Kennedy; 1994, a parental valuation dream
I kept dreaming demon cats tortured me. At last a vicious dog joined them. He wanted to kill me, but
the chief cat wanted to keep playing with her prey. I realized they were my mum and dad, and said...
CHUNKS, or, BABEZILLA!: by Wayan; two dreams 1990/10/4 and 1991/9/4 told as digital comics.
I meet a giant psychic baby feared by 12-step people. So I go to the beach and find
I'm a shark-bit girl who can have her missing chunks sewn back in--if I still have room for them...
CLAIRAGONY: by a Philadelphia woman, Aug 1951, a sympathetic heart attack her mind misattributes
I had a heart attack--but it faded in minutes! The phone rang. I knew at once my dying mother was gone...
THE DAYS WHEN WOMEN WERE BEING HURT: by Anonymous #40, 1996?, a surreal dream
I was big as the world, so whole cars fit in my vagina. But men were selling women
to supermarkets, to be cooked & resold. So I crossed the Atlantic sea-floor on foot...
CAUTION: CAR SEX. NO, NOT SEX IN CARS...
A DIFFICULT PATH: by Anna Kingsford; 1877/11/3, an advisory dream.
I lead my daughter up a thorny path; she’s getting scratched. She'd rather stay in that fishing village below...
DRAGONFLY BUS: by Wayan, 2023/3/28; four dreams on halting runaway feelings
A girl writes a whole movie to get a shy boy to hold her; I stupidly summon a monster dragonfly-bus;
a devil-suited jerk hogs a musical's stage TWICE; leeches crawl from the treasure-box I opened...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY, SEXUAL FEAR/GUILT
A DREAMKU PRIMER: by Roswila; 2007; how-to guide to dream haiku
Distilling a dream to one key image can clarify it. But don't be ruled totally by traditional haiku form...
DREAMS IN WAR TIME: by Amy Lowell; c. 1917, a chain of seven small dream-poems
Terse dreamlets quietly catch World War I's effect. Faith died in the trenches...
ELLIS CRITIQUE: by Wayan; 2008/12/10, four dreams comically explore Havelock Ellis's dream-theories!
Pa warns me to protect my paws. Then gilt wounds my sole. Then
a lioness eats a tasty drumstick. Then a bus crashes on our corner--for real!
THE ENTWINED CHILD AND MADAM PURR-SAY: by PurplePurplePurple; 2013/7/5, twin poem-dreams
I dream my autistic son, miraculously high-functioning, recites a math-poem to a crowd...
Then I become cartoon cat Madam Purr-Say and chant my own defiant poem at the dream gods...
CAUTION: FIRST POEM AUTISTIC, SECOND PISSY
THE EYE by Nancy Price; 1948, a nightmare of resisting torture
A staring Eye tries to break me; his cats & robots flay me. Yet his birds rebel in sympathy, & I refuse to die...
FISH BIRTH: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; c.1978/11/15; a nightmare
My little son accidentally tears the tail off our goldfish. The wound
looks vaginal. The fish, moaning in pain, turns into my daughter...
FLUID REALITY: by Wayan; 1983/8/8; a magical dream-sea voyage that turned out to be predictive
On my quest I find magic portals, snarky flower-fairies, undersea redcoats,
reassembling bodyparts, living chess, and Nosferatu the Cheating Vampyre...
FLYING MACHINE: by George B. Burgin, c.1860 on, a recurrent flying dream
When I'm stressed, I build a set of luna-moth wings and fly invisibly. Though once a blind man caught me by ear...
FOUR OF TEN: by Wayan; 2021/4/3, four examples from ten dreams in one night
Books are clothes, and always were. A potato makes me lie, and everyone gets it but me.
Sex in a crowd disarms the Mom Squad! And a Mystic Autistic's soul explores my room...
CAUTION: PUBLIC SEX? PROBABLY.
FREEDOM THROUGH BOXES: by Wayan; an experiment in art & pain, Jan 2005
I've always loved curves, color, dreams, sex, texture... and planning, too.
So one day I drew 100 black boxes in ink--no color, no curves, no erasure! And then I began to seek...
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...
A HAUNTED HOUSE INDEED!: by Anna Kingsford; 1887/4/12, an epic ghost dream
I was warned about soul-devouring art in the haunted house, but I didn't expect to find an entire art salon...
CAUTION: ABSORBING ARTWORK
THE HEDGEHOG DISPENSARY: by Wayan; 2004/10/2, furtopian watercolor 12-page dreamcomic (or text + pics)
A rabbit shaman makes his student drape dead hedgehogs round her neck til she bleeds. How to free her?
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY, ABUSIVE MENTOR
HERON CATCHES ARROWS: by Wayan, 2023/3/31, a shamanic dream based on a pun
I'm a great blue heron with hands and human speech. A hunter fires arrows at me,
but I'm fast and can catch them. They're costly, so I demand a bargain with him...
CAUTION: ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE
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
HOT FEET: by Patient 2 of William Hammond, c.1868, a nightmare--but subliminal or mystical?
I'm in the Rocky Mountains. Gold-hungry Mexican bandits capture me and put my feet to the fire,
demanding "How do you transmute copper into gold?" I scream "I don't know!", waking to find...
CAUTION: TORTURE PLAYED FOR LAUGHS
"I SHALL HURT YOU WORSE": by Mrs B. when young, c. 1760; a predictive dream semi-heeded
At 14, B. dreamt a stranger attacked her and hurt her badly. She said "but I'll hurt you worse." She did:
a week later that man attacked and nearly killed her. She survived to identify him--and get him hanged...
CAUTION: HARSH JUSTICE
ICARIAN PAIN: by Wayan; 1982/10/19, a dream of flight, shyness and pinching yourself.
I meet some cute dancers, but rather than flirt, I just try ballet leaps too. I get more than I bargained for...
JESUS HEADS: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, punning dreamlets of giant... mugs
In a museum I see huge Jesus heads with inset saints and figures in pain;
then, in our old back yard, huge coffee cups half-sunk in the grass...
KISSINGER+DENTISTRY=WHY: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, a dream within a dream
I dream I go to my NY dentist, but the novocaine sends me into a dream of having dentistry in Tel Aviv!
I 'wake' and my NY dentist explains he can't do me today: sore hands from doing Henry Kissinger...
THE LOST DUTCHMAN BURNS: by Wayan; 2011/11/17, a smelly dream censoring itself for safety reasons!
I smell smoke. I know I'm dreaming; did my sleeping body scent smoke in my home, and insert it in my dream to warn me?
But the dream sees my worry, and erases the scent to clarify it's symbolic smoke! Now I can finish my nightmare in peace...
MAFIA DENTIST: by Wayan, 2007/7/10; a predictive comic nightmare.
My dentist (a Haitian Mafia leader) sends a message to my dad (also a Mafia don) by dental cruelty....
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...
MCKILLIP'S NEW BOOK: by Wayan; 2010/7/23, an epic literary dream
I'm inside a magical novel by Patricia McKillip, amid tricksters, cosplayers, spooks, sex changes, levitation and (sigh) cops...
CAUTION: COYOTE SEX
MEREDYTH AND LILLY: by Meredyth Watts; May 2010, 2010/11/14 and 2010/12/7, episodic dreams
I dream over & over of the same place, time, & woman. We fall in love. Strangely, I'm the one who gets pregnant...
MICMAC TOWERS: by Wayan; 2010/6/12, a quietly predictive surreal dream
I dream squatters build surreal towers in a city of junk. I wake, go to a movie, and see...
THE MOST FANTASTIC LUCID DREAM OF MY LIFE: by "Ben"; 2007/8/24, an epic lucid dream
I fly, send dreamails, discuss dreams with dream folk, punch a wall to test dream-pain, reach into mirrors...
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
MUSTARD REVENGE: by Wayan; dreamed 1982/2/15, a nightmare sympathizing with the enemy
After eating iffy food, I had gut pains all night--but I dreamed of rebels with swords
fighting a fascist empire. Were my dreams siding with the food? Well, no...
NATALIUS' WELTS: by Natalius the Confessor, c.155 CE (or 199?), a dream leaving physical traces.
Natalius dreamed that angels whipped him for joining a heretic cult, and woke to find welts on his back...
NEWS AT ELEVEN: by a widow-in-process; 1948/10/27, a somatized empathic waking nightmare
My heart began beating like a sledge hammer. I couldn't imagine what was happening, and got frightened...
NUCLEAR NIGHTMARES: by Erica DeMane, Michael, Joanne and Scott; c.1984, four creepy dreams
Erica dreams that during a protest she's caught in a radioactive flood...
Michael dreams a nuclear forcefield makes his fingertips explode and congeal into weird knobs...
Joanne dreams she meets nuclear mutants with curling black nails great for peeling potatoes...
Scott dreams the world goes silent and white, bleaching out. His hands dissolve...
THE OCCUPATION: by a patient of Peter O'Connor; 1985 or before, a therapy-guiding initial dream.
Touring an underground maze, I meet a woman I like. But her brother bristles.
Then, from a height, I see the ventilation pits of the labyrinth laid out like a map.
The Japanese invade! Hide in the jungle. Women in rags butcher centipedes & mice...
CAUTION: UNHAPPY MEALS; OVER-JUNGIANISM
ODESSA STEPS: by Wayan; 2022/3/18, a predictive dream? I hope!
A man's stalking me and my friends. We try to escape but a circus is in the way.
My friends shrink to babies, so I pop them in a stroller and flee over steep hills,
bouncing down stone stairs! "OW!" the babies howl! Hey... why do I feel deja vu?
CAUTION: INTERPRETATION INSULTS BOTH RUSSIA AND NATO
ON DRAGONS: by Roswila; July 1986, three poems of dragon dreams
The first two dragons numb my pain. I demand it back, and soon regret my haste.
But the third dragon I seduce, for I'm a dragon now...
ORACULAR RAVENS: by Wayan; 2023/1/24, a genderbent, predictive/synchronistic dream
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
ORCA TOWS: by Wayan; 1984/5/25, a dream with impact.
I show an Ohio friend the latest California sport. But
we haven't quite worked out how to land just yet...
ORPHEUS AND POOH: by Wayan; 1972/4/9, a dream echoing Cocteau's film Orphee--before seeing it
I meet my true love during a coup. We go through Hell together, like Orpheus and Eurydice--only we...
PAIN-RATIONER'S STRIKE: by Wayan; 1987/1/1, a dream on self-torture.
Three men torture my friend (or is he ME?) and try to keep me from intervening...
CAUTION: FAST-TALKING BULLIES
PARROT TAMES BUSINESSMAN: by Wayan; 2011/10/6, a surreal career-advice dream poem
My last two businesses went bust. So I let a giant parrot talk me into interviewing
her people, who've been settling all those alien ruins in Amazonia. Great career move...
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
POOL OF TRUTH: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; 1983/10/1; a dream of shamanic descent
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
PORTALS OF THE PAST: by Wayan, 2021/2/6; a timish dream.
The time-caves under Golden Gate Park lead to supervillains, magical girls, miniphants,
bamboo thugs, adorable dinosaurs, and... pandemics. But is there a way back home?
PRAYER: by Marie-Claude Girondé, early 2009, a dream painting.
"Our resurrection is not entirely in the future; it's also in us, it begins, it's already begun..."
PRECAMBRIAN SLEUTH, or, MURDER BY ATMOSPHERE: by Wayan; 2013/6/2, a warning dream-poem.
I'm a detective sent to a research station two billion years ago. The ancient atmosphere isn't just anoxic, but deadly...
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN: by Wayan; 1984/5/15, a devious dream.
We sail to the Isle of the Blest, but God exiles me to Fargo, North Dakota. But God's up to something subtle...
RACK: by Wayan; 2006/4/4; a comic business-bondage dream
My friend Chris gets tied up at the office--that’s his job, looking martyred! But when the boss is away...
CAUTION: NUDITY
RAGNHILD'S TREE and HALFDAN'S CURLS: by Queen Ragnhild and King Halfdan of Norway; c.850 CE
twin dreams predicting their children and nation will prosper.
Ragnhild sees a lovely tree rooted in her pain and blood;
Halfdan sleeps with pigs and dreams he has a great head of hair...
CAUTION: KIDNAPPING, ARSON, GENERAL BARBARISM (check the date!)
SCALDED: by Wayan; 1993/7/3, a near-nightmare.
The feud between our magical families is getting ugly. Hawk-Head's dad throws boiling water on me, so I...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
SEA OF TIME: by Wayan; 1989/7/26. Digital sketch of astral dream.
I dreamed I was drowning in the Sea of Time, where dragons asked me questions.
Painful questions...
SENTENCED TO CHEESE: by a Birmingham physician; early 1850s? a classic subliminal nightmare
One night as I slept over a cheese shop, I dreamt I was trapped in a huge cheese, as a rat-horde gnawed...
CAUTION: YOU ARE LUNCH
SET ON FIRE: by Wayan; 2017/10/15, a dream on reckless stupidity
Yuppies with a lighter set me on fire--not even out of malice, just idly.
I'm a shaman, I can survive it, but I'm not immune to pain...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARE, UGLY POLITICAL COMPARISONS
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!
SHE IS THE SNAKE: by Sharon Stricker, 1980, a warning dream from a censored goddess
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
SIPHONIAN QUARTET: by Wayan; 2010/4/10, four baffling parallel-world dreams
1: Purple squid saboteurs flood our cliffhouse. 2: My oyster-ranching girlfriend has a snobby aunt.
3: I wake in a stranger's bondage fantasy--ugh! 4: Shepherds on the sea-floor watch for gliderwolves...
CAUTION: EMBARRASSING BONDAGE DREAM
STABBED ALIVE: by Roswila; 2007/10/9, a nightmare-poem
I defeat the knife-wielder, in spite the blade in my belly I can't pull out. I may have to let it be...
SWORDLESS: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/8/4, a dream warning about bragging
Swedenborg gets in a duel, but his beautiful silver hilt has no sword attached. Uh-oh...
Then he's in bed and realizes he's been sexually boasting...
CAUTION: PHALLIC SYMBOLISM
THE TAPED WOUND: by Wayan; 1997/10/7, a dream on old tapes...
My wound's taped up, but hurts bad. I peel off the bandage. Nothing! Gone. So I check my other body...
THANOS: from Dream to Performance: by Lili Berko, 1988 or before, a dream of birth & death
The ship carrying my mom to America sails on, as I drown in the sea;
They strap me down to pull out the pieces of my stillborn baby Obdale;
A family/gang called Thanotos invites me to join them...
CAUTION: MISCARRIAGE, DEATH
THE THING ABOUT DREAMS: by Julia Wertz, a dream autobiography, 1980-2010
As a kid, my nightmares were of Sesame Street characters. In my teens I graduated to
slasher nightmares and recurring lucid dreams. Alcohol trashed my dreams for years, but
now they're not nightmares--just surreal. Hitler wrecks my sex life! What a spoilsport...
CAUTION: (MOSTLY FRUSTRATED) SEX
THREE CATS: by Georges Perec; April 1972, a painful comic dreamlet. Excerpt from Dream #114
I go home. Our cat is there. And a small, striped new cat. Then I step on a third, much bigger cat.
This is just one cat too many! "This cat's not real!" I say...
The nonexistent cat leaps up and scratches my face.
THROUGH THE WIRES: by Wayan; 2007/9/16, two surreal contrasting dreams
I meet some alien wolves, and see the social scene as they do--pack, status issues. But then...
I cross a pasture & slip thru a barbwire fence, as I explain cows, wires & organic life to an energy-being...
TO HELL: by Katie Hofgard; 2003/4/19?, a nightmare of loyalty
I loyally served a demon who punished me until at last he sent me to hell. And STILL I didn't rebel...
CAUTION: BLOODY ABUSE
TO KEEP HIM COMPANY: by Robert Southey; 1806/1/23; a Wertheresque suicide dream-comedy
My German friend resolved to commit suicide, so I agreed to poison myself to keep him company...
TURKEY: by Erin Wagner, fall 1994?, recurring nightmares
I get painful menstrual cramps, and with them come nightmares of birth. Not always child birth;
once it was five kittens. Most recently the baby was human but encased in a Butterball turkey...
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)
UNDER: by John Collings Squire, c.1917; a surreal dream-poem
She tells me there's a stream under the floor, upstairs. Peel back the carpet, pry up the boards. An icy creek.
Trout. She brings me a fishing rod. But the fish say they're too young to die. I feel such guilt and grief...
VAGUELY IN A SICK DREAM: by Jack Kerouac, late Nov. 1953, a dream of cooperative sacrifice
Us guys take turns getting pounded by this fist of cloud that must never hit
the world. It hammers my skull and retreats; we laugh and switch positions...
VICARIOUS ATONEMENT: by Anna Kingsford; 1880/1/31, an anti-shamanic dream
Kingsford meets a girl who burns herself as a protest. K flips out! Rants instead of helps...
CAUTION: RANT MIDWAY YOU'RE BETTER OFF SKIPPING
VOLCANIC OATH: by Wayan; 1972/5/20; poem of a teenage Tolkien nightmare.
DAY: our ex-cat comes back, needing surgery. Dad doesn't want to pay. Big quarrel.
DREAM: Cats, birds, elf-girls; in their asteroid library, a tale of oath-breaking...
Now I'm the one who stole a tooth of jade from the volcano hall. Greed... erupts!
CAUTION: NUDE BIRD-ELF, DEATH BY LAVA
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...
WIZARD GIZZARD: by Wayan; 1996/8/5, a diagnostic dream.
I have a tummy ache. Our local wizard says "no wonder, with fascists occupying your colon"...
CAUTION: TREATMENT NOT A.M.A.-APPROVED
WOUND-BARGAIN: by a Marine from New York; 1918/9/12-14, a prediction and possible alteration of the future
I was sure I'd be wounded, but dreaded being crippled. So I tried on injuries! I settled on a flesh wound in my left shoulder...
YOU NEED TO FIND HER: by B. Bigham; 2010/4/27, a strong psychic dream of history
I walked into a 19th century home--and family quarrel. Decades passed in seconds; then
the house burned--with me in it. Two years later I learned the house and its history were real...


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