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Shells and Armor

Dreams of shells, armor and armored creatures--turtles, snails, knights, clams, riot cops, ankylosaurs... Are these dreams about emotional armor? Not always. Self-defense, maybe. But self-defense not via action, but by one's nature. Not everything requires action--a hard lesson for dreamers raised in capitalist societies, especially.

RELATED TOPICS: self-defense - eggs - skins and pelts - clothes - molluscs - knights and samurai - dinosaurs - fundamentalists (sorry, cheap shot) - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ADDING SHELLS TO NINA: by Wayan; 1974/10/4, an absurd dream poem.
I lay on a beach with Nina. I stuck a shell on her body and designed a fabulous line of prosthetics...
THE ANGEL: by William Blake; early 1790s; a gender-bending dream-poem
Blake dreams he's a young queen with an uneasy relationship to her guardian angel...
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...
BLACK SOLSTICE; 1978/12/23 by Wayan; a warning dream-poem
It had been a weirdly mild winter day, but in my dream black storms loomed as I tried to build shelter...
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
THE CONCHES: by Wayan; 1996/5/23, a dream on how dreams view the waking mind.
A visit to the Conches, a strange race of molluscs who are people only seasonally...
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
DAWN'S DREAM: by Dawn Z and Wayan; 2.3MB (MP3 + lyrics), 1999/4/1, a dream rock song
My friend Dawn dreamed she crawled into a dumpster to live, and at last felt at home, secure...
DREAMS BLOCK VAMPIRE ARROWS: by Wayan; 1995/3/30, an encouraging nightmare.
Fighting vampire archers is risky enough WITH proper armor! And all I have is dream-journals...
CAUTION: MENTIONS BATTERING
ELEPHANT MAN: by "Bizekidz7"; 2011/1/11, a weird dream image.
An amicably divorcing man suddenly turns into an elephant to chase a little red demon! What's going on here?
THE FACTORY: by Sunshine; 2015/9/25, a metaphorical dream
Elegant, ancient, the tower rose into the clouds. Inside? Smoke & darkness. Workers roast meat...
FOUR PERCEPTUAL SCREENS: by Wayan; 2018/1/24, a dream urging me to drop some armor--but not all
I dream my Doors of Perception have four layered screens to keep out mosquitoes, when one is plenty...
THE GIFTED CHILD: by Brenda Ferrimani, 2013?, a painting of an incubated dream
Previous dreamwork had made it clear my mother had betrayed me; I asked
my dreams how to protect myself from those who do not love me...
GOD-SHIELDS: by Wayan; 1990/8/21, a confusing dream of growth.
I'm a fat guy hired as a temp by some unethical gods. Or are they trying to teach me something?
GOLDIE'S RHINOPOTAMUS: by Wayan; 2013/4/10, a Fellini dreamjoke with advice.
I'm in Venice. The police chief (armored) and Goldie Hawn (near-naked)
ride a skittish monster. Turns out bareback works better...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
GUNSHIPS: by Wayan, 1982/4/24, a nightmare predicting the Falkland war
Helicopter gunships invade. I repel bullets with pure willpower. But
they too have shields making guns useless. I duel two soldiers...
CAUTION: SURREAL VIOLENCE
HOOD: by Wayan; 1993/5/11 & 5/15, a recurring dream of a... woman? dinosaur? cape? spirit?
An alien-heron-dino-woman left us her cape--or is it a cast-off skin? I put it on, for I was told I need
the hood to ward off some evil. My human head won't fit the narrow hood. But the owner's manual
says I don't need a shield, I'm immune! So skip the hood; wear the cape as a minidress...
HOT-AIR FEMINISM: by Wayan; 2019/1/3; a harsh political dream
The latest MeToo meme is to leave a door open at night with a heater on, so a hot-air plume marks
a refuge for women in danger--or, of course, burglars! So I stalk our neighborhood locking doors...
CAUTION: DECRIES HOT-AIR NAÏVETÉ
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...
KNIGHTLY: by Wayan, 2019/2/12, a dream-poem on a wide time-vista
Huge gold construction cranes loom over medieval castles. Not rebuilding, but
hoisting knights to the heights. I get a ride up, and see a wide timescape...
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
OISIN: by Wayan; 2005-2013, 32 maps and images; a nondream virtual world
A model of a moon, half-Europa, half-Mars, with (intelligent?) life in seas under a skin of ice...
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...
PANGOLIN: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1995/8/1, painting of an exploited creature
While visiting a friend in New Orleans in my dream, I saw a pangolin. I was very excited...
PAPER BAG: by Pete Peterson, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a comic dreamlet
God issued me a paper bag to go over my head & protect my eyes
when facing him--at first. But as I advanced spiritually, I tore...
POINTED EARS, POINTED DREAM: by Wayan, 2019/1/4, a surreal dream
I walk home in cold rain; my hooded robe soaked. It has holes for my long pointed ears.
Hit a thriftshop to buy a dry one, and run into two girls I crushed on but ran away from:
Danielle is comforting Cary who's crying. Their ears are pointed too. Wait--who are we?...
CAUTION: GUILT FOR SINS OF OMISSION?
REVERSE MY ARMOR: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/4/14, a dream with bizarre advice I took.
All I usually hide, I strip bare, & vice versa. Like that Playboy cartoon with the stockings & gloves--the Femlin!
Behaviorally, too, I reverse all my habits and judgments. Perverse, self-destructive! But my life still works...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY. ALSO, A LOSER SUCCEEDS.
SHELL AND STONE: by William Wordsworth; late 1840s, a dream of a new Great Flood
An Arab shows me a stone he calls a book, and a prophetic shell that warns of a flood rushing toward us...
A SIRIUS MISSION: by Wayan; 1983/9/21, a nightmare predicting a painful fall
Exploring a planet in the Sirius system, we raft down a river. A local guy warns
there's a waterfall ahead, but my raftmates won't believe him! Over we go. Ow...
Next day, glad my druggy housemate's leaving, I learn of a big letdown...
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
THE STAIR: by Mrs. Bickel; c.1991, a time-bent gender-bent dream of a ghost
I find myself in armor, sheltering from a hard rain in an English undercroft.
As I climb out, I meet a second knight on the stair. But he won't step aside...
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...
TURTLE HARANGUE: by Wayan; 1997/1/29, a warning dream.
A man mocks a turtle he caught, calling it "inept"--he knows adept turtles, then?
I distract this fisherman-ranter while the turtle quietly tiptoes...
VAMPIRE TESTS: by Wayan; 2015/8/22, a lurid dream-response to a quiet day
Captain Kirk is testing vampire myths on a world where they don't bleed you dry.
At the moment, three vamps are sitting in a tent in a sunny meadow, queasy but alive...
CAUTION: FINANCIAL VAMPIRES?
VIRGIN ON THE VERGE: by Wayan, 1992/8/8. Digital picture-poem
Ever since I was battered I feel like a virgin again: longing, but wary--scared where sex may lead...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY, SEXUAL THEMES
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...
WINTER SNAIL: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1994/1/22, twin dreams of renewal fuse in a painting
At the beach, a barrel of huge snails somehow heal my legs.
In the next dream, back on the beach, I give birth to our son...


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