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Stairway to Heaven--or Hell!

Dreams of ascent: endless stairs, ropes, and ladders to the sky. Or down: descent.

In shamanic dreamwork, visions of ascent and endless climbs aren't considered mere frustration dreams, but lessons in persistence, and the ascent is quite real--the struggle of the shaman's spirit to climb out of its body (strict materialists can substitute "from personal neuroses to clear assessment of community issues" if you like--that's true too), to roam free (as a shaman's spirit should) in wider realms, to return with news, advice, weather reports and miracle cures.

I mention the shamanic tradition because my own dreams of ascent have fit the shamanic pattern. Certainly the dreams of many city-dwellers (familiar with tall buildings) routinely use upper floors to mean things like higher concerns, mind, conscience, or spirituality--if simply because high-up views are broader. I think the ancient shamans may have been literally right--when I dream a lot of such ascents, especially if I make it to new heights, an out-of-body or psychic dream often follows. Even if you're firmly non-mystical, watch for the pattern and see if it works. Can't hurt to go upstairs and have a look.

RELATED TOPICS: frustration dreams - I'm falling! - I'm flying! - doors between worlds - astral planes - dream towers - caves and the underworld - spirals and the DNA helix - addiction and twelve-step programs (scraping the bottom of the barrel, eh?) - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ALPENFLIGHT: by Wayan; 1986/4/1, a predictive flying dream
Fleeing hunters, blocked by a cafe crowd, I fly up a long slope--but the cafe climbs on & on! At last
I perch exhausted on a peak, looking down on a now-alpine cafe above a sea of clouds. Next day...
AMERICAN TANKA: by Wayan; dreamed 1989/7/26, painting-poem-story on 30" disk, 1995.
I dreamed I circumnavigated the entire Buddhist wheel of existence in a single night...
THE ANSWER FLOOR: by Wayan; 1985/2/16, a dream-poem inverting a famous dream of Jung's
I dream of a three-floor tower--but the Answer is up on Level Four!
No elevator, no stair. I can't even see it. Yet it's there...
ARE YOU READY?: by a Minnesota woman; pre-1961, two predictive dreamlets, one useful
The elevator man in funereal black said in a sepuchral voice "Are you ready?" I decided I'd wait...
ARISTOTLE'S WIVES: by Wayan, 1984/5/20, a dueling-philosopher dream.
Aristotle keeps marrying my friends and fucking them up. So I challenge Mr. Logic to a shamanic duel...
CAUTION: THE F-WORD. OOPS, TOO LATE! LESBIAN FISH, TOO.
ASCENT: by Wayan; spring 1997; a comix-panorama on recurrent mountaineering dreams.
All that spring I dreamed of climbing, cold, fatigue, risk, and fear.
But shamanic training involves toughening; ascent isn't always easy flight...
ASTAIRES: by Wayan; 2015/11/17, a dream about... the Web?
A host of Fred Astaires dance mid-air in an endless spiderweb,
then pound on typewriters randomly forever...
BEAR READ DUNE: by Wayan; dreamed 1981/1/28, painted 10 years later.
There are many astral planes--this world's just the cellar.
A cat and a bird in love, a literate bear and I guard the astral stair...
BIRTH, INITIATION, INDIVIDUATION: by Anonymous #6; summer 2007?, a dream of spiritual ascent
I swim the flooded tunnels and pass the crocodiles to enter the house of mystics... but now what?
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...
BUDDHA'S FIVE DREAMS: by Siddartha, soon to be called the Buddha, c.540 BCE?
I'm gigantic, stretching from Ceylon to Tibet. Grass grows from my navel to heaven.
Worms crawl on me. Birds flock to me and change color. I climb a mountain of dung...
CAUTION: PIOUS MISINTERPRETATIONS
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...
CABIN IN THE SKY: by Wayan; 2005/7/25, a nervous, guilty dreamlet of escape
Bart Simpson leads me down from the Cabin in the Sky back to being... grounded?
CARRIED UP: by Wayne Miller, 1972/3/3, epic nightmare turning transcendent
I'm in a huge colonnade. An army of blood-painted men sacrifice the dove of peace. Their masked leader drinks its blood.
But then I'm carried upstairs to meet... the prophet Daniel! I'm amid the angels, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...
CAUTION: BLOOD-DRINKING THUGS
CHEAPSHIP!: by Wayan; 1996/8/6, a nightmare on trained stinginess.
Why did I sign on as a crewman on the Cheapship, a freighter
that's falling apart? And yes, I do mean that literally...
CHESTERFIELD MOVER: by an Oregon woman, 1943, a "meaningless yet profound" predictive dream
I helped my aunt and uncle move upstairs from their rented downstairs flat. Absurd! They own a one-story house they love...
CLIMB DOWN THE PINNACLES: by Jenny Badger Sultan, l995/12/24, a surreal dream and painting
Decision by decision, we made our way down immense rock crags. Below, I had to put out a deadly fire,
a fire as solid as wood or stone, with a white staff. What am I really trying to calm?
CLIMB FROM THE PIT: by Wayan, 1996/11/9, a dream parable.
I'm in the Mideast. No wonder it's a war zone--it's a vast pit BUILT for war!
But a spiral stair leads slowly out, to...
COFFINS: by Beryl and Wayan; 1983/11/5, dark parallel/shared/telepathic dreams
Twin dreams of ghoulish games backstage at a theater.
And they anticipated real long-term ghoulishness...
CAUTION: SLOW DEATH
THE COMING DARK: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 2002/3/2; a dream on one disaster averted, and one... not.
I climb down a cliff before night strands me; but in town, risky adolescent games cause a crash...
COMING TO THE JUMPING OFF PLACE: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 92/5/1, painting of an escape dream
Trapped on an island, spied on and controlled, we decide to jump off
a cliff and die; but as we jump, a spirit sneaks us off be reborn...
COYOTE PAJAMAS: by Wayan; 1983/12/17, a Dantesque dream-epic.
I'm Coyote, keeping the Business Prophet from taking over Dante's Peak. But it turns too personal...
CAUTION: IDIOTIC VIOLENCE
CREATORS' BREAKOUT: by Rick Veitch, c.1995, a career-advice dream
The House of Comics has a shabby annex jammed with self-publishers.
We make a human ladder and climb out a high window, but I don't fit;
as the tenement collapses, I must smash the windowframe to free...
DEADWOOD, or, MAO'S ONEIROLOGIST: by Wayan; 1976/4/2, a career-advisory dream-poem
The Cultural Revolution denies me the Himalayas--the spiritual heights.
So I flutter around the base of the Stairway to Heaven...
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...
DESCENDING THE MOUNTAIN TOWER: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 2004/7/6, a dream of grounding
The boy and I walk a spiral trail down the mountain to the caves of tears...
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...
DINOSAUR GRADE: by Wayan, 2006/1/25, a shamanic workout dream
I ride a recumbent bike up an exhausting slope past browsing bears.
Oh. Not bears. Dinosaurs. No wonder I'm so tired! Timetravel's hard...
DONNA'S FALLOUT: by Wayan, 1972/2/6, 2/26, 2/29 & 3/4: sonnets & watercolors of 4 sex dreams.
When I was 17, an older girl pushed booze at me and came on to me... in front of my parents and teachers!
For months, I had ambivalent sex dreams trying to process what Donna taught me--not all of it negative...
CAUTION: WEIRD SEX; ADULTS BEHAVE BADLY
DOPP: by Wayan; 1988/11/5, a predictive dream
DREAM: On a farm, I meet two sexy shapeshifting sisters. But mushroom clouds rise on the horizon...
NEXT DAY: at SF-MOMA, Susan Marie Dopp's paintings: shapeshifting sisters, mushroom clouds...
CAUTION: NUDITY; ESP
THE DOOR THROUGH DEATH: by Wayan; 1981/10/25; a Greco-Egyptian nightmare poem
At death's door, my friend lets Cerberus devour her, so I can enter
Death's pyramid alive and expose the truth about the afterlife...
CAUTION: FATAL DOG ATTACK
THE DOUBT: by Wayan; 2007/2/15, an undream trance-painting
Painting an abstract watercolor, I drifted into trance, and found myself climbing a
thorny slope. Deer in the brush. Great peaks around. Had I gone wrong?
DREAMKU, MARCH 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to March 2007; 31 dream-poems--mostly haiku
Dream poems laid out like a calendar. Themes? Horses, camels, abused girls, vampires--all want their freedom...
EARLY MORNING DREAM: by Brian Cronwall, c.1986, a surreal dreamlet turned poem
Night. Heads shaved, in loose-fitting gray robes, the young men swing from eave to eave. Two lose their grips.
Hard fall. Blood. Assistants call ambulances. Others swing on, house to house, before dawn...
ELF CIRCLE; 2011/3/19 by Wayan; a complex advisory dream.
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...
EXPLODING SWAN: by Aleksanteri Nevalainen; 2010/9; a surreal anxiety dream
In a world where ice contracts & sinks, birds freeze in winter, thaw in spring. But one swan knows better......
FAKE IT!: by Electra Johannes and Patagia; 2007/9/22 and 2007/9/23, linked dreams.
Patagia dreams she fakes a Hindu rite, causing Electra to dream she fakes leadership in a refugee band. But are they faking?
FEATHERHOLDERS: by Wayan; 2020/5/18, a dream of a strange career
My friend Xanthe steals a sorceror's magic feathers and creates a police force
to curb the misuse of magic. But I'm no featherholder; I'm the dispatcher...
FERRYGOAT: by Wayan; 2009/8/15, a dream warning what I was becoming; Dreamverse #48
That levitating bear's not tightrope-walking--she rides a goat strung like soap-on-a-rope. A goat that's me! I'm eating...
CAUTION: UGH!
FOR THE FIRST TIME: by Jack Kerouac, Nov? 1954, a lucid dream of escaping a rut
I've climbed a cliff and cower on the brink; but for for the first time I need not
fall or retrace my dangerous path down. I know I'm dreaming, and wake...
FOUR TABOOS: by Wayan, 2016/3/15, four dreams on inhibitions I hoped I was over.
Climbing out of Childhood Abyss, I literally get a leg up from a girl seeking the Ledge of Teens.
A shy girl has to hide she's a were-creature. Gay men make out in the witch-registry to rattle its
homophobic guardians. My sister stripteases while scolding me for a mess I didn't make...
CAUTION: DUH, SEX TABOOS! KIDS, FURS, GAYS, SIBLINGS
FURMAKI: by Wayan & Alder; 2018/11/15, anime-tinged telepathic/shared dreams.
We sneak out of the movie to explore Upstairs. My friends hide from the staff
in storage nooks for rolls of fake-fur. They turn into kitsune, catgirls & deergirls...
GIRAFFE MISSION, or, THE 17TH FOOT: by Wayan, 2017/1/30, a Seussy dreampoem on breadth of view
I was in the Mission with friends. A giraffe saw me as narrowminded, and lifted me up
to show me HIS viewpoint. No insights--till we topped the roofline...
GOLDEN CHAIN: by Cicero, 46/1/1 or 45/1/1 BCE, a prescient dream by an anti-interpretationist
Dream-skeptic Cicero dreamed a youth descended from heaven on a golden chain.
The next day he first met Octavius, and exclaimed "but there is the actual boy I dreamed of!"
The boy became Augustus Caesar, presiding over Rome's golden age...
GRAVITREE: by Wayan; 2008/3/21, a character-evaluation dream.
Just singing about the antigravitree lightens me. I bound around town. But then I find a diseased antigravitree is
holding me down. It's become a gravitree! Gotta clear out that deadwood, no matter how messy, if I want to fly...
THE HERONS' TANK: by Wayan, 2020/11/12, a sonnet telling an astral-plane dreamlet
I climb a small-town water tower. The tank holds a reedy marsh where sentient herons live! They say
the Heartland below them is a nest reserved for greedy, screechy, flightless, half-grown souls like us...
CAUTION: DISSES SMALL-TOWN VALUES
HIGHER LEVEL: by Wayan; 2011/12/13, an absurd transcendent dream
I paddle through the grim streets of Karachi on my belly, on a skateboard,
with my flipper-hands, until at last I reach the border to a Higher Realm...
A HISA ON OLYMPUS: by Wayan; 2014/6/15, a dream on the need to slow down
I'm a hisa, a primitive alien who solves a high-tech crime for the humans. Then I hike home,
step by step, down a great shield volcano. Because shuttles leave your soul behind...
THE HOLLOW HILL (PART 6): by Kathleen Raine, 1940; a dream elegy to a mentor
In Ireland, in Yeats's stone tower, he leads me up the spiral stair toward a thyme-scented portal...
HYPNOGOGIC ASSAULT: by Dr Simon Forman; 1559-63, recurring hypnogogic images.
From age six on, Simon nightly climbs mountains and faces roaring floods in a sort of naptime bootcamp...
"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
IT WASN'T EASY: by Wayan; 1983/2/24, a dream of escaping my family's unrealism
An Arabian prince kidnaps my girlfriend and me. We eventually escape his flying palace, but she gets trapped in
Victorian underwear, while I escape feuding politicians by turning myself into a truck tire. NOT a smart move...
CAUTION: BOGUS VICTORIAN SEX-EUPHEMISMS
JACOB'S LADDER: by Jacob, grandson of Abraham; c. 2050 BCE; a self-fulfilling prophetic dream.
Jacob dreams of angels climbing to heaven. He meets God, who promises
the Holy Land to him and his tribe. Jacob uncritically accepts...
JAMES MERRILL REMEMBERED: by Rachel Hadas; around May 1995; two dream-poems
Soon after my friend and mentor James Merrill died, I had recurring, elusive dreams about him...
JETPACK AND TIGER: by Wayan; 1988/3/17, a nonlucid yet lucidlike shamanic dream.
After watching both Star Trek & Doctor Who, I find I'm held prisoner by the Rani
and her laser-toting tiger guards. So I meditate--and manifest a jetpack and a laser gun!
I never deduced I'm dreaming; it's not lucidity. It's simpler. What have I got to lose?
JOURNEY IX: by Gary Snyder, 1970 or before, a dream of ascending through death
Ko said "Now we have come to where we die." I thought it looked just like the land we'd been traveling,
and couldn't see why we should have to die. Ko grabbed me and pulled me over the cliff...
CAUTION: DYING IN DREAM
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...
LADDER OF FEAR by Mike & Wayan, 2021/2/9; parallel dreams
MIKE: A reckless friend races up a hazardous ladder. I follow slowly, reluctant, scared. Almost a nightmare...
WAYAN: Mike recklessly climbs an outdoor ladder as lightning strikes. Scary! Wait--this dream feels psychic...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
LADDERS: by John S. Dykes, 1984; a surreal dream-sketch
Tiny people ride a herd of levitating ladders--badly.
One seems to have gotten bucked loose...
LAURA: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2009/10/24; painting in the Box of Dreams
As we climb down the steep mountainside, clutching bushes to keep from falling,
I ask Laura "Do you want another child?"
LET GO THE SAFE: by Wayan; 2014/2/6; poem of a lucid flying dream
I'm pushing a safe off a roof in Berkeley so it won't be pushed off the roof
(yep, you read that right) but it pulls me with it! Either die, or go lucid and fly...
LITTLE NEMO'S BED: by Winsor McCay; c. 1906, a famous if probably fictional dream icon
Little Nemo's bed gets restless and takes him for a wild ride through town and up onto roofs...
LONG ROAD TO HEAVEN: by Edwin Muir; 1920, an epic hypnogogic shamanic initiation
Creatures in the primal sea touch my third eye, dragons cry their eyes out, I fight the Sphinx, and arrive at last in...
LOON LADDER: by Wayan; 1993/5/13. A dream of rising above.
I had this near-nightmare about climbing a DNA stair up to the sky, and stepping off...
CAUTION: NUDITY, INCEST ISSUES
MAHAKALA, MOZART, AND THE CRIPPLED BIRD: by Wayan; 1985/4/17, a dream on facing shadows
The Christian God vs Mahakala, Buddhist god of right anger! War in Middle Earth, as Pink Floyd sings...
MAJOR F.'S EXPERIMENT: by Major F., Nov/Dec 1920, dream experiment urged by J.W. Dunne
DREAM 1: On green grass, a red & blue boat with a net draped atop. Predictive.
DREAM 2: Climbing a ladder with square rungs in a space w/o walls. Predictive.
DREAM 3: A small boy with a toy boat. A sail's laid out flat for washing. Predictive...
MANTA MOTHS: by Wayan; 1990/10/3, a transcendental nightmare echoing a dream 8 years before, (1982/1/22)
Manta Moths pick us off us explorers... or do they? An old scroll spoke of fear leading to transformation...
MARK ROLLS THE MELON: by Wayan, 1990/7/4, an Independence Day dream-comic
My friend Mark and I climb the Path of Righteousness to the summit where he finds a big red watermelon.
He rolls it down the Path of Righteousness, knocking businessmen aside like bowling pins! Why? Well...
MARVIN, CRASH: by Rick Veitch; Feb 1974; a predictive/warning dream
My "friends" pull me away from the girl of my dreams, push booze & pot at me,
and won't even try to climb the rope to success. But Marvin saves Evel Knievel
from a motorcycle crash. Sounds good--until, ten years later, I hear how Marvin died...
CAUTION: GRIM AFTERMATH
MEGALITHIC BREAKOUT: by Wayan, 2019/8/29; a half-lucid dream that needed to be
I'm a kid imprisoned in an empty stone castle. Squeeze through a stone slit, and prepare to drop ten feet
down the face of a great stone gate. But I go lucid, and my dream and waking body-senses conflict...
THE MOTORCYCLE-BOOK: by Alyse and Tim, 1979 or before, complementary dreams
ALYSE dreams Tim drives a motorcycle-book up a hill, but she doesn't LIKE riding so fast...
TIM dreams a wise woman tested him, but found him unqualified to play teacher to Alyse...
THE MOUSE BANNER: by Wayan; 1986/9/4, a dream fable.
I'm a mouse with a protest banner saying "FREEDOM!", having a slight argument with a cat...
MUTANT WEDDING: by Lisa Shea; 1991/8/3; an epic Jungian action dream!
I hide a chip of secrets from thugs, fight a running light-gun battle, and hide in my workplace's
crawlways, amid live cables and pipes. As the factory burns, I run a gauntlet of goons. A girl
leads me into the underworld. Fires glow and mutants dance. I marry the leader of the pack.
MY DREAM NIGHTJOB: by Jack Kerouac, late 1956 or early '57, an outa-the-mouths-of-babes dream.
I commute to my dreamjob on a four-story bus; then my baby brother
(who I wouldn't let eat any chocolate pudding) utters a new poem by William Blake...
NINA'S RING: by Nina's clown, 1955/4/20, a lifesaving intuition
While rehearsing our circus act I mentally saw Nina's ladder breaking loose.
Next day, a supporting ring snapped. Being forewarned, I pulled hard...
NOT A CAT: by Wayan; 2022/11/27, a dream of being a sort-of-ghost
I wander New York City, a homeless ageless child, unnoticed--unless I climb stairs. Then people panic--see a huge cat!
But today I meet a crew lugging big paintings, who seem blind to cat or child. I think they're art thieves, mid-heist...
CAUTION: SHAMANIC INTERPRETATION
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
OLYMPUS UNMASKED: by Wayan; 2022/8/10, a far-future dream
On terraformed Mars, we set out to climb Mt Olympus without
oxygen masks. The first miles are OK, but the air thins until...
CAUTION: ANTICIPATED DEATH?
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...
OVARIES: by "Ann", as told by Gayle Delaney, 1979 or before, a curative dream
Ann had inflamed ovaries and faced surgery. She asked her dreams for a second opinion. She dreamt of voices and images saying
"there's plenty of time for all this." She bathed peacefully in a river, meditated, gave easy birth to an infant, climbed a ladder to
her law degree. She woke cured. Her next doctor said "you must've been misdiagnosed; you just thought you were in pain."
CAUTION: SEXIST GASLIGHTING
OVER THE VOLCANO: by AE (George Russell); c.1900, an embarkation dream.
We're spirits over a volcanic fountain of energy. And some of us prepare to ride the current up to...
CAUTION: ASSUMES MYSTICAL LITERACY
PALM DREAM: by Skip Renker, 1984 or earlier, a slow nightmare? or a subtle challenge?
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."
PARROT SITTER: by Wayan; 2021/11/19, a flying-pulp-fiction-babysitting dream
A girl becomes a raven to cross a pond. Asks me to fly across carrying her (flightless) pet parrot
in a bag. I do, but later the parrot falls downstairs. So yuppies call me an irresponsible pet owner...
PASS, MARE: by Wayan; 1982/3/13, a sex dream about letting your animal side lead
A deer-girl turns into a talking mare. We make love. Then, relaxed, she
leads me over a pass from suburban isolation into a wider social world...
CAUTION: TALKING HORSE SEX
THE PEGASUS CHILD: by Wayan; 1982/4/4, a dream of family diversity and spiritual advice
Dad's human, Mom's a weird owl-lynx, the kid's a baby Pegasus... and I,
W.C. Fields, that fat cynical drunken old actor, am the babysitter...
PESSIMIST HELIX: by Wayan; 1996/6/9, a wise time-travel dream.
I work the info desk in a futuristic library. But one question leads me into a DNA-helix, a tornado of doubt...
PIANOS IN THE SKY: by an Illinois woman; before 1948, a happy recurrent dream come true
My heart's desire was a new piano, as hopeless as owning a yacht. The dream: a huge space in the air, full of wonderful...
PINKIE CLEANS THE WINDOWS OF PERCEPTION:
by Wayan; 2017/2/5, an advisory dream fusing Aldous Huxley & My Little Pony.
My new housemate Pinkie is a party animal, but she's really nice. She climbs a high ladder to help wash my
Windows of Perception. Then our unicorn friend Rarity walks in. She warns me to pace this renovation project...
CAUTION: PONIES
THE PLOWSHARES PROGRAM: by Wayan; 2017/11/12, a nightmare on tech disasters
Looks like this underground nuclear test will leak. Minutes from detonation,
we flee up the spiral stair and out across the sand. Can we run far enough in time?
PLUTO: THE NEWEST PLANET: by Lena, 2022/3; a dream warning of coming change
A disintegrating board game reminds me to take time to enjoy things beyond work and activism...
CAUTION: NUDITY, TRANSGENDER, ASTROLOGY
POLE OF THE EMPIRE STATE: by Wayan; 2002/3/26, a 9/11 nightmare about... suspension?
I find myself clinging to a pole as tall as the Empire State Building. Can I slide down
without falling? Or burning from friction? And... what's down there?
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
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..."
MY RAPPEL-MAD SISTER: by Wayan; 1984/7/14-15, twin dreams on being halfway.
My sister hoists us up to the Goddess's country too early, or too late: the ice is thawing, treacherous...
RED-SPATTERED DANCERS: by Wayan, 2023/2/15, a surreal predictive dream
DREAM: I climb a stair to a surreal space where kids dance in tights spattered with wet red paint.
NEXT DAY: I watch Wednesday--Wednesday Addams dances & gets spattered with wet red paint...
CAUTION: NUDITY, ESP SPECULATION
ROCKY LOVE: by Wayan; 1984/1/18, a dream farce.
A friend's tragic accident confines him to disco roller skates for life! Worse yet, he's in a Rocky Relationship...
CAUTION: "ROCKY HORROR" REFS, SEX
SEA-SPHINX: by Wayan; 2021/9/26, a nightmare? or advice on desire?
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?...
SKY-THAW; 2012/6/8 by Wayan; a comic, surreal, political dream-poem
While watching two rooftop actors (one a chicken) I noticed the icebergs in the sky were melting at last...
SNAKE TREE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1989/10/31, a dream revisioning Eden
A woman up a tree has white flaky stuff camouflaging her.
It cracks and peels like snakeskin. What tree is this, exactly?
SPACE PIE: by Wayan; 1999/4/8, a sociological jungle-gym dream.
I'm a Latina crossing the border at a nightmare bridge,
while an Anglo rants at me about the Space Race...
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...
THE STAIRWELL TEST: by Wayan; 1980/9/7, a... pedophilic defenestration dream???
An underage girl comes on to me, and begs me to... throw her down a stairwell?!
CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!
STANLEY, or, GOOD DOG!: by Wayan; 1994/6/1, a dream on... obedience.
My friend Stanley is a social icebreaker: blundering in where I'm too shy, and
too thick-skinned to worry much. He is what he is. So why am I mad at him?
STEREO TREE-BRIDGE: by Wayan; 2023/1/27, a surreal predictive dreamlet
DREAM: a weird footbridge of twisting tree-branches; with steps made of wood-cased stereo equipment!
NEXT EVE: a birthday potluck with a twisting papier-maché trees. Steps lead up to a treehouse full of...
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...
SURVIVOR'S CURIOUS: by Wayan; 2010/7/7, a dream of an inner guard relaxing
As we cross a scary ledge, my tough survival-guide, always no-nonsense before,
finally willing to consider... intellectualism, dating, ethics... fun?
TAMALPAIS: by Anna Halprin, 1979, a dream inspiring annual healing ceremonies
A murderer was stalking Mt Tam. I dreamed I met the murderous spirit; only
by allying with small dancers from inside the mountain could we defeat it...
CAUTION: NEW AGE
TEMPLE OF DREAMWORK: by Wayan, 2006/11/13, a flying & predictive dream
DAY: I have to read three academics who mock ancient, shamanic and modern amateur dreamwork as superstition.
DREAM: I'm learning to fly in the Temple of Dreamwork, next to a cute new colleague. NEXT DAY, I meet her...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.; DISSES ACADEMICS
33 EGGS: by "Anonymous #12"; pre-1963, a short, pointless, precise predictive dream
I dreamt a farmer gave me 33 eggs in a bucket. On the stair, he handed me 3 more. I woke, told my family...
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
TITANIA: by Wayan; 1981/12/7, 83/1/7 & 2/13 and 84/10/2, a dream-epic in installments
Clarence the sappy angel from It's A Wonderful Life and Milton's Lucifer land on Earth, offering treaties.
Who to sign with? Clarence thinks we're fine as is, but the Devil's a tinkerer, learning from failures. Failures
like me and my girlfriend Titania, the first android with a full palette of feelings. Like the feeling she's fake...
THE TOOTH: by SAO (Shawn Allen O'Neal), 2003?, an epic, oracular, baffling dream
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...
TOWER OF THE MARTIAN DEAD: by Wayan, 1983/7/7; a dream-poem of an exo-Valhalla
Climbing a mountain on Mars, I reach a hall where I'm transformed into a cryophilic being.
Then I feast on methane soup with the heroic Martian dead...
TRUST YOUR CANOE: by Wayan; 2012/8/16, two diagnostic dreamlets
I ride a magical self-guiding canoe, seeking the right beach and cove for me.
Even when the boat climbs hills so I can explore inland, I expect it to fail...
TSUNAMI: by Wayan; 2011/12/31, a feverdream, maybe predictive, definitely prescriptive
I cling alone to the cliffs of Lands End, so when the tsunami hits,
I survive. Had I been in the low, crowded Sunset district I'd be dead...
THE 1200-STEP PROGRAM: by Wayan; 1987/12/17, an illustrated dreamtale.
I'm climbing a tower, as my dad, Apollo, drunk, throws bottles at me from the top, breaking bones...
CAUTION: DENIAL ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
THE TYRANT'S WIFE: by Wayan; 1980/6/9, a dreamtale.
In our plot to kill the Tyrant, we used his wife. Or... did she use us? She goes mad, but--she's HAPPY...
UNGIRDLE THE TREE: by Wayan; dreamed 2018/10/6, a shamanic warning dream
I'm a girl living alone in a forest. I go patrolling after a storm and find a red cable
strangling a tree. Though scared, I climb up and tear it off. But there are more...
CAUTION: POLITICAL INTERPRETATION
VANDERMEER'S STAIR: by Jeff Vandermeer, 2013 or before,, a nightmarish creative prompt
I was on a spiral stair. The walls had scrawled messages, not sprayed,
carved or painted but living tissue--and getting fresher as I descended.
Whatever was growing them was still below me, and still writing...
WABOSE'S VISION: by Catherine Wabose (Ogeewyahnoquot Okwa), Feb. 1814? shamanic initiation dreams
After fasting for six days, I dreamed of three spirit helpers who aided my village,
guiding hunters toward game and healing others. But I lost so many loved ones...
CAUTION: SPOUSE MURDERED; CAREER BURNOUT
WAX WALL, PUMA COMA: by Wayan; 2022/8/8, 3 surreal genderbent time-bent dreams
I'm a demon girl out to sabotage a pirate radio station by climbing a tall
wall of glowing wax, carrying a comatose mountain lioness on my back!
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...
WINDOW IN THE SKY: by Emily Joy; 2006/10/15, an epic, flying, apocalyptic dream
When my friends and I learn to fly, all of Middle Earth turns against us!
Fleeing from Saruman's army, I discover the backstage truth about our world...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, DOOM, PHYSICS! YODA IN THE TUB!
WINGED BEAST: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/4/7/29, a dream of fighting one's own flaws
Swedenborg fights a monster but lacks strength. Yet later, on a higher plane, he learns the beast did die...
CAUTION: VIOLENT
WOLF DROOL: by Wayan; 2011/12/16, a seeming sex dream that's really health advice!
Miniaturized, smuggled over a border inside a she-wolf's mouth, I long
for where I got briefly hidden--her labia. But healing first, sex later!
CAUTION: FURRY SMUT; WEIRD SCIENCE (BUT REAL!)
WOLVES SITTING IN A TREE: by Sergei Pankejeff; winter 1888 or '89, a nightmare Freud made famous
When I was very small I dreamt a pack of wolves climbed the tree outside my window and
somehow got it open. Freud told me I must have seen my parents having sex doggy style...
CAUTION: REALLY, DR. FREUD?
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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