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Truth and Lies

Dreams of truth and lying--and their consequences. I've learned from painful experience that dreamwork itself doesn't progress very far if you lie much. If you're in an intolerable situation--a job that requires you to lie, or a relationship so dangerous you feel you must--do your best to leave, and soon. It's slow poison--as toxic as many hard drugs, and I do mean physically, not just in some mystical sense. If you can't tell the truth and can't escape, the next best tactic is silence. And silent planning to get out.

RELATED TOPICS: ethics - truth & lies - trust & mistrust - privacy & secrets - pessimism & negativity - criticism & nagging - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ALBATROSS LOVE: by Havelock Ellis; c. 1880?, a dream of unrequited love
An albatross with beautiful eyes transformed into a woman. But her nose remained a beak! She asked...
AN ALICORN BLADE IN THE HEART: by Wayan; 2010/12/18; a dream of a lucid flash
A witch & I duel with blades of spiral horn. But we both just want
to create an utterly truthful oracle. Can't we find a way not to fight?
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...
ANNABEL ROSE: by Emily Joy; 2006/12/14, a ghostbusting dream on... love? sex? what?
Edgar Allen Poe confronts his dead girlfriend, who wants to drag him into the grave with her...
CAUTION: HUNGRY GHOST, SEX TALK
AT A CALIFORNIA CAMP: by Jack Kerouac, spring 1955, a nuclear testing nightmare
My family and I are prisoners in a camp that will be H-bombed so our remains
can be studied. I write a Buddhist poem preparing for death...
CAUTION: GOVERNMENT ATROCITY
ATTAHUAH: by Jamie Sawyer; summer 2015, a postapocalyptic lucid dream of vengeance
Four guys plot to enslave my girl and kill me; I have lucid powers, and kill them instead.
My girlfriend Attahuah gets poisoned, but...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, DECEIT
BAT AND UMBRELLA: by David Small; c. 1960/3/1, a nightmare exposing deadly child neglect
I'm an orphaned bat in an alley in a storm. I mistake a broken old umbrella's ribs & flaps
for... my Mom! I unfold Mom, and discover...
CAUTION: LIFE-THREATENING CHILD NEGLECT
BETRAY MY ANIMAL FRIENDS: by Wayan; 1999/11/12, a dream of brainwashing.
As humans settle infospace, will we cheat other species trying to evolve into people?
Are we already doing it? Admiring & documenting creatures we've written off as doomed?
CAUTION: NUDE CREATURES; DISTURBING PREMISE
BIGAMIST: by a Carolina waitress; 1945, a telepathic dream
A sad, frail, very pregnant woman with dark brown hair told me she was my boyfriend's wife. The next day...
A BIKE ODYSSEY, or, ARABELLA'S ARTIFACT: by Wayan; 1994/7/24, a day trip echoed in a dream.
DAY: I bike across San Francisco writing down what I actually see.
DREAM: I'm an abused English heiress with a dangerous alien artifact...
CAUTION: HAUNTED BY CHILD ABUSE
BILLIE: by Billie's Mom; 1945/1/20, a psychic warning dream
My son Billie, his Navy uniform soaking wet, cried "Oh, Mom--it's so terrible!"
and shrank into a baby again as I held him...
CAUTION: EXPLOSION
BOGUS: by Ed Pell; 1990/11?; a financial forensic dream
DAY: I'm preparing a report on our industry; but the numbers seem a bit odd.
DREAM: Someone points out a big inventory generated no sales or income.
NEXT DAY: Awake, I hunt for evidence the inventory's real. And find...
BONES DON'T LIE: by Emily Joy; 2006/12/13, a gruesome nightmare on guilt.
I know I'm a murderer; what isn't so clear is what I killed and why...
CAUTION: DISMEMBERMENT, GUILT, DREAD
BRITISH TRIANGLE: by Wayan; 2019/8/18, a dream of another life.
I'm a middle-aged British writer in a triad with a sculptor and a dairy farmer
who seem happy sharing me. But it's a small town, so we must be discreet...
CAUTION: TRIAD THAT WORKS
BUT I WANT TO LIVE!: by Wayan; 1995/8/5, a life-altering dream.
My job's to clarify people's deepest wishes. But when I meet two women who truly want to die...
CAUTION: SUICIDAL IMPULSES
BUT SUCH DIFFERENT FRAUDS!: by Wayan; 1996/11/4, a moral dream.
A woman who posed as a Starfleet officer discovers other frauds on board. She blows the whistle on them...
BYE-BYE, OLD FILM!: by Wayan; 1981/1/24, a psychic dream, with a 2015/5/22 follow-up.
My friends destroy all my old films and give me a 'new' one--but it's from 1900! Then I wake to find...
CALPURNIA'S DREAM: by Calpurnia and her husband Julius Caesar; 44(BCE)/3/14, two warning dreams.
The night before Caesar's assassination, he dreamed he flew above the clouds and met Jupiter;
his wife Calpurnia dreamed he'd be stabbed, and begged him not to go out, but politics...
CARDANO'S DREAMS: by Girolamo Cardano, 1521 & 1547/8/15, two confusing oracular dreams
1521: I ask a talking ape how long I'll live. "Four years" he says. "No longer?" "No."
26 years later, I'm still hoping to get truth from dream-figures--two dead guys tell me...
CAUTION: JUNGIANS BEHAVING BADLY
CELEBRITY ATTACK!: by Pierre Dalcourt, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a complex dream on celebrity
As a mob of Hollywood stars beats me up, I ask for autographs--and get them.
I sell the autographs to fund a statue of the beating--but with me smiling...
CHEESE AND SCAB GRAPES: by Wayan, 1988/8/9, a warning/predictive dream I firmly ignored
DREAM: my parents nag me to go on a picnic, then bring plastic cheese and sprayed, scab grapes. Eat this & I'll get sick...
DAY: a farewell lunch at work. No one likes her, so folks brought only plastic cheese & scab grapes. I eat a bit & get sick...
CAUTION: PSYCHIC DREAM, STUPID DREAMER
CLAY BEHEADER: by Wayan; 1983/7/28, a nightmare offer.
A woman's stalked by a clay monster that eats heads. But it has a proposition for both of us...
CAUTION: CANNIBAL MONSTER
COMPLIANCE: by Wayan; 1984/12/20 & 2021/1/9, twin dreams 36 years apart showing cryptomnesia
2021: I dream I'm confessing to friends how I'm over-compliant. I wake, and start transcribing my
1984 journal. Turn the page and find a dream of a horny stallion who's disturbingly over-compliant...
CAUTION: KINKY STALLION
CONDOMS OR CONDIMENTS?: by Wayan, 1990/2/25, a sex-farce dreamlet with serious advice
After seeing Christina Applegate in Married with Children, I dream I'm in bed with her. For
contraception, I open a little square packet with... a condom? Or is it a fast-food packet of...
CAUTION: SEXUAL THEME
THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR: by Wayan; 1995/8/8, a dream on body image.
It's the Vietnam era; my draft board tolerates only a secret quota of COs. I decide not to tolerate THEM...
CONTRACT CLOAKS FOR COURIERS: by Wayan; 2019/5/30, a dream on enforcing contracts
After a day of medical mess-ups, I dream whites routinely cheat super-fast Native American pony couriers,
till the riders demand showy down payments called Contract Cloaks. Now cheats'll get publicly exposed...
THE CORE ISSUE: by Wayan; 1992/6/25, a dream from multiple viewpoints
The tale of a gray heart trying to heal leads to unicorn-hostage drama in the Transamerica Pyramid...
CAUTION: SEX, MAFIA THREATS, VIOLENCE
A CREATURE: by Albert Grass, 1938? Or Zoe Beloff, c.2008? An early Freudian dream-comic--or a hoax!
Dream: wild animals race across Paris, but in my hotel lobby, a small creature on my shoulder murmurs "Je t'aime."
Awake, I know those racers from the themepark where I work. But the creature takes me way back--to Paris, 1918...
CAUTION: ONE-NIGHT STAND
CRIMECON 90: by Wayan; 1990/3/27, a dream about capitalism.
I did what I love. The money didn't follow. So now I have to guard a crimeboss at a theft convention...
CAUTION: INEVITABLE CHEKHOVIAN SHOOTOUT
CROCODILE KING: by Christina Rossetti; 1855/3/9, a weird dream-poem she may have faked.
On the Euphrates, a monstrous crocodile eats all his kin. But when a winged ship appears, he feigns remorse...
A CROOKED BAND: by Wayan; 1996/8/21, a dream of chutzpah.
A spinoff band sues the original group for playing their own songs and using their own name...
CRUCIFERS: by Greg Hildebrandt; recurring nightmares 1969-71, painted 1971
After breaking with the Catholic Church, Greg had recurrent nightmares about its history of atrocities
and cover-ups. Out of this came a series of paintings unlike his famous book covers. This was the first...
CAUTION: MURDEROUS MOB
CULT OF CAKE: by Wayan, 2022/4/16, a dream on disinformation?
I infiltrate the Cult of Cake. Novices drool over chocolate frosting
and hand over their life savings. It's a pyramid scheme! A food...
CAUTION: TRUMP REFERENCES; HIDEOUS PUN
CYCLES AGO: dream by Maud Gonne, poem by WB Yeats; late July 1891, a dream-poem
We were as if brother and sister of old in the desert land;
they sold us in slavery together before this life had begun...
DAD SMASHES COPCAR: by Wayan, 1977/5/26, a warning dream physically enforced the next day
My dad drives recklessly, hits a copcar hard, smashing our front end. I wake
knowing it says "Kay's a batterer. Leave her or I'LL be smashed." That day...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARE, BATTERING ISSUES
DALLAS GMORK: by Wayan; 1984/8/21, a predictive nightmare
I'm a protester in Dallas, fighting Reagan's cops. A werewolf kills two of them.
I may be its real prey; is police harassment distracting the wolf from me?
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND DISTURBING PREDICTION
DATIN' DEMON: by Mark Varitz and Wayan; 1989/12/3; Mark's dream triggers one by Wayan.
I meet my personal demon, and discover it has a personal demon: me! Am I worse than my Shadow?
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, NUDE MONSTERS
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?
DIAGNOSTIC BATTERY: by Wayan; 1988/4/20, a nightmare of backstabbing that came true
My sister & her new guru tests me psychologically--only it looks like a test to destruction...
CAUTION: EMOTIONAL CRUELTY
DOCTOR WHO AND DEATH: by Wayan; 1984/6/30, a hopeful dream of betrayal.
Dr Who, that lovable BBC alien, grows a sappy flower-face and
allies with Death. An alarming turn-around! What's he up to?
CAUTION: GOOD DOCTOR GOES BAD?
DOG BITES CAT: by Wayan; 2015/2/17; a grating dream-poem
I get bullied into dogwalking. A biter--leaves a cat bloody. You'd think a talking dog'd listen. But Cheney...
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
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
DOPPELGANGER: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; 6-page hostage-dream comic; shamanic?
Tony works as a courier in Sarajevo till he inadvertently delivers a bomb. Held by
a warlord for months, he dreams within the dream, and draws those dreams...
CAUTION: GRIM
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...
EAR TO THE, UH, WALL: by Wayan; dreamed 1983/10/10
Granny's magic nipple helps me foil the yuppies dumping toxic
waste. But does it count if I did it just to save my own...
CAUTION: CRUDE TALK; STETHESCOPIC NIPPLE
EMBER IN THE BRAIN: by Wayan; 1983/3/31, a dream about old anger.
I'm the Incredible Hulk, forced to do emergency brain surgery. For the patient's burning from within...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND UNLICENSED MEDICINE
EVASIVE MANEUVERS: by Wayan, 1986/9/17, a doubly predictive dream
DREAM: Landsmen betray their mermaid lovers in a harbor full of towers that seem tilted and broken from under the sea.
NEXT MORNING: My boss asks me to track down a new translation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.
AFTERNOON: I find a book on IQ tests that include spatial questions full of broken geometric shapes--familiar shapes...
CAUTION: MERMAID BREASTS
EXPLORATION OF TAROT IMAGES IN A DREAM: by Roswila, 1998; an analytical numerate dream
Tarot cards fuse and meanings layer, to warn me I've similarly (con)fused>
real and trance-induced memories during therapy...
CAUTION: ABUSE ISSUES
FALADA: The Goose Girl's Best Friend: by Mardi Storm, recurring predictive dreams c.1975-79, sculpted c.2000
I had recurring dreams in which a talking horse’s head was nailed to a tree.
Strangely, this was before I read "The Goose Girl" in Grimm's fairytales...
CAUTION: GRIMM ALL AROUND
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...
FEMINIST GUNNERY CLASS: by Wayan, 1977/5/27, a clear warning dream I was just guilty to act on
That day, I hid from my batterer Kay. I dreamed I was the only man in a feminist gun class, learning self-defense...
CAUTION: DOMESTIC BATTERING
FIREBOWL: by Wayan; 2013/9/14; a diagnostic/climatological/futurological dream
I'm in the High Plains, at a huge powwow on climate change. This could become, not a new
dustbowl, but a firebowl. As I wake, I find I'm running a fever! And the dream hints what caused it...
FLYING IS TASTELESS: by Miriel; 1985/12/11, a warning dream
I dreamed I learned to fly. But my so-called friends
told me flight is tacky and I should stay grounded...
FLY WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE: by Wayan; 1998/8/31, a dream of flight and lies.
My recent attitude changes are so big, I can fly now. Yet I hide them, lie to my family... why?
A FOUNTAIN IN THE ARMENIANS: by Pauline Ramsey; early July 2006, a clairvoyant dream?
I spoke a proverb I’d never heard of when I woke. So I Googled it, and found it had meaning--dark meaning...
CAUTION: TURKISH JINGOISTS WILL NOT LIKE THIS DREAM
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.
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
FOX COUPLE: by Wayan, 1990/2/15; poem of a warning dream
I meet a tall bipedal talking fox. He has a human house. And a pet vixen--on a leash. But
she talks too! Tells me he mounts her--yet treats her like a pet. She's never come yet.
But she stays! Still, I'm as dysfunctional as either of them--if not worse...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
GHOST GATOR: by Wayan; 1984/10/9, a lip-reading dream.
A child from another universe materializes--part way. Too bad we called in that expert from Stanford...
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...
GOLD NECKLACE: by Elaine, c.1970, told to Ann Faraday; a subliminal or psychic warning dream
DREAM: My husband was slipping a gold necklace onto a slim, dark girl I'd never met. I woke and sketched it...
AFTER: He was having an affair with the girl, and gave her the necklace the night of my dream--her birthday...
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...
GOSHEN: by Percy Konqobe; 1940s-1960s?, a lifelong recurring psychic dream
I hear voices: "The road to success is in Kafkat, in a place called Goshen." I look back, and see seven male shadows...
THE GREAT DREAM by Victoria, between 1988 & '94, introduced by Gayle Delaney; a sex dream on creativity!
My husband's sweet, supportive, but not that attractive. It's my brother (meaning creativity) who
gives me oral sex to die for, as my parents quarrel and a chorus chants "Ecstasy, ecstasy"...
CAUTION: INCEST
GREEN RAY, BLUE WINGS: by Wayan, 1974/7/14, a joyful apocalyptic dream
High in the Sierra during a thunderstorm, I dream aliens steal the gold, and the sun's
going nova. But Life wants us to conquer space, so we all grow wings...
GREEN SCREEN ANGEL: by Wayan, 2018/10/18, a bizarre predictive dream
A reporter interviews the guardian angel of my dead sister Jill in front of a
green screen. He's dissolving in grief--luminous holes show through...
GUARDIAN GHOST: by an Oklahoma girl; 1919, a dream (?) of ghostly advice
I dreamed my late stepdad warned me to stand by my mom--she'd be in trouble soon--gossip & blame...
HEADSHRINKER: by William S. Burroughs, c. 1990? A dream of rage against liars
A CIA man trying to infiltrate a revolutionary group flunks a lie-detector test, so the Headshrinker...
CAUTION: REAL HEADSHRINKER
HERE COMES A CHOPPER: by Wayan; 1983/6/20, an absurd nightmare on families and denial
The helicopter over our family home dipped too low. CRASH! Burning rotors in the living room.
I call 9-1-1, but the pilot scolds me! "Calling over a little explosion like this!"...
HOMEBOUND: by Sunshine; 2015/3/21, a dream posing an ethical dilemma
Elves are making humans grow tree-doors back to Faerie. But are they invasion-scouts, or just going home?
CAUTION: GUNFIGHT, MIND CONTROL
THE HONEST INMATE: by Wayan; 1997/5/8, a dreamfable on truthfulness.
I'm a psychopath in a prison for the insane. But I fall in love, and change. Blunt honesty fuels the change...
HONESTY THE WITCH: by Wayan; 1974/6/1, a flying dream.
A witch advocates honesty, but kids mock her; one boy tries to rape her. We fight mid-air, riding her broom...
CAUTION: RAPE ATTEMPT
I DO, WE DO: by Victor Henderson; 1982/2/16, a dream & painting on swapping faces
A surgeon persuaded me to swap my face with another man's. But I found I felt compelled
to carry on his life, not mine--to pass for him. And when I demanded my face back...
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
ILLUSIONISTS DON'T RULE: by Wayan; 1996/8/26, a dream on the strength of logic.
I read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind; I dream
I'm a pilot who deduces an alien illusionist's in my plane...
I'M NOT THE DIRECTOR!: by Federico Fellini; Oct. 1961, a dream pun on denying your lifework
I'm the director of an airport. A mysterious Mongolian traveler lands. Let him in
or not? I try to avoid the decision by lying--say "I'm not the director!"...
INSIDER DATING: by Wayan; 2017/4/2, a dream of how others see us?
I dream my friend's amused that I date women to steal work-secrets; I get rich off
insider trading, while they get fired. Only... I don't! Where'd he get this idea?...
IRONY: by Wayan; 2007/6/15. A vertical comicstrip burned into (naturally) an ironing board
I’m so sick of irony I decide to get my sense of irony surgically removed and replace it with...
CAUTION: PLAYING WITH FIRE
JOIN THE WOLVES LATER!: by Wayan; 1980/9/4, a dream of false but useful fear.
Shepherding a group of cityfolks through an alien wilderness, I need a werewolf's help. So why do I lie?
JUNG'S CELLARS: by Carl Jung, Aug or Sept 1909; his dream of the mind's structure--and a weird follow-up
My home seemed antiquated but pleasant. I found a stair down to a darker, medieval floor.
A dark stair led down to a Roman cellar. A trapdoor led down to a cave with ancient skulls...
KEVIN'S CRASH: by Wayan, 2018/10/1, a politically-tinged nightmare
After watching the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, with their rape accusations,
I dream of a reckless driver named Kevin who runs down a skateboarder and blames everyone else...
CAUTION: KAVANAUGH SUPPORTERS WON'T LIKE THIS
LIE TO AVOID MURDER: by Wayan; 2016/3/3, a sex dream prompting nonsexual action
Two jealous women symbolize Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump. Trump wants me to KILL Clinton. I lie to avoid...
CAUTION: SLEAZE? OR A SLY WAY TO PROTECT VICTIM?
LIES!: by Wayan; 1992/7/10, a dream that thinks it's a two-page novel.
To investigate a criminal couple, I have to lie. And that's hard, since all my lies turn true...
CAUTION: NEW AGE AND FILM NOIR DON'T MIX
LISTEN TO YOUR WIFE: by Edward Bennet's daughter, 1757/7/11; a predictive dream
Bennet's daughter dreamt her husband drowned after wading too deep (he couldn't swim). He promised
he'd avoid deep water, but his best friend played a prank, treading water to make it seem shallow...
CAUTION: WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE...
THE LONGEVITY INSTITUTE: by Wayan, 2019/5/7; a dream on a family mutation
On the show Finding Your Roots, it turns out my dad's a genetic experiment born in...
1880?! The experiment worked; my sisters and I are slow-maturing, long-lived mutants...
LOSE YOUR TEMPER!: by Emily Joy; 2007/8/30, a tough-love dream.
My mom hires a therapist who really goes for my throat! Why is she so desperate to make me lose my...
CAUTION: OVER-THE-TOP CONFRONTATION
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
MALWARE IN THE BRAIN: by Wayan, 2017/12/27, a possibly predictive dream.
Dream: tourists in our town use brainware to navigate & translate, but it's infected. Turns you fascist. Whaaaat?...
Next day: the FBI knocks! Our web provider fingered us as a nest of internet criminals. Thanks, Comcast!
Talk about malware...
THE MAN WITH THE SNAKE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2002/9/3, dream of an aborted shamanic duel
I stood in the desert preparing for a contest with a man and his snake. But he cheated! Then my cat Lulu intervened...
MANDALA: by Carl Jung, c.1915; a drawing he lied about for decades
Jung, in crisis, drew a complex mandala, and then wrote about its
symbols & archetypes, always claiming a patient had drawn it...
MANTA-SQUID: by Wayan; 1986/3/13, a nightmare on the Senoi hoax
DAY: I read an exposé on "Senoi dreamwork"--the Malaysian Senoi people disavow it. Some white guy just made it up!
DREAM: I'm a dream researcher in Malaysia. A manta-squid attacks! Now the "Senoi" focus on my needs makes sense...
CAUTION: TENTACLE-RAPE ATTEMPT
MATURITY: by Wayan; 1989/1/26, a dream on bluntness.
Beverly Cleary's Ramona is a popular teen, but she's having a nervous breakdown. And her best friend...
CAUTION: STUDENT-TEACHER AFFAIR
MEAD'S ADVICE: by Beverly O'Neill; c.1977? 78? a dream on seeking a female rolemodel
I try hard not to invade Margaret Mead's privacy, but I need her advice;
after I find a fruit true growing in a forgotten room, she unbends...
MISSION CARNAVAL: by Wayan, 2022/7/27; a disorienting dream
I'm in a loading dock with the door pulled halfway down, so I have to look between my legs
to see the mythical dancers outside--upside down. Wait, why am I hiding in here? Go join...
CAUTION: MOCKS PLATO; NUDE CENTAUR, TOO
MORTAL MIST: by Wayan; 2010/10/19, a lucid dream of a new sort for me
I miss all sorts of cues I'm dreaming, but I ignore my conviction I'm awake and try to fly anyway...
MUTISM'S PENUMBRA: by Wayan, 2019/9/9, an otherworldly dream of a curiously familiar malaise
In a world of wizards, many have gone silent. They seem to forget speech exists. A toxin, a disease? But what explains
people's calm as more go mute? No, it's an insidious spell--with a penumbra making us take its spread for granted...
CAUTION: IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR WORLD
MY GLASS HEART: by Carl Linkhart, 1998 or before; dream poem/painting
My glass heart survived the rocket's blast, but I'm stranded on this barren world.
Wrapped in glamor, we climb a steep forbidding stair into a rosy, fake tomorrow...
NEW LEVEL!: by "Julian"; 2006/5/22, 3 gamelike dreams in one night, two of them epic
My mom and I road-duel an alien beetle, then investigate a deepspace Marie Celeste;
then I spy for the Angevin Empire to protect the Crown Jewels...
NIGHTMARE QUARTET: by Hans Rickheit; before May 1991, four Dada nightmares
Ow! My body parts grow & shrink... A mad orchestra leader pulverizes me for nonconformity...
The Brady Bunch crams siblings into a waterpipe one by one. I'm next! My bones crunch...
I'm blindfolded, perched on a miles-high needle piercing my big toe. Blood drips down...
CAUTION: GLEEFULLY GROSS
ODE TO SPAM: by Wayan; 2007/10/11, a poem about the wonders of email
Softly snows the spam upon my lonely brain, quilting me in flounderdrifts. Shovel it again...
OLDER AND YOUNGER: by 'Rasselon'; 2009/11/17, a dream of erotic deviousness
The older sorceress I'm in bed with plans to marry me off to a younger woman, but I distract her with my tongue...
CAUTION: BEDROOM HUMOR
OTTERS DON'T FAKE: by Wayan; 1989/10/15, a sex dream that's not about sex at all.
I'm scared to show my dream-paintings to my art class. That night I find an large otter in my bed...
CAUTION: SEX
PARLOR GAME: by a bridge builder's wife; pre-1961, a party game interrupted by a real premonition
I had fun playing fortuneteller, until David. My hands turned icy. I asked "Where are you going?"
PASSION: by Katie Hofgard; 2006, an undream portrait of a complex woman.
Talk about mixed messages! Or... is it really?
CAUTION: NUDITY, SLIGHT FIRE HAZARD
PAUL AND THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS: by Anna Kingsford; 1877/7/17, an indignant channeled dream
Jesus's disciples kvetch that Paul, who never knew Jesus, twisted his clean simplicity into a religion...
CAUTION: JARGON, HERESY (on one side or other)
PEELING HER SKIN: by Wayan; 2020/10/20, a dream about the MeToo movement?
A spacy friend rolls on the floor with me. Seduction, or play, or what?
She peels off patches of clothes and skin, exposing a new realer self...
CAUTION: TRUMP FANS WILL HATE IT
THE PEGASI TUB: by Wayan; 2013/11/9, a fun, flirty dream I felt I didn't deserve
After a rainy hike I'm cold and muddy. In the camp's hot tub, six girls splash and play.
They welcome me, but I feel shy. They slowly become winged ponies! Were-Pegasi...
CAUTION: HOT-TUB NUDITY
PENIS IN A BREADBASKET: by Beverly, 1994 or earlier, as told by Gayle Delaney; a marriage-advice dream
Beverly dreamt her party guests all wore masks. What were they hiding? Next she dreamt they passed around a
breadbasket. In it was her husband's penis! She woke, asked around, and found he'd had affairs with half their guests...
CAUTION: GENITAL SYMBOLISM
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
PRAISE THE DANCING GOONS: by Wayan; 2008/10/16, a dream-poem: Dreamverse 34
Three big tap-dancing kidnappers is too many to fight. So I try admiring their kidnapping technique...
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...
PUT TWICE AS MUCH IN: by Wayan; 2003/9/22, a dream warning how much it takes to change
All the claymation figures I made in my teens are gone but one. And the centauress has a broken hip
and spindly leg. I start to mend her, but I need TWICE the clay I thought...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY
REQUIEM FOR GINGER: MAGNIFICAT: by Lily; 2008/1/31, a dream on facing loss.
I dream I’m telling a tall tale about a cat-funeral with hung-over mice pulling the hearse. But it all turns a bit too real...
RESHAPE MY FACE: by Wayan; dreamed 1988/9/21; a dream on the benefits of indulgence
Lounging in the sun, I do a magical make-over--molding my bones to give myself more room for
intuition, judgment, nerve--all the while feeling shallow & indulgent for self-improving!...
SAVONAROLA: by Mrs C., circa 1867; a dream mocking excess self-criticism
Mrs C. dreamed she was the ascetic preacher Savonarola, who wanted to burn all vanities.
In her audience she saw... Mrs C! So she, Savonarola, aimed her barbs at all of C's flaws...
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
SHAMANIC CHEW-TOY: by Wayan; 2011/3/16; nested dreams of strange women
Compulsively honest spirit-women with waterjugs invade my friend's house.
I wake to find my girlfriend's obsessing on hair loss. To calm her, I babble about limb loss...
and wake again to find she was a dream too.
SHARPSHOT: by Wayan; 1977/4/3, a surreal poem of a warning nightmare
When I was being battered, I dreamed where it would end
if I didn't leave: dead wife, shot husband...
CAUTION: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
SHE LIVES TO 140: by Wayan; 2017/7/13, a dreamlet urging crankiness
I meet a 140-year-old hermit in her black chadoor,
skateboarding down a hill near her sacred dream-spring...
SHHHH!: by Wayan; 1981, daydream in ink.
A sudden image of a woman whose other lips not only talked, they wouldn't shut up. Worse yet, they...
CAUTION: NUDITY
SHOCKWAVE: by Wayan; 1996/7/27, a predictive nightmare.
My childhood home explodes into a vast pyroclastic cloud that comes boiling toward me, miles away...
CAUTION: DOOM
SHOOT THE MIRROR!: by Sir Oliver Lodge; 1927/10/15, a dream of stagy twists
A man frames his big brother, til their sister makes him shoot his own reflection. Neither one expects...
SHOVED OFF A CLIFF: by Wayan; 2017/9/7, a nightmare-warning (I'd asked what to do next).
Atop a sea-cliff, I meet a young couple in love. One look at me and they
push me off! When I see I can't save myself, I try to take them with me...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARE BARING UGLY TRUTHS
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
SISTERS' PSYCHODRAMA: by Christine Downing; before 1986, recurring dream of a Hadean abduction
In psychodrama, my sister/lover did a happy childhood scene--till the actors took her
down a trap door into the underworld. And I knew I'd have to go down after her...
SNOT-BIRD FORGERY!: a dream by Samuel Pepys, 1667/6/29, & a nightmare by Thomas Macaulay, c.1857
Samuel Pepys dreamt of kidneystones, pee, come, & snot--or did he? Thomas Macauley dreams his niece confesses...
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
STOP RESISTING; 2000/1/2 by Anonymous #37; nightmare of injustice
I'm sentenced for a crime I didn't commit; then the bailiff beats me for "resisting", though I'm not...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, SWEARING
THE SUPERCELLS; 2005/3/4 by Anonymous #37; nightmare of a pointless eco-coverup
Multiple tornadoes touched down in the fields, but the farmer's wife sewed
in a rocking chair, oblivious. I moved to warn her but my lieutenant said...
SUPERHERO TRAINING KITS: by Wayan; 2006/12/17, a wise mishmash dream
I careen from a shamanic laboratory
to a shattered ring round an alien world
to (gasp) an honest politican!...
SUVY & JOHN DOE: by Shawnodese, c.1970; a precognitive warning dream
I dream my friend Suvy introduces me to a man who just took a class I'm considering.
Weeks later she introduces me to him--but just as in my dream, he feels a bit insipid...
TANYA'S DREAMS: by Tanya, as told by Gayle Delaney, Jan 1971-June '72; a set of 6 breakup dreams
My friend Tanya tries hard to save her marriage, but in her dreams Isidora Duncan,
Carl Jung, even the gods themselves warn her to face their deep incompatibility...
TASTEBUDS AND LIARS: by Wayan; 1993/8/7, a dreamtale.
I was warned Wolf-Cats turn on people, but I still befriended one. Now I'm looking down its throat...
TEN THOUSAND MAD GHOSTS: by Wayan; 1996/9/3, a psychic nightmare.
A toxic site in Silicon Valley isn't a chemical spill, but angry ghosts, killed in a camp and forgotten...
CAUTION: THE CAMP TURNS OUT TO BE REAL
TEXANS: by Wayan, 2018/8/22, an alternate-world dream
The Lone Star Planet--worldwide Texas--is weirdly empty. No kids at all! Instead, teens
ping into existence pre-formed. An alternate Earth with no concept of change?
THORHADD'S FOURTEEN DREAMS: by Thorhadd of Berufjord, c.1018; 14 warning dreams (2 predictive)
Thorhadd's been slandering his enemy Thorstein. He spars publicly with a dream expert
who interprets all his dreams as: "Your tongue just can't quit!" True. It can't...
CAUTION: VIKING EGOS (AND BODY COUNT)
THREE CLASSES: by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, 1928/12/10; a dream on scientific integrity
I dream I'm teaching my students that those willing to let evidence change their minds are rare.
Climbers seek fame and status, while iconoclasts seek to upset order without regard for truth...
CAUTION: SOBERING FROM A NOBEL PRIZE WINNER
THROATS and SLOT MACHINE: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, two odd dreamlets
THROATS: Men put babies into giant throats inset in a funhouse wall;
SLOT MACHINE: I see a slot machine generating random art-speak phrases...
THYROID: by Marc Ian Barasch, c. 1985; a set of life-saving diagnostic nightmares
In 1985 I was flooded with nightmares about heads and necks. They had an unparalleled intensity...
TRUMPOCALYPSE UNDERLING: by Wayan, 2020/5/3, a reality-based nightmare
Donald Trump is Satan. I'm just a low-level devil, under his thumb.
I feel helpless to stop his businesslike plans for the Apocalypse...
CAUTION: POLITICAL RAGE; PREDICTS COVID'S LATER WAVES
ULYANOVSK: by Wayan, 1987/11/4, a predictive & advisory dream
DREAM: I'm a Soviet Potato Fest. Reds, grannies, food. A girl's told a life-and-death lie about a canine...
NEXT DAY: I read a version of Red Riding Hood, and the dream's weird elements suddenly make sense.
CAUTION: SOVIET CLICHÉS, E.S.P. SPECULATION
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...
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
UNIVERSITY OF THE SIERRA: by Wayan; 1975/10/30, a pun-studded dream poem
Jealous of newlyweds, I grind my teeth. But the Ice Age ground the Sierra's granite teeth, and they're lovelier for it...
THE WAR HISTORY LIES: by Wayan; 2023/3/18, a personal dream? Or a political one?
A TV documentary shows the history of war. Or does it? In what war did great clouds of flame
swallow sailing ships? Every scene they show is a natural disaster. Why are they lying?
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!
'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...
WHITE LOON: by White Loon, 1870s?, an initiation-negotiation dream
At ten, I fasted a long tedious time. I dreamed a bird offered me showy gifts, but I kept to my grandmother's advice: never take the
first offer. At last a big, strange bird from the north, a white loon, offered me long life and health; that I accepted! So now I'm called...
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...
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!
WIRES: by Wayan; 1957-1963, a recurrent childhood nightmare resolved by drawing, 1999/12/8
I was bodiless but trapped. All I could see were these moving wires. Whenever a knot drifted by...
CAUTION: MADNESS, TORMENT, TELEPATHY, SEXUAL REBELLION
WIZARD VERSUS WITCH-HUNTER: by Wayan; 2023/4/16, a dueling dream
Truce at last! We can party again. But witch-hunters burst in and try to arrest me for being a wizard. They
use a box of strong-arm force; I use my wand. But their weapon's rechargeable battery overheats, while I...
CAUTION: CRITIQUES SELF-STYLED RATIONALISTS
A WOMEN'S WORLD: by Wayan; 1996/8/6, a psychic dream.
I visit Earth during an all-female era. I'm a woman, can pass for local--so why do I lie to fit in?
CAUTION: SEXIST SLUR
THE WOODRING LAYER: by Wayan; 2008/7/7. A dream questioning art's job.
Great towers rise into a fog zone--or is it another world with other rules? And how to draw both levels?
WORD AND DEED: by Wayan; 1989/8/1, an embarrassing dream fable.
After watching the sex film Emmanuelle with my sister (we both like girls) I dream
she & I & Emmanuelle are in bed together--and I learn a little something about denial...
CAUTION: DREAM INCEST; AWKWARD NONSEXUAL INSIGHTS


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