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GOLD EATER

Digital comic of a 1993/1/15 dream (with bits from a couple of other dreams, as you'll see). By Chris Wayan

Gold Eater, page 1.
Gold Eater, page 2.

Gold Eater, page 3.

Gold Eater, page 4.

Gold Eater, page 5.

Gold Eater, page 6.

Gold Eater, page 7.

Gold Eater, page 8.

Gold Eater, page 9.

NOTES 19 YEARS LATER

Page 1
The divided city: Beirut in the dream, but it stood for any hopelessly factionalized society--such as my middle school, where I was shunned hit and spat on for being a minority of one. Yes, I'm quoting Orwell.
Page 2
The stolen sun, frozen Earth, a pail of air: images from Fritz Leiber's classic SF story "A Pail of Air", which made a big impression on me as a kid.
"Now, go": the Wizard of Oz (turned suddenly sinister) to Judy Garland.
Page 3
I'm a black-maned horse: My dream-friend Silky often appears as a black mare. My equinity here hints I'm getting a Silky's-eye-view, my dreams' viewpoint.
Dig up and smelt gold with my clumsy hooves: a decade of hard dreamwork
My slave-boss eats the gold: for that decade I compulsively saved so I could quit my job and be an artist; I harshly restricted spending.
Devil mask: from the cover of C.S. Lewis's That Perilous Strength, an unpleasant book about scientists, demons, and academics (all one species, if you ask C.S.)
Page 4
Cat girl: now this is Silky! The generous-hearted side of me open to strange situations.
shying away: I often still do.
Page 5
"The Shadow is 90% pure gold": from Ann Faraday's The Dream Game, on Jung's concept of the Shadow, all we dread and deny about ourselves.
Attacks: I had recurring flulike attacks I now think were undiagnosed Lyme disease. The illness isolated me.
Page 6
Paradox of the chessboard: still mysterious. But the stress of forcing myself to be social, to try and date, when I was so ill, did trigger attacks. I got better when I indulged my solitary side.
Page 7
Gumball machine full of sea life: I just saw an episode of "Cosby" in which a shopowner falsely testified he saw Bill Cosby smash open a gumball machine.
Tidepool critters: they endure dehydration, and my life was dry indeed. No booze, sex, dancing, fun--everything made me sick.
Page 8
The bubble on the beach: I was starting to control my illness and come out of my shell, but I had narrow survival habits to unlearn.
Page 9
"Therapists may say": A dozen shrinks told me I must secretly want to be poor, single and sick. I half-believed them. This nightmare urged me to dump such beliefs--and jerks. I did. Found a 13th shrink who helped me deduce the physical cause. Now I can block the attacks with herbs & antibiotics. Psychosomatic, huh?
"Born cry work die buy buy": a hexapaul, my variant of the pentapaul (a terse verseform) quoted in Cordwainer Smith's tale Under Old Earth:
Try. Vie.
Cry. Die.
       Bye.
This comic was drawn with a mouse on an old Amiga computer with just 8 colors per page. Bronze Age digitality! As opposed to, say, watercolor.
watercolor of a dream by Wayan: 'Gold Eater'. A pony rebels against its monster master, who forces the pony to dig gold.


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