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Nocturne

A book of improv paintings on my life of dreamwork, painted from 2023/3/16 to 9/20 by Wayan

Silky as a coyote girl, climbing. Detail from 'Nocturne', a book of improv paintings on dreamwork by Wayan.


INTRODUCTION

In March, a friend gave me two black-paged books to paint in. I tackled the small one first. I decided to paint improvs and see what came out. My only rules:

  1. Draw or paint it all myself--no collage, no borrowing others' images.
  2. If I dislike a page, just keep painting til I DO like it. Leave it in! No discards.
  3. No need to fill the page. Let it breathe!
I was surprised that a unified story soon emerged--a declaration of independence about my approach to dreams. I titled it Blackground.

But my theme was too big for that little book; I needed more room to try diverse painting styles from pure abstract through drybrush, impressionism, surrealism, cartoons... So I opened the bigger book, an empty, black-paged photo album, and started painting...

Cover of 'Nocturne' by Wayan; click to enlarge

Right away, a narrator showed up. Not day-me, but Silky, my anima, who manifests in my dreams in animal form as often as human. Silky looked back over half a century of dreamwork--a long arc of 40,000 dreams--my full range.

P.2 of 'Nocturne', a book of improv paintings on dreamwork by Wayan; click to enlarge P.3 of 'Nocturne': portrait of Silky, by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.4 of 'Nocturne': cave-mouth, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.5 of 'Nocturne': catgirl by glowing cauldron, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 6-7 compare dreams to a cloud chamber in physics. The tracks of strange particles (individual dreams) can build up to imply a deeper, invisible order.

P.6 of 'Nocturne': spiral tracks, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.7 of 'Nocturne': close-up of Silky with spiral hair, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 8-11 show a few odd dreamworlds... though one of them, most people would call waking reality. But to Silky, and me, your reality's just one more recurrent dreamscape in a much bigger multiverse.

P.8 of 'Nocturne': a dream of cubic cities and naked apes, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.9 of 'Nocturne': a dream of shy sentient horses, by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.10 of 'Nocturne': a dream of grumpy water-lizards, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.11 of 'Nocturne': dreams as glowing coral gardens, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 12-15, Silky explores the ideas of a spacetimescape (with height as improbability) and time-streams as merely local flows downhill--inclinations one can overcome! This model's the only one I've found useful to explain predictive dreams and our ability to change the future foreseen. I learned it from Heinlein's tale "Elsewhen", 1940; he based it on JW Dunne's An Experiment with Time, 1927; timeforks and the multiverse originated with psychologist William James c.1900--as early as Freud! And for 15,000 years before James, shamans have called it the Tree of Time.

P.12 of 'Nocturne': coraline dreams in glowing cauldron, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.13 of 'Nocturne': playful cat on glowing arc, by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.14 of 'Nocturne': Silky as a mare in a timescape with improbability-peaks, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.15 of 'Nocturne': Time as a tree/stream, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 16-17 became a two-page spread, exploring the lure of seductive dream characters who can draw you out into new behaviors. The carrot's more effective than the nightmare stick! By the way--all these creatures are real dream figures I met, or, in the dreams of the Shiprock Mare, Revolution's Owl and the Mermaid Detective, I was.

P.16 of 'Nocturne': sexy dream creatures like Pinky & the Noctarist, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.17 of 'Nocturne': sexy dream creatures like the Foxtaur of Triton, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 18-21 show the opposite--the austere type I call 'topological' dreams--no characters, just landscape or space. Such dreams are often prophetic or diagnostic, for me. These spreads are a tribute to Shaun Tan's textured art, as in The Arrival or Tales from Outer Suburbia. I painted them with a kitchen sponge.

P.18 of 'Nocturne': Silky as coyote with staff climbs a red hill, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.19 of 'Nocturne': long red hill, dreamscape by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.20 of 'Nocturne': mountain pass, semi-abstract dreamscape by Wayan; click to enlarge P.21 of 'Nocturne': lake and spiral, semi-abstract dreamscape by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 22-25: the issues of scale and moderation in dreamwork--aiming for just a few characters and issues at a time, and neither nightmare nor pure escapism--neither Dante nor Disney! And does good dreamwork demand quiet, time and calm in your day life too?

P.22 of 'Nocturne': chaos of competing dream-figures, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.23 of 'Nocturne': crossbowman shoots 'eros' at furry dreamer; painted by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.24 of 'Nocturne': creatures dance around black hole, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.25 of 'Nocturne': creatures dance around black hole, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 26-31: after your ten thousandth dream, you may see types and patterns a novices may miss. "Advisory, shamanic, lucid, cledonic, clairvoyant, telepathic, predictive..." Even now, many of these are denied by Freudians, sleep scientists, even Jungians. They still show up... if you do the work.

P.26 of 'Nocturne': a dozen dream-creatures in a diamond shape, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.27 of 'Nocturne': unicorn meditates on red pillow, by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.28 of 'Nocturne': a mermaid in a Freud mask psychoanalyzes a dreamer; by Wayan; click to enlarge P.29 of 'Nocturne': a knot of red white yellow and black, abstract by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.30 of 'Nocturne': abstract by Wayan; click to enlarge P.31 of 'Nocturne': abstract by Wayan; click to enlarge

Pages 33-34: in this final two-page spread, Silky argues that most "normal" American dreaming is just a confused surf-zone halfway between the waking world and a stabler shamanic dreamworld beyond. But tech society suppresses deep dreams with noise, sleep deprivation and light. You huddled masses yearning to breathe free!

P.32 of 'Nocturne': Silky on the shore of the dream-sea, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.33 of 'Nocturne': Shamanic shore beyond chaos-dreaming, by Wayan; click to enlarge

P.34 of 'Nocturne': Silky as a mer-wolf in white robe, by Wayan; click to enlarge P.35 of 'Nocturne': bibliography, by Wayan; click to enlarge

Back cover of 'Nocturne': dreamscape by Wayan; click to enlarge

Some of the dream sources for the paintings: Shiprock Mare (1957), Rebel Owl (1972), Martian Robots Dress Like Freud (1975), Filly's Quest (1981), Lamia (1988), The Bridge (1989), Franchise (1995), the Mermaid Detective (1996), Timecat (2013), Tritonian Foxtaur (2016), Pinkie Cleans the Windows of Perception (2017), Giraffe Mission (2017), Odessa Steps (2022, a sample topographical dream), and Heron Catches Arrows/Eros (2023)

For examples of some mentioned dream types, see: advisory, diagnostic, lucid, telepathic & shared, predictive, psychic in general, shamanic, cledonic & transcendent dreams



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