I'm in an art class at City College. I think "ESP tells me a girl with a huge dog will enter a minute from now." In fact it's not ESP--truth is, I'm sneaking looks at the dream's script, which lies under the experience of the dream. It's a stretch to do it, but I'm reading a few lines ahead!

Aaaand here they come... Tween-age girl and big shaggy black dog.

Now I'm helping my sister Althea lay out & rearrange the panels I drew of a comic telling a recent dream I had of a dog- or wolf-taur girl--she looked like a blend of that girl and dog who just walked in!

I cut out & move around sketches of characters, trying to get a smooth narrative AND a reasonable look on the page. First push them around on an art pad, and when we get a pleasing layout, pin them to a wall and ask for feedback.

Most of my uncertainty's about the last panel, as Wolftaur Girl leaves--all the variants show her hindquarters and tail, but they vary: some profile, some 3/4, some from rear; some with tail up, some not. From modest to her pussy peeking out a bit to showing her openly.

Emphasize her sexiness, or not? The dream did--I was strongly attracted to her--but may offend furryphobic readers while attracting but distracting furryphiles. A lot of viewers seem (whatever their sexual quirks) to assume sex means you can't be serious about anything else--it eclipses all else! I've heard amazing misinterpretations of previous dream art. When sex walks in, a lot of viewers just short-circuit.

So should I make her modest? But in the dream she definitely flirted, and I responded. Censoring the dream so as not to offend or distract some viewers denies all viewers any chance to see what the dream said; if I keep it explicit, at least observant open-minded viewers CAN see all the levels.

Here comes our teacher! He ignores the content and technique and the explicitness issue; he fusses over my title! "You gotta rename this Centaur!" he says. Huh? Oh. Because he's an experienced art teacher and is used to nudity in studios and in paintings, but never dreamt of any sort of centauroid--for him that element eclipses the rest, just as sex does for laymen.

But I've had lots of dreams of centauroids, like Centaur Quartet; this dream's theme wasn't 'taurs as such but self-censorship. I better repeat that; I knew it in the dream.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• I read the script & moments later see the scene played out:
  1. The less outrageous interpretation is that I saw my brain script the dream scene, then render it. My brain takes a moment to stage it fully; it's fast but not instant. Dream researchers have theorized this scripting/rendering process for decades; but here I saw it in realtime as a dream played out!
  2. But the dream may be saying more: that our waking life is a scripted play that takes some rendering, and I'm getting a glimpse of the underlying code. If so, ESP is real, but not a sixth sense, but guesses based on the underlying script; some of ESP's notorious spottiness might well be trouble reading raw code.
• ESP: an unneeded hypothesis, unless you've had predictive or clairvoyant dreams. But I have, so I seek a model compatible with current physics. Yes, both my readings make me a privileged observer--why don't we all see ahead, read our scripts? Uh... because you're inexperienced dreamworkers. I've been at it fifty years. And I'm not alone; nearly all published dream journals contain ones the dreamers label predictive. Practice makes perceptive!
• Girl & dog fuse: I saw fan art for the Don Muth animation All Dogs Go To Heaven. One ink sketch by The Somethingmancer did turn human girl Anne-Marie into a dog-taur; I liked the idea, but her proportions and pose looked a bit stiff to me. My dream decided to try some variations...
• Collage with woman: my painter friend Shelley is experimenting with collage.
• Censor dream-elements that get misread?
  1. Symbolic? This year I've been presenting samples of other dream artists more than my own dream work. This dream of self-censorship may warn I've been trying to court respectability by hiding my weirdest dreams. Is this wise?
  2. Literal! How to present bizarre content vexes any dream artist. This dream cuts through my mixed feelings to focus on how censorship affects viewers, not artists. It concedes self-censoring may placate or even aid skittish, judgmental readers, but it also warns it cheats the deepest, most broad-minded ones.
• ACTION--short term: draw the sexy little dogtaur in my dream-within-the-dream.
• ACTION--long term: post fewer dreams by others; tackle my own. And leave my dream images explicit! Don't give in to shyness or discomfort. Don't cater to the shallow by cheating the deep.

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites