Night. A London suburb. A UFO big as a city block looms over us. It's seen all over South England. Yet we go blank--
forget! Though not quite--for years after, Steve has recurring dreams. When he tells me one, I recall the same event...
CAUTION: INTENSE UFO EXPERIENCE
UFOs hover near enough so I can see they're truly lenses--lenses projecting images.
I judged UFOs to be projections from our minds, but now I see I am their projection!
Okay, say evolution is driven by things (I don't care what) besides natural selection. How could you tell?
I try to make beauty, try to be beauty, but all the while, this voice keeps snickering...
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
My wife dreamt where to find her lost umbrella; the next day she did.
But the finder said word for word what she had in the dream...
The All-American Family visits the fabulous Un-American Fantasy Store, where Mom is in for a shock...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY, LANGUAGE
My partner and I were hunting for spirits with a camera designed to photograph them. Warned
away from the Niigata waterfront, we try to catch a bus out. But what comes isn't the bus...
I led a blind man through a vast art museum underground. But guiding him, I too was blind to the beauty...
My uncle is Jupiter. Not the god, the planet. All my relatives are planets. So am I. And I'm invaded...
My uncle Mac has a secret scheme to free us all from the Rat Race, but
his dancing mouse-headed robots (and climate change) get out of hand...
An Arabic traveler to China is shocked by toilet paper, which explains the origins of dualism... Really.
I'm a drug-addicted amateur dramatist. A businessman and I bring humanity back from extinction, but...
CAUTION: TORTURE (brief), ADVOCACY OF WAR, HUMAN EXTINCTION (offstage)
Exploring a sunken sub, my buddies salvage a something ticking. Toss it back, but it won't stay sunk...
She tells me there's a stream under the floor, upstairs. Peel back the carpet, pry up the boards. An icy creek.
Trout. She brings me a fishing rod. But the fish say they're too young to die. I feel such guilt and grief...
A strange creature slunk into our yard, carrying a skunk lunch.
But she dropped her fur coat, and I recognized a kindred spirit...
A glamorous heiress casts a spell that spills over, so I can have anyone I see! But who DO I see?...
Masked champions of Good and Evil fight, peeling off layers till they're
elven-thin--what's left to hide? They can't keep stripping forever...
Disguised as a literary troll, I spy on the Neo-Nazis, but my disguise
can't last much longer: I ate a magical herb, and I'm growing...
I'm named the Undersecretary for the Arts. I sift through all the grant applications. But
I'm a webtroll; I hang furry pastel pinups in my office. The humans see postmodern irony...
CAUTION: FURRY PINUPS; UTTER LACK OF IRONY
In a future society, I'm deliberately, permanently paralyzed. Yet my home-grown cure slowly works...
In the Los Angeles ruins, a wizard-gang jumps us. Desperate, I try a crazy un-Angeleno move: I use my feet...
When things fall apart and the center cannot hold and mere anarchy is loosed... I tend to giggle.
As a boy I dreamt of a war; officers marked the landing-spot of an unexploded black sphere. Years later...
The dream land was beautiful, but seemed empty 'til I heard piping voices.
An elven band! I gazed in wonder. But they could not (would not?) see me...
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...
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
I dream we're on a miserable camping trip. So why, when I wake,
do I think it's a diagnostic dream? It's that triple pun...
UNICORN EMISSARY: I meet a unicorn diplomat in Japantown. Beautiful, formidable...
THE A.I. WHO RUNS THE WORLD: I meet and then briefly become our world's
leader; before the strain of it wakes me, I learn she rules mostly by not meddling...
Me as a unicorn boy. Though I got a haircut since then, and most people can't see the horn...
CAUTION: NUDITY
A telepathic unicorn gives me some subtle advice. I wake, and tell a friend, who easily proves my account
is distorted by my own biases. Telepathy's confusing! Wake again. Her correction was part of the dream...
A unicorn in a dance performance--a solo vignette with a spectacular leap. And the dancer knows it...
My family home's invaded by ancient Egyptian architects. So
I put on my unicorn mask and eavesdrop on their plans...
Dreamworkers gawk at sexy unicorn drawings all over my bed. One friend's part unicorn. The other? I wonder...
Ten years later, having learned I have a rare mutation making me not too human, the dream feels half-predictive...
CAUTION: UNIPORN?
A unicorn wades in the shallows to meet a mermaid.
Are they lovers now, or just headed that way?...
A sculpted orgy of unicorns, dryads, and werewolf-satyrs designed to stand sideways on your wall...
CAUTION: SEX
DAY: the crew of the Enterprise sings about love & career(ism). DREAM: I'm taking a test at Starfleet Academy.
But my teacher's a gorgeous unicorn, & my answers are filled in! I try to change one but my eraser breaks...
CAUTION: MOCKS LA BERGE'S LUCID DREAMWORK? NUDE PROFESSOR, TOO
One of my first tries with paint--part Tibetan, part medieval, part hippie, part Navaho...
Yellow fireflies circling round the horn of a reclining red unicorn, in the evening...
A bizarre image I had of unicorns whose horns really were horny, with some maidens and princes...
CAUTION: LEERING SEX! LURID COLOR! LAME LINES!
The stained-glass unicorns were stunning, sexy... but veiled by a bland, tasteful,
flowery inner stained-glass window. 18 months later I saw the dream window...
The 80s were rough on unicorns, but now that they're passé again, they can get back to work...
After over-editing a weird poem to Silky, my night mare, I dream that
well-meaning surgeons think a unicorn's a defective horse, and try to dehorn her...
Animal teachers, mostly equine, drag me (as I scream NO!) beyond plain dreamwork into shamanism...
Chapter 1: The Deer Party: Work at Stanford by day; meet sentient deer at night
Chapter 2: Ariane's Honeymoon: a dreamlet of a marriage that never was
Chapter 3: The Everest Marathon: a surreal epic of deertaurs, cybersnakes, and grumpy tanks...
Chapter 4: Who'll Be My Love?: I'm a psychic getting grilled by cops about unicorns
Chapter 5: Dreamrider: I find a book accurately describing my life--and NOT in dreams!
Chapter 6: Half Shaman, Half Statesman: I can't do spells, so why'd this magic school let me in?
Chapter 7: Eight To A Horn: amid desert crags I meet a telepathic unicorn--with a safety tag!
Chapter 8: Black Magic: the wizards in the basement summon a spirit they can't handle. But a shaman can...
Chapter 9: Misfits On Mars: before the Galactic Assembly, Silky demands rights for the Mares of Mars
A man enslaves a unicorn and makes her split time, for his profit! But the timeforks
don't heal as he expected. So the unicorn takes unilateral action (sorry).
Those time-forks look like our current political war. Prepare for sharp kicks...
I find myself on the bridge of a starship. But the décor is Arabian Nights--and half the crew are unicorns,
grazing built-in flowerbeds. Some humans on board treat them as mere pets. But one's piloting the ship...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE
Jealous of newlyweds, I grind my teeth. But the Ice Age ground the Sierra's granite teeth, and they're lovelier for it...
"I believe, O lord/ Help thou mine unbelief"--as a kid I thought this meant "God, keep me skeptical"...
Ballerina Joan Brady quit, but ten years later, returned. Her body rejuvenated! So what can MINE do?
I meet a giant squirrel. But a Committee condemns the squirrel for such long periods
of unproductive hibernation. The squirrel points out a teensy flaw...
In my dreams, a co-worker tells me HER dreams. Their
focus is so unlike mine! Dream goals really differ...
Unshade trees are ugly. But my friends list their uses: casting shadows lighter than
sunlight, keeping land clear of other trees, and the fruit. Fruit? WHAT fruit? Am I blind?
Swedenborg flies on horseback through a house seeking someone. One room's clean, lit, full of people, but
most are empty and dirty. Longing to meet God is not enough! He's only cleaned up one aspect of his life...
You're in a subway station. You put coins in a coffee machine.
Down drops the Holy Grail. And begins to fill with blood...
A friend buys a frozen used Pope, to navigate her starship with Papal infallibility. Call me a Luddite, but..
CAUTION: SACRILEGIOUS PUN
In my nightmare, TV ads push new, supposedly eco-friendly uses for pigs, until this alarming ad...
When my grandmother was young her husband had a prosperous ranch. She dreamed some Indians attacked.
She convinced them to hide; the Utes killed or stole nearly all their sheep. But at least they were alive...
An improvised painting-series exploring my obsession for Utopia--and your deafening silence...
CAUTION: IDEAS, FURRY NUDITY, THAT GOSH-DARN MODERN ABSTRACT ART
All I know about humans, I learned in psychodrama. I gawked as caterpillars grew wings. Except me...
DAY: I'm an experimental subject given a drug in hopes it'll induce ESP. I just babble stupidly. Humiliation!
DREAM: my vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack my terrier & me. I flee, but there's an explosion...
TWO DAYS LATER: at the movies, a cartoon: a vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack a terrier. Then, BOOM...
CAUTION: WILL REALLY BOTHER E.S.P. SKEPTICS
I grope through fog to the Vague House. Fog inside, too. Find a stone carved with an Eye of
Horus, and know it's my anger. Find a bigger stone scarab, and know it's my REAL anger...
Us guys take turns getting pounded by this fist of cloud that must never hit
the world. It hammers my skull and retreats; we laugh and switch positions...
A lipstick poem for that stickiest of holidays...
I wander a valley where unicorns love cyborgs but fear giant ants, who love unicorns but
fear cyborgs, who love ants but fear unicorns! And while the Three Tribes squabble, cave-monsters
sculpt them all. I set up peace talks between these four aspects of my tetrahedral soul...
CAUTION: SWEARING, DRUNK LIONS, CYBORG SURGERY, AND GOGGLE-BARFING
Our landlady was a friend, but she broke our rental agreement. Talk, compromise, or rent strike?
I volunteered to meet him underground. He held me underwater and slammed into me. I nearly drowned, yet...
CAUTION: ROUGH SEX
Captain Kirk is testing vampire myths on a world where they don't bleed you dry.
At the moment, three vamps are sitting in a tent in a sunny meadow, queasy but alive...
CAUTION: FINANCIAL VAMPIRES?
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...
I'm the referee, or 'Vartena', of a violent high-school
game of waterpolo. A friend nearly drowns! Next day...
A woman goes on a quest with an alien friend, and returns with only a furry musical vase:
her friend! And from how the vase purrs, I'm not so sure if she wants to be changed back.
In our cult, we lie in vats of goo till we grow wings. But we're feared more than we knew...
CAUTION: SPECIST LYNCH MOB, NUDE IN SCHOOL, LESBIAN FEELINGS, OBSCENE CARROT
Make silhouettes of your beloved vegetables; then listen to the spaces between...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUASH
After a visit from our landlady's angry, crazy son
I dream hungry velociraptors invade our house...
I murder my wife. I try to sell her body as meat to a firm that'll turn her into wine.
But the transubstantiation has already happened, and the paperwork's undone...
CAUTION: GRISLY
This black wolf thing named Venom often shows up in my dreams.....
CAUTION: SCARY WOLF. OR OILSLICK. ONE OF THOSE.
Tour Venus as it will be in 1000 years, after terraforming: paradise for dozens of intelligent species!
I found myself in a whole pride of cat-people like me, each one representing some side of me...
I dream my friend Vera's ordered to just study & sleep--no play, no dates. Then I dream
Vera works with gangs as an armed peacekeeper. I tell her; Vera's shocked, since...
A dream voice announced "The verdure is accomplished." Green is a healing color for me...
In the next dream we sat round a green pool, talking of healing. But the snails troubled me...
My art mentors turn on me! My mom the painter says I'm genetically inferior,
and then my art teacher Verity sits on my head (ow!) and chants...
My friend Verity's given a beautiful set of wings. I'm envious until I consider what angel wings imply...
1: A nature spirit's physics experiment proves that time forks. But how much? How dense is the multiverse?
2: I sculpt a model of this multiverse. A physicist likes it; the nature spirit likes it more. So she swipes it...
3: A 'friend' offers refugees my bedroom, crowding me and my work into a corner. I wake. The phone rings...
We're air pirates running a music shop, till our biplanes are hijacked by cat angels! Furious, we set out...
Trapped in a blend of Joan of Arcadia and The Tempest Tales, I'm tired of being the pratfall sidekick...
Vesta are animal guardians of the land. This isn't a portrait of a vesta, but how I see when I AM one...
I'm a flying fox in England. I see a poisoning and call for help. Ugly knockoffs of
Peanuts characters attack me! The real Peanuts gang defeats them; Snoopy drives
the victim to the hospital, saving her. It really is vital to be... authentic.
CAUTION: PUNS
Kingsford meets a girl who burns herself as a protest. K flips out! Rants instead of helps...
CAUTION: RANT MIDWAY YOU'RE BETTER OFF SKIPPING
Robot wolves with videocamera eyes prowl our block, freezing me
in their headlight glare. Why do I think one's my ex-girlfriend?
Blondie Wiggle builds a Video Igloo. But I'm allergic--TV kills me! A BAD omen for our video project...
CAUTION: TV KILLS (BUT YOU KNEW THAT)
A friend explained she planned to be a human viewfinder, bendng into
an arch for a male spirit to dive through. I didn't want to risk it...
I ask to see my past lives, and dream of a viewpoint where I can--but this Mormon ranger...
A fiddler has recurring dreams warning he'll be run over with his violin. Reluctantly,
He sells it to a friend, and jams with him only in the woods, away from cars. But...
Ever since I was battered I feel like a virgin again: longing, but wary--scared where sex may lead...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY, SEXUAL THEMES
We lose control of our new time machine, which seems to have its own agenda...
CAUTION: CONTEMPLATION OF SUICIDE, CHRONOLOGICALLY IMPAIRED DREAMER
I dreamt Anacreon the poet reeled with drink and lust--and I am wild and wanton like to him...
Two archangels meet; one red and gold winged, one blue and green. In heaven, form reveals
worldview. Yet these two souls in dispute are great; rather than fight they appreciate...
Junk in the attic? Treasures! The cat musicians shift from cartoons to life as I ascend,
til in the ultimate attic--the astral beach--I meet a cattaur made of pure (de)light...
CAUTION: SEX-CRAZED CATS, NEW AGE FINALE
After a class where students are forced to vivisect anesthetized dogs
I dreamed I'd made a mistake; I was sawing open my daughter...
CAUTION: CREEPY DREAM, CREEPY DISMISSAL
Fusing two dream images, I sculpt an odd fox-taur people with complex family trees--up to four parents each!
CAUTION: NUDE FOX, WEIRD SEXUAL CUSTOMS
I dreamed I was an exchange student on Triton, where I
had an affair with a classmate, a cute centauroid vixen...
CAUTION: INTERSPECIES (AND INTERPLANETARY) SEX
Half-mad with fear, I massacre a cult, till my gun manifests stigmata: a gory miracle.
Then I'm a cultist, resisting the Voice of God pushing all us mortals to murder in His name.
I woke up haunted, and wondered for weeks what this was about... until the Waco Massacre.
CAUTION: CREEPY VIOLENCE, CREEPY GOD, CREEPY PREDICTION
God speaks in surreal images from the sky, and I hurry to write down
what God says. But I find I wrote mere squiggles on the page...
DAY: our ex-cat comes back, needing surgery. Dad doesn't want to pay. Big quarrel.
DREAM: Cats, birds, elf-girls; in their asteroid library, a tale of oath-breaking...
Now I'm the one who stole a tooth of jade from the volcano hall. Greed... erupts!
CAUTION: NUDE BIRD-ELF, DEATH BY LAVA
This symposium, airing a dispute between geologists & astronomers who just don't read each others' papers, had multiple revelations--big hazards, bigger holes in our knowledge, and bigger opportunities...
CAUTION: CHART! WITH NUMBERS!!
I'm on a mesa, looking down in terror. I try to pull back but a compulsion
overrides my will--I crawl helplessly forward until I go over. As I fall...
CAUTION: PRE-FREUDIAN DISMISSAL OF WARNING
VAUGHAN'S DREAM: I visit Kurt Vonnegut. Kids all over. He's going on a trip soon. Mentions of 'Jerome' and an island...
VONNEGUT REPLIES: "That night, childrens' author Jerome B visited; we discussed my upcoming trip to England..."
Am I King Kong? No, it's a city of midgets! I leave and find I'm gay. Gay bugs come out of the closet too,
storming the fundamentalist flies of Heaven. And then Vor, the purple alien, does something peculiar...
CAUTION: LOOKS DOWN ON HOMOPHOBIC MIDGETS
I'm in suburbia for the End of the World. A Vortex eats the block, licks at me. So I click some icons:
CAUTION: CRUDE LANGUAGE. OH, AND THE APOCALYPSE, TOO. I FORGOT.
It's election time in Europe, but voters have gone crazy. Nazis invade England. In my library, Sarah Palin rots...
CAUTION: POLITICS GONE WACKY
I make a weird vow--while I absent-mindedly slice up other people's cars! The next day...
CAUTION: DREAM VANDALISM
A job as the only priest on an island colony sounded perfect, only I'm the wrong religion...
CAUTION: DOGMATISTS AND DEAD BIRDS TALKING
The vulture people are fucking in the city dump. I end up their guest, given putrid food
in their cold stinking house of rancid grease. I'll become a vulture too...
CAUTION: UGH!