Autism and Asperger Syndrome
I'm grateful I was spared the severer consequences of clinical autism. Still... I was a child prodigy who others perceived as deeply strange; am a math savant; can't recognize human faces (I know my friends and relatives only by their voices, gestures and moods); read and understand animal emotions better than human ones; get easily overwhelmed by loud or flickering colors or sounds; can't stop rocking and fidgeting to save my life; feel best alone, and find crawling in cracks or hiding up on rocks very comforting, and often flinch when hugged, and feel as uneasy meeting people's eyes as a wolf would... and just generally have difficulty acting like a human being.
And if this list sounds familiar, maybe you or someone you know is subclinically autistic too.
YEARS LATER: having gone through the DSM-IV criteria, I can now say cheerfully that I'm not "subclinically" autistic except in the sense I rarely saw doctors so I never got diagnosed. But by IV's criteria I'm way over the threshhold, clinically autistic, a pretty severe Aspie--I just use brains to avoid lots of stuff toxic to me. DSM-V chucked out the threshhold anyway...
RELATED TOPICS: Autism Booklist (still embryonic--help expand!) - links page for support groups and sites - see also child prodigies and geniuses - living with ESP - animal people - disabilities and deformities - outcasts and pariahs - orphans, runaways, and throwaway kids - loners - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.
ABREAST OF THE COMPETITION: by Wayan; dreamed 2013/10/9, a dream on appeasing others A tall busty girl's younger, part-unicorn friend starts developing breasts at last. She makes boob jokes, mocking her own body to reassure her herdmate she's no competition... CAUTION: SELF-PUTDOWNS |
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ADORABLE CYBORGS: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/10/5, a dream-poem on inner teamwork A child dreamer and two different kinds of cyborg must cooperate to free the hostages imprisoned under San Francisco Bay... |
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ALAN'S OFFICE: by Wayan, 1992/4/28; , a dream advising a different therapist I had a chronic illness doctors said was psychosomatic. So I called Alan, a therapist... I dream I'm in his office. It's a nook in a basement. No windows, no door, no privacy. I was so desperate I went to him for six months, while he ignored everything I said... |
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ALTHEA'S MONEY DREAMS: by Althea; 1999/1/22, financial dreams provoked by... financial dreams? After reading a booklet of dreams about money by Wayan, Althea has four such dreams of her own challenging family ideas of class, gender, inheritance... and then practical investment advice!... |
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ARSON PATTERN: by Wayan, 2023/8/13, a troubling political dream Fires erupt all over the Bay Area, but people I meet (and the news) just say "global warming." No! It's no warmer than normal and those fires are in lines! Arsonists are driving around, torching... CAUTION: POLITICAL READING |
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AUTISTIC EDGE: by Wayan, 2023/5/16, a weird little dream-sermon An autistic genius gets distracted from her cosmological research, and rants about non-autistics' monkey-mind distractions, distorting their worldview... CAUTION: HARSH ON NEUROTYPICALS |
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AUTISTIC THUNDER: by Wayan; 2018/2/12, a predictive shamanic dream DREAM: a concert by autistics admits my bandmate Mike but locks me out! I summon thunder & quakes till they open up... AWAKE: I called it metaphor--till it happened. I was sitting silent in our band's recording session and Mike asked me to leave... CAUTION: AUTISM & APPARENT E.S.P. |
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THE BARRINGTON BUNNY: by Wayan; 1988/8/30, a world-saving alien-abduction dream Alien robots kidnap me... and make me the mascot for a college football team. But my Channel Changer slowly infuses us all with nerdy trust... |
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BASTARD UNICORN: by Wayan; 2012/6/28, a dream about ambition Since I'm half-unicorn, my ambition drives me to share power and help the whole herd--that's how unicorns rise. But among human politicians... |
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BEWARE OF OVERSTIMULATION: by Wayan; 1980/12/30, odd dream advice. A sex-ghost appears in my bed, but when overstimulated, she tends to fade out. Bad reception!... CAUTION: SEX |
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BIKE OVER THE BELL CURVE: by Wayan; 2018/9/25; a surreal advisory dream I'm biking in a construction zone behind a car with a rounded top like a VW Beetle but with a flared skirt like a bell. It stops. I brake but go right up that fringe over the roof... |
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BIRD-SENSE: by Wayan; 2013/7/20; Shakespeare improv provokes a dream of having seven senses I dream I have sixth and seventh senses--and wake to realize I do! Just denied them, explained them away... CAUTION: SHAKESPEAREAN HEFT |
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BURROWCATS ON A HIGHER PLANE: by Wayan; 1991/10/25, a shamanic dream of levels. By twisting strangely, humans can slip into a higher plane. Ten feet higher! So unless you climb on the roof, you end up in the tunnels of the burrowcats... |
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THE BUTTON IN LOVE: by Wayan, 2009/10/20, two surreal dreamlets on romantic cluelessness A glowing sentient autistic button falls in love with a small boy; then I try to make two friends change orientation and fall in love by singing 'Molly Malone'... CAUTION: JUST... WRONG |
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CHIDI AND PONY-MISTRESS: by Wayan, 2019/9/25, a mysterious dream Ethics professor Chidi from The Good Place, painted purple, tells me he's in love with the Mistress of the Herd, a mix of Circe, Dr. Moreau & My Little Pony, who radiates spells of love & beauty... CAUTION: WEIRD IMAGERY, CRYPTIC, NUDE PONIES |
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CIDER AND WINE: by Wayan; 1974/10/24, surreal undream Aspie reporting Our writing class meets in this Victorian home. I turn off my filters and describe what I really see around me... |
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DESOCIA: by Wayan; 2021/3/29, a warning dream A woman camps in the hills with her dad, till he hikes off, indifferent. Not amnesia or dementia; he no longer cares for people. A case of Desocia! As I meet relatives of other cases, I start to suspect I have it myself... CAUTION: ALIENATION |
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DEVANGELS: by Wayan, 2017/4/27, a numinous but ambivalent dream After a hard day in the recording studio, I dream of powerful yet obedient devil-angels; quiet for now, but I fear they'll decide shamans like me are abominations... CAUTION: ANGELS? GOLEMS? DEVILS? |
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DISTRACTUS: by Wayan, 2004/5/5, a comic sexy diagnostic dream... that baffled me. Sex in a meadow? A protest march distracts us. But a friend warns me of a disease, Coitus Distractus... CAUTION: (DISTRACTED) SEX |
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DO YOU LOVE ME, JOHN?: by Wayan; 1991/7/6, a dream on the courage of the shy. I dream of a future where blondes are a too-cute endangered species. How can they survive? Like this... CAUTION: NUDITY |
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EEL GIRLS: by Wayan; 1993/9/14, a tearjerker nightmare. I learn to fly, but keep it quiet. Yet aliens still find out, and tell me a truth I didn't want to know... |
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EFFORT VERSUS APTITUDE: by Wayan, 2017/8/23, a dream about... oh, read the title. I urge a cafe to host a talented Tarot reader with an amazing aura, but the owner says "Anyone can be psychic with practice." Oh? Can practice make you Einstein, too? |
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THE ENTWINED CHILD AND MADAM PURR-SAY: by PurplePurplePurple; 2013/7/5, twin poem-dreams I dream my autistic son, miraculously high-functioning, recites a math-poem to a crowd... Then I become cartoon cat Madam Purr-Say and chant my own defiant poem at the dream gods... CAUTION: FIRST POEM AUTISTIC, SECOND PISSY |
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THE ERTHEDNI: by Wayan, 1977/1/8, three transformation dreams, the last with advice 1: I'm starving in a lush valley; a cult claims all the food, the water, even the air. 2: I'm drowning in a cage but find a corner with water I can breathe--just barely. 3: I'm a merman with a wise friend who hints I need to leave those who starve & drown me... CAUTION: DOMESTIC BATTERING (OFFSTAGE) |
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E.S.P., NOT LANGUAGE: by Wayan; dreamed 2021/3/29, an Aspie dream about you humans Turns out humans communicate mostly by mental imagery; speech is just a carrier wave. But in most cases, ESP is subliminal. I'm autistic, though; for me, background stuff jumps out. Like all six senses... CAUTION: AUTISM, E.S.P. SPECULATIONS |
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FALL OF A PRINCE: by Wayan; 2006/11/17, a dream on the ethics of prophecy A time-traveling historian's caught in a moral dilemma: warn an ancient prince that in her history books he died of a fall? Can you change fate? Should you?? |
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FEATHERWOLF: by Wayan; 2018/9/20, a joyful gender/species-bent flying dreamlet. A shapeshifting girl lets me try her spell--I become a wolf-raven-parrot-human blend. Weird, but I love flying... |
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FIBONACCI: by Wayan; 2011/4/18, a dream-poem with answers My friends are all computer programs. But then, so am I. But it's not so bad, because... CAUTION: DREAM-PUNS |
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FLY AWAY HOME: by Wayan; 1996/12/26, a dream of flight and kindness. I'm an alien castaway, hiding my wings. But Earth feels like home now! If I could fly here, would I stay? |
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FOAM, FURS, DREAMS: by Wayan; 2012-16, a blog on sewing giant dream plushies; 43 dreams! My dreams urge me to build furry dream creatures with joints, muscles & bones, then to heal myself by mating with them... CAUTION: FETISHISM, FURRY NUDITY & SEX |
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FORESEE ELECTION, BUT BLIND TO SEX: by Wayan; 2012/10/23, a predictive dream only half heeded On hearing the election results, a girl at Esalen Hot Springs joyfully dances naked around me. I heed the dream's prediction about the election, but not about... CAUTION: NUDITY |
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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. |
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FURRY TRINITY: by Wayan; 2021/3/1, a dream painting three facets of... me? Or of dreaming? Three furry people show off their collected art & pets. But then they dissolve into their art & pets! The room itself dissolves into a river-raft. A unicorn girl in a gauze ritual robe studies a map... CAUTION: MILD FURRY NUDITY |
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A GREAT NIGHTMARE, or, The Autistic Dream Lecturer: by Wayan; 1997/1/2, a diagnostic nightmare. I dream I'm addressing a dream convention, but I'm autistic! I MUST act bizarre, just to function... |
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HELP, NOT CURE: by Wayan; 1996/12/26, a dream on autism. Gay angels try to help an autistic woman. Change her past? Only if they pass the Ass-Backward Guardians! |
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INCREMENTAL HEAVENS: by Wayan; 2016/9/5, a reincarnation-frustration dream, baffling then. Not now. I keep getting reincarnated in dull heavens where all is blocked by know-nothings. After the 2016 election... CAUTION: CAUSTIC |
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JADE'S EXPERIMENT, or, CLEVER HANS: by Wayan; 1981/4/29, a dream on the costs of unusual senses I volunteer for a friend's psych test, for her thesis. But my sixth sense skews her data! Does it skew real life too? |
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LET'S IMPOSE: by Wayan; 1990/7/3. Nondream digital painting. Engineers! How they do love to impose clean lines on our messy world... |
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THE MAN WHO MISTOOK...: by Wayan; 1995/9/19, an insane dream. I'm just an ordinary guy, who beats his son so he'll grow faster, and sees tits on drinking fountains... |
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A NEVADAN ASS: by Wayan, 2007/5/17, a dream-poem on sabotage in art AND love DREAM: on a Nevada ranch, I'm a were-horse into mares--when I'm human. And when I'm a stallion? Why, cowgirls! Always date the wrong species--just to be sure of rejection. NEXT DAY: I let a class of commercial artists critique my dream-comix. Just to be sure of rejection... CAUTION: FURRYPHILIA, SELF-SABOTAGE |
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NOT A LICK OF E.S.P.: by Wayan; 2021/10/22, a sex dream not about sex (or ESP) After an impatient bookseller puts me down, I dream I'm licking a girl who nothing pleases... |
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ON BEING 29: by Gray Stanback; 2022/9/10, an uneasy milestone dream The night after my 29th birthday, I dream my youth is literally leaving me. I'm at a party full of kids and teens; I can't get anyone's name, and they slip away leaving me alone... |
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ONE-PERCENTERS: by Wayan; 2014/5/2, a dream on how egalitarianism can drive the gifted crazy A sociologist exposes the smugness of Britain's 1%, but the writer's denial of any innate differences can be just as pernicious as elitism... CAUTION: EGALITARIANISM ON TRIAL |
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OTTER NERD FROM TITAN: by Wayan; 2012/4/15 & sequel-dream (2013/2/9), a dream-poem on social skills A suspicious exobiologist warns me that otter from Titan may not be the amiable, nerdy celebrity it seems. But... |
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PETER PAN SYNDROME: by Wayan; 1995/1/10, a dream on those books... I meet Peter Pan grown up: a stark, fey prince in exile. Why do only I see him and the Lost Children? Oh. |
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THE POWER OF NON-VISUALIZATION: by Wayan; 2018/4/29, a mystical dream whose teaching worked I'm listening to a film-talk on Non-Visualization. "Don't wish--don't will--don't visualize. Just face what you really want, and then don't push..." CAUTION: MYSTICAL |
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PRODIGIES' ODDITIES: by Wayan; 1994/2/2, a confession. I suspect we child prodigies and geniuses are as unlike the gifted as normal people. So here's a checklist... CAUTION: BRAIN REQUIRED |
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THE PRODIGY-ALLERGY LINK: by Wayan; 1994/7/21, a clipping and reactions Child prodigies may develop allergies due to immunosystem damage from too much testosterone in utero... |
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PRODIGY SUPPORT: by Wayan; 1994/7/21, a clipping and reactions News of a child prodigy who was given the support I wasn't, triggers a flood of envy and bitterness... |
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PUPPY: by Naoki Higashida; March or April 2015, a role-reversal dream I walk home with a puppy to meet my mum, who addresses the dog by my name and invites him in, while I head for my doghouse in the garden... |
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REVERSE MY ARMOR: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/4/14, a dream with bizarre advice I took. All I usually hide, I strip bare, & vice versa. Like that Playboy cartoon with the stockings & gloves--the Femlin! Behaviorally, too, I reverse all my habits and judgments. Perverse, self-destructive! But my life still works... CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY. ALSO, A LOSER SUCCEEDS. |
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SADDLED WITH AUTISM: by Wayan; 1999/10/1, an embarrassing yet advisory dream. I'm autistic; a TV host encourages me and another autistic kid to have sex on the air... CAUTION: UNDERAGE SEX ON NATIONAL TV; SERIOUS FINGER-POINTING |
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SAFETY GETS ME HOT: by Wayan; 1997/3/27, a dream on sensitivity. I'm trapped in a post-apocalypse pulp story! Fun for my readers, but not for me! How to escape? |
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THE SATURATION DIAL: by Wayan; 2015/11/7, a surreal lucid dream with a control knob! Night. Two moons. I go lucid! Find a knob adjusting the dream's color saturation. Dial it up--and meet ghosts of pure color, invisible til I luridified... |
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SAVED BY A CYMBAL: by Wayan; 2021/11/29, a dream punning about dreamwork! Stranded on an island where a marching band drowned, I escape by paddling across the Pacific using a rusty, er, cymbal... |
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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 |
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SHY NO MORE: by Wayan; 2008/8/13. A dream poem, Dreamverse #3 I play the lovers in a teen romance: shy abused boy, insecure girl. But I get tired of the script, and... CAUTION: LANGUAGE |
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SKUNKERPILLAR: by Wayan; 2018/4/7, an advisory dream on metamorphosis After I (sort of) foil some elf-burglars, a friendly elfwoman shows me a black caterpillar, then the rare white-striped skunkerpillar... |
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STOP OBAMA'S ASSASSINATION: by Wayan; 2012/2/10. A dream about politics? Or health? Two child prodigies fail to stop the killers stalking President Obama, but a geek with a homemade laser... |
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THE SUICIDE TRACK: by Wayan; 2023/2/25, a disturbing non-nightmare My clinic's euthanasia program is so warm and cuddly I barely notice I'm drifting toward death til I reach the final form... and it's in Russian. They think I'm a refugee! Don't know me at all... CAUTION: FLAMES ANTI-ABORTION AND HEALTHCARE IDEOLOGIES |
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TELEKINETIC KIDS: by Wayan; 2017/9/8, a warning and exploratory dream A black separatist commune hides two little girls who are psychokinetic. They fear I'll expose them. But I've spent my whole life passing too... CAUTION: PARAPSYCHOLOGY, RACIAL SEPARATISTS |
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TELEPATHY VERSUS AUTISM: by Wayan; 1997/4/19, an utterly dreamlike but waking vignette A weird identity-confusion at a dance hints I'm simultaneously psychic, autistic, and... really stupid. |
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THE THREATENERS: by Wayan; 1997/4/23, a small psychic dream. Two gunmen break in, call me by a strange name, and demand I repay a loan I never borrowed... |
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THROUGH THE WIRES: by Wayan; 2007/9/16, two surreal contrasting dreams I meet some alien wolves, and see the social scene as they do--pack, status issues. But then... I cross a pasture & slip thru a barbwire fence, as I explain cows, wires & organic life to an energy-being... |
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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 |
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UNICORN MENTALITY: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/7/16, a dream of unicorn art spilling over into reality 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? |
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UNICORN PROFESSOR: by Wayan, 2024/4/7, a Star Trek dream 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 |
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A VALLEY NEAR HOPE: by Wayan; 1984/10/17-19, an epic dream. 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 |
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VERITY, TOO?: by Wayan; 2000/11/5, a comic nightmare with good advice--if I avoid Freud! 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... |
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WERECAT SYNDROME: by Wayan, 2017/4/23, dream advice on Asperger's. Or masculinity? Werecat Syndrome runs in my family. Academics assume I'm a savage predator. Why? All I want to do is rub up against girls and find one who purrs back... |
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WHITE AND MALE ARE SLURS: by Wayan, 2017/3/8, a dream venting political grievance Activists rant to a crowd "White males should shut up so we all can speak!" All? To them, MY issues don't exist--autism, prodigism, second sight... shamanism. CAUTION: REAL DREAM, BUT RANTISH--SORRY! |
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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... |
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WILD MAGIC: by Wayan, 2018/1/8, a dream on finding a place A teacher drafts me into her magic class to shake up her sheltered wizard-wannabes. My magic's wild, ignoring spells and rules. I don't think I realized how wild... CAUTION: NUDITY |
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WINGLESS: by Wayan; 1992/2/21; a dream-poem on flight versus guilt Wingless, I try hard to fly, arm-flapping wild. And I rise! Flight's in the mind. But I'm leaving my friend behind! Guilt ties me down--till I see... |
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WITCH'S BUTTER: by Wayan, 2023/5/27, a science-geek dream. I live in four consecutive bodies: I'm a Bose-Einstein condensate, a cloud of particles moving as one-- unless overheated. No, I'm Witch's Butter, a mob of amoeboid cells who unify into a quasi-slug--temporarily. No, I'm a person, but soft and yellow as Witch's Butter. No, I'm firming up, but still entangled... |
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