Haunted by a recurring dream of a mysterious affair in Venice, I talked friends
into modeling for a photo shoot, and over two weeks we re-staged my dream...
I was in a jungle, seeing birth, growth and death--the entire web of life at once...
A jester in love offers a queen his heart and soul. She rejects them. In
despair, he offers her the emblems of his clowning, his cap and bells...
I'm walking through Harvard Square late at night. Buildings are lit up festively, but
it's pretty deserted. I notice creatures scampering around up on the roofs....
On the train to Rome, I slept, and dreamt of the nine Muses
on Mount Helicon. As soon as I unpacked, I painted it ...
DAY: I've been studying if lucid dreams are really that lucid beyond the bare fact of knowing you're dreaming...
DREAM: I fly over the sea, spotting creatures of the deep below, and creatures of the sky, reflected--blended...
I was climbing a hill and found a dead man on a gallows. His face was purple and puffy. Very dead. And then he
opened his eyes and grabbed me. I woke screaming. Decades later, writing Salem's Lot, I needed a nightmare...
CAUTION: STEPHEN KING
I had to design a gown for a pregnant bride. I felt stuck. Slept on it. Woke with an odd dress in mind. She loved it.
That night I dreamt a faceless girl said "Glad you liked it. It was my dress, but I died just before my wedding..."
After the puppet Indian legislature passed the Rowlett Acts (police could jail anyone anytime), Gandhi dreamed
he must call for a nationwide hartal, a day of fasting--a declaration that freedom isn't just political but sacred...
My beloved horse outraced our ruler's best--so he killed my horse. I dream he tells me
"Make a fiddle from my bones, skin and horsehair, then play our story, and I'll return"...
CAUTION: GRISLY, BUT APPARENTLY IT WORKED
As the Gulf War began, bulletproof Kevlar vests were desperately needed. But Du Pont's production
halted--a vital machine just froze and engineers couldn't see why. Ragsdale dreamed a weird solution...
Blake repeatedly dreamed of an angelic art teacher who suggested both
images & techniques. In 1819 Blake sketched his three-eyed tutelary spirit...
Japanese fleets invaded Korea. Admiral Yi dreamt of a giant turtle: no weapon pierced its shell, and
it spouted smoke. Yi built his nightmare turtle, and defeated the invaders in battle after battle...
At the seaside I meet a woman late in life, well-established, who's just seen, in the great silent sweep
of the sea, a solitude & quiet she didn't know to seek. Too late! I see her life-poem carved in metal, and...