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Dreams about Death, A-I (J-Z)

Dreams about death in general, or witnessing death, corpses, funerals, etc. But not dying yourself, or meeting folks returned from death, or meeting Death personified. Why not those? Well, the list of death dreams was getting huge, so it's now split into four manageable ones:
  1. dying yourself in a dream
  2. meeting Death personified somehow
  3. witnessing deaths, corpses, funerals, and death as an issue
  4. meeting revenants (loved ones returning from death)
RELATED TOPICS: dealing with nightmares - weird dream diseases - dream violence - war in dreams - ghosts - astral planes and afterworlds - Paradise - Hell - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ABERFAN: by Eryl Mai Jones & others, 1966/10/20; premonitory dreams & waking flashes
Some 200 Brits have dreams and premonitions of black landslides smothering children.
After heavy rain, half a million tons of coal slag sweeps over two Welsh schools, killing...
THE ADMIRAL'S DEATH: by Mary Deane; 1653/6/2, a clairvoyant warning dream.
The wife of Admiral Richard Deane dreamt how he died two days before the news arrived...
AELFWINE: by Wayan; 1997/12/4, dreams within dreams... about dreams.
I go to a lucid-dreaming party, meet the Child who Dreams the World, and find the Body under the Bed...
AIDA'S TOILET BOAT: by Wayan; 1993/4/7, a short- AND long-term predictive dream.
A sexy comedian and her troubles down the drain.
A dream that turned out to be true six days later,
and again in a different way six YEARS later...
AIRPLANE DISASTERS: by Jack Kerouac, early Aug? 1954, a helpless-witness nightmare
An indestructible camera relentlessly shows me what passengers feel on every crashing plane...
CAUTION: PAINFUL READING
ALEXANDRINA: by Adela Samona, March 1910; a predictive dream plus apparent far memories
After the death of her 5-year-old, Adela dreams Alexandrina says "Don't be sad, I'll come back." Eight
months later Adela bears a child identical to the dead girl--and she recalls things Alexandrina saw...
ALICE'S POEM: by Lewis Carroll; 1872, a poem on dreams
Are dreams really so ephemeral? Lewis Carroll, who built the Alice books from dream-shards, wasn't so sure...
ALL HALLOW'S EVE: by (Mrs.) D. M. Barrett; 1904, a psychic dream
I dreamt ghosts visited us, and for each scream, a relative would die.
Two of us cried out. That morning the first letter came...
AM I EPHEMERAL?: by Wayan; 2006/7/6, a puzzling dream of alienation
I live in a colony of long-lived observers of humanity. But am I one? Or a short-lived human pet?
AMAZON A(U)NTS: by Wayan; 1997/10/28, a nightmare.
I camp in the Amazon but in the morning find I slept on top of something disturbing...
AMIDA: by Lady Sarashina, 1055/10/13, a dream of a salvation-offer
Three years before her husband died and she was left alone, Sarashina dreamt
Amida Buddha stood in her garden and told her "Later I shall return to fetch you"...
ANNE SEXTON: by J.D. McClatchy; 1974/10/4, a predictive dream.
I dreamt my friend Anne Sexton's death was on the news.
I woke, the phone rang, and I learned she'd...
CAUTION: SUICIDE
ANOTHER DREAM OF BURIAL: dreamed 2009 or before, by W.S. Merwin; poem of recurring dream
The garden varies, but I have always turned away and walked into the whole world. So far...
THE ARMS POLICY: by Wayan; 2000/4/7, a nightmare.
The government has a harsh policy on armed dissidents. Not the kind of arms you think...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
ARROW OF FIRE: by Archbishop Anselm, King William Rufus & a monk, 1100/8/1, 3 predictive dreams
Anselm dreams God orders King William's death by an arrow of fire; the
King dreams his blood covers the sun. Waking, he mocks a third man's ominous
dream, goes hunting, and dies bloodily at sunset, an arrow in his heart...
THE ARTERIA: by Wayan; 1994/5/24, a raw, personal tale of three nightmares.
Hypnotherapy provokes nightmares of body-part shops, secret libelers, and madmen in space...
ASLAN SWOOPS: by Wayan; 1985/1/19, a dream of the wrath of a right-wing god
I'm in a cafe in Narnia when the lion-god Aslan attacks a giraffe for the mortal sin of
dating a zebra. And why not? Oral Roberts University just banned interracial dating...
CAUTION: CRINGEWORTHY CHRISTIANS
AT A CALIFORNIA CAMP: by Jack Kerouac, spring 1955, a nuclear testing nightmare
My family and I are prisoners in a camp that will be H-bombed so our remains
can be studied. I write a Buddhist poem preparing for death...
CAUTION: GOVERNMENT ATROCITY
ATLANTIS; c. 1993 by Mark Doty; six elegiac poems, three dream-based
In our marshlands, tides, birds, dogs come and go; but must our friends and lovers, too?
CAUTION: AIDS DEATHS
AVENUE OF TREES: by Anonymous #34; July 1911?, early 1924?, 1934/3/30, & Jan. 1947;
four death-omen dreamlets, one predictive
Every decade or so, I dream a loved one says farewell and walks
down an avenue of trees. I wake to find that person's dying...
BABY, I'LL BLOW YOUR MIND: by Wayan; 1995/3/21, a surreal nightmare
Allied submarines attack the giant Nazi toddler who's hunting us with sonar, occupying my playroom...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND GUILT
BAGGING PETER BEAGLE: by Wayan, 2017/7/7, a predictive little nightmare of manslaughter-guilt
Drunk, I fight writer Peter Beagle. He falls. Out cold. I wake sure I'm a killer...
Next day I read Ellen Klages's Passing Strange. Its climactic scene is curiously familiar...
BALOLOKONG: by Wayan, 1984/11/13; a Hopi time-travel dream.
The Ice Hotel, where all my selves are sealed. Can we thaw Einstein? Balolokong the Rainsnake says...
BAND-AIDS: by Bagheera Pardus; c.1985, a lucid re-entered nightmare turned to joy.
Giant snakes chased me. I go lucid, turn & slay one. As I woke, the snakes cried. So I re-entered...
CAUTION: SNAKES, BEHEADING, REHEADING
BARN BURNING: by Denise Levertov; 1929?; a childhood nightmare
I'm in a barn full of peaceful animals lit by a golden glow. And then they all blacken, crinkle, and corrugate like burnt paper...
BAYSHORE AND CHARTER: by a Redwood City man; July 1951, a lifesaving predictive urge
I burst into tears for no reason and for 15 minutes begged my brother-in-law not to go, then said...
CAUTION: GRUESOME
BERYL'S DOG DAYS: by Wayan; 1988/1/25, a psychic dream farce.
My friend Beryl wants me to help rob a bank, so she can
cut off her breasts and be a great opera singer...
BERYL'S KUNDALINI: by Wayan; 1997/8/26, a clarifying dream.
My friend Beryl's ghost makes mad love to me--just long enough to swipe my Kundalini energy...
CAUTION: SUCCUBISM?
BETTY STOPS BY: by a Kentucky woman pre-1961, a farewell visitation dream?
I was moved that Betty came to see my two babies despite her illness, but shocked when her father told me...
THE BIKE KNIGHTS: by Wayan; 1992/7/6, a cautionary Jungian dreamtale.
Two unarmed sisters on bikes easily defeated a dragon, but in a
rematch he killed them, and all other challengers. What changed?
BILLIE: by Billie's Mom; 1945/1/20, a psychic warning dream
My son Billie, his Navy uniform soaking wet, cried "Oh, Mom--it's so terrible!"
and shrank into a baby again as I held him...
CAUTION: EXPLOSION
BIRD ASSASSIN: by Adam Shaw, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a no-kindness-goes-unpunished dream
I'm a giant cartoon bird. I had to assassinate a friend--twelve times!
Eleven times I killed him, but I spared him the twelfth. He said...
BLACK WINTER: by Jeff Knabel; 1997, a dream-song from a possibly predictive nightmare
I dreamed a large meteor had struck the Earth. I found my Dad just as the shockwave hit...
CAUTION: APOCALYPSE
BLEEDING HEART, the SELF-HEALING CORPSE, and IN THE FUTURE DESERT:
by Wayan; 2002/5/29 - 2004/5/11, a diagnostic, predictive dream-series; Bleeding Heart as comix
A tree-girl moves to Hollywood to make film deals, but jealousy stabs her...
CAUTION: BLOODY ASSAULT, GAY DRYADS, MUTANT NUDITY
BLOODLINES: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2005/7/30, 9/1 and 9/3; a compound dream-painting
A man obsessed with blood and death disturbs me, but I have to admit I share his interests...
Next the blood comes home; a surgeon wants to flay my tongue...
Next, witch-children rebel against a bloody flossing ritual and fly away on broomsticks...
BLOODY STYX!: by Wayan; 1989; digital painting of nondream vision.
What I saw in the river bordering the land of the dead...
CAUTION: GORE, BUT RESTRAINED, TASTEFUL GORE
BLUE SOUP, NO SPARK: by Wayan; 1985/6/1, an epic dream on outgrowing God
A visit to a world where they fear blue soup ends in death and resurrection, so I'm pissed at my boss--God.
CAUTION: DEATH, REBIRTH, SACRILEGE... JOB BURNOUT
THE BOAT IS SINKING: by Mrs Griffiths; 1734/8/6, a recurrent warning dream
Mrs Griffiths has the same nightmare three times before she asks her nephew to skip a fishing trip...
THE BOATMEN OF LAOLONG: by Viceroy Zhu, before 1679, as told by Pu Songling; an incubated dream
Traders were vanishing. Newly installed Viceroy Zhu fasted, focused, and dreamt
the gods sent him a riddling poem. Each line suggested one word--together, they...
CAUTION: BRUTAL ORGANIZED CRIME
BODY-SWITCH: by Wayan; 2000/6/10; a dream of a castaway soul
Spies kidnap a girl and move her soul into a madwoman's body.
Can she survive? Recover? Thrive? The TV dance show helps...
BONE CARVINGS: by Larry Vigon; c.1999; a numinous dream with silly illustrations
At the beach, a deaf boy with a strong aura asks "Are you here for the coin?"
He buries horse skeletons in the sand; the bones are carved with symbols...
BONES DON'T LIE: by Emily Joy; 2006/12/13, a gruesome nightmare on guilt.
I know I'm a murderer; what isn't so clear is what I killed and why...
CAUTION: DISMEMBERMENT, GUILT, DREAD
BOTH MOURN, BOTH DIE: by "J.H., Esquire", 1694/12/9, a double premonitory dream
J.H. dreamt both his mother and Queen Mary appeared in mourning. Within days, both were dying...
THE BOULDER DISSOLVES: by Myoe Shonin; mid Dec. 1230, an old monk's dream of liberation
I was trapped inside a boulder, but as I chanted it melted around me until it resembled a discarded skin...
BOYS DON'T CRY: by Wayan; 2000/1/7, twin sex nightmares reacting to a movie seen two days later!
DREAM 1: My date Lana changes to my housemate Alder to my dead friend Beryl, who talks of pastlife trauma...
DREAM 2: Sexy deer-girls and ice dancers get me and my sister hot, but a ghost disrupts impending incest...
TWO DAYS LATER: I see Boys Don't Cry--settings, situations, characters & even names from my dream!
CAUTION: DEER BREASTS, NEAR-INCEST, FILM ON TRANNYCIDE
BRETON NUNNERY: by Mabel Morison, August 1911, a dream of a stranger's passing
Touring Bretagne, I lodged in a nunnery. At 1 AM I saw by moonlight an old woman at my table.
I later learned that old woman died at 1 AM that night; for many years, my room had been hers...
BROTHER: by Noelle Stevenson; c.2000-2012?, recurring rescue dreams
I kept dreaming of a boy in striped pajamas. I had to save him every night.
Until one night I failed. I just couldn't. I knew who he was--my brother who...
CAUTION: DEATH
THE BRUNDIBAR SEA: by Wayan; 2005/12/18, a mystical manifestation dream
Biking, I stray into the steamy Brundibar Sea. My bike dissolves!
But hot-tubbers explain the Sea manifests what you visualize. Yay! Uh-oh...
CAUTION: MYSTICISM AND HOLOCAUST HISTORY
BURN THE EGGS: by Wayan; 2008/1/20; a magical advisory nightmare with 15 sketches.
Fighting an absolutist theocracy, my dragon-soul burns the
church's dragon-nursery. The cost is terrible: a black vortex...
CAUTION: ROMANTIC THREESOME GETS BURNED
A BUSINESS MAN'S DREAMS: by A Business Man, c.1918; four predictive dreams
A certain intensity marks some dreams as predictive, whether they foresee a death or a crisis averted;
but I keep quiet about them, writing them only in a locked diary. Once I spoke up, and was shunned...
CAUTION: DISTURBING ANALOGY WITH SEX-ORIENTATION CLOSET
BUTLER'S CROSSING: by David's father; 1941/8/24, a (heeded or unheeded?) warning dream
He saw a vehicle coming toward him at great speed. The light was so bright it blinded him. He screamed...
CALPURNIA'S DREAM: by Calpurnia and her husband Julius Caesar; 44(BCE)/3/14, two warning dreams.
The night before Caesar's assassination, he dreamed he flew above the clouds and met Jupiter;
his wife Calpurnia dreamed he'd be stabbed, and begged him not to go out, but politics...
CARDANO'S DREAMS: by Girolamo Cardano, 1521 & 1547/8/15, two confusing oracular dreams
1521: I ask a talking ape how long I'll live. "Four years" he says. "No longer?" "No."
26 years later, I'm still hoping to get truth from dream-figures--two dead guys tell me...
CAUTION: JUNGIANS BEHAVING BADLY
CARRIED UP: by Wayne Miller, 1972/3/3, epic nightmare turning transcendent
I'm in a huge colonnade. An army of blood-painted men sacrifice the dove of peace. Their masked leader drinks its blood.
But then I'm carried upstairs to meet... the prophet Daniel! I'm amid the angels, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...
CAUTION: BLOOD-DRINKING THUGS
CARSON: by Kitty Ostrander; 1991/6/23; an apparent clairvoyant dream
I DREAM: I'm at the scene of a fatal car crash. They thought it was Johnny Carson, but it's his brother Dick.
I WAKE: On the news: Johnny Carson's son Dick died in a car crash. The scene looks like my dream...
CAUTION: WILL TROUBLE E.S.P. SKEPTICS
CART WITH HUSBAND: by Mrs. T, pre-1961, a predictive nightmare
A cart came by, drawn by a white horse, on its way to the hospital. In that cart was my husband....
CAUTION: ANGUISH, DEFEAT, PREDESTINATION
CARTWRIGHT'S HARLEQUIN: by Rosalind Cartwright, 1927? to 2020/12/5? Lifelong recurring dream
All her life, Cartwright dreamed of a figure disguised in a harlequin costume; she never saw his face.
He always drove her to self-sabotage. But near her death, she dreamt she gave a lecture, and he...
A CAT AND HER GIRL: by Wayan; 1979/5/15, a deep little dream.
I'm a doctor in the future, trying to heal the neurolink between a girl and her cat...
CATS FORESEEN: by William S. Burroughs, 1991/12/22; a predictive dream
I dream of huge, weirdly marked & colored cats all over. They don't bother my cat Fletch as I expected. Next day,
I read the Audubon Book of Animals and recognize these patterns & colors.The flying fox even looks like Fletch...
CAUTION: WILL ANNOY ESP SKEPTICS
CHASM by Nancy Price; 1948, a telepathic nightmare.
The scenery's so lovely my mother walks off a cliff! As I wake, a neighbor falls out a high window...
CLAIRAGONY: by a Philadelphia woman, Aug 1951, a sympathetic heart attack her mind misattributes
I had a heart attack--but it faded in minutes! The phone rang. I knew at once my dying mother was gone...
CLOCKS STOP, CLOCKS START: 1953/10/3 and pre-1961; two family reports of psychokinesis
Indiana: Father's favorite clock, a cuckoo clock, stopped at exactly the time he died...
Florida: an old clock silent for years started up at 10:20, the time of my husband's death the day before...
COCO CHANEL'S PUSSY: by Wayan; 2010/4/26; a film-pun-sex dream
Coco Chanel's fashion workers want me to screw Coco's cat,
so she'll stop screwing them financially...
CAUTION: SEX KITTENS
COEURL: by Wayan; 1980/2/26, a dream of surprise transcendence
I'm trapped in an alien hotel, my true love has gone radioactive,
and the only way out is to turn into a giant, scary...
CAUTION: CLOSET LESBIAN. LITERAL CLOSET.
COFFINS: by Beryl and Wayan; 1983/11/5, dark parallel/shared/telepathic dreams
Twin dreams of ghoulish games backstage at a theater.
And they anticipated real long-term ghoulishness...
CAUTION: SLOW DEATH
COLLAR OF GOLD: a Welshman of Kemmeis District; 1170s? A recurring dream of treasure
A rich man dreamt thrice that hidden in St Berner's Well near his house was a golden collar. He reached in and...
CAUTION: OW
THE COMING DARK: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 2002/3/2; a dream on one disaster averted, and one... not.
I climb down a cliff before night strands me; but in town, risky adolescent games cause a crash...
A CONVERSATION WITH ANOREXIA: by Wayan; 1994/6/25; two wild shamanic dreams.
That day I read Hilde Bruch's "Conversations with Anorexics" and face the fact I am one.
That night, in the land where anorexic horses heal, I enter the Kiva of Shamanic Pamphlets, and...
CORPSE-BUG: by Wayan; 1994/12/1, an allegorical sex nightmare.
I'm a hippie girl in San Francisco, in hard times. To escape the Four Horsemen, I lie down with Death...
CAUTION: GANGS, CREEPY SEX
CORPSES IN THE UPPER ROOM: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1995/1/30, a dreamlet of death/regeneration
Bodies are laid out upstairs in a dirt bed. Potatoes will sprout.
The plants won't feed on the bodies, but they will support the vines...
THE CRANE SPOKE: by Thomas Takashi Tanemori; 1945/8/5, a child's dream foreseeing Hiroshima
A crane came and spoke to me, reassuring me "I'll be back" even as a great fire burned it. It returned
as a white butterfly. Next morning, as we played hide and go seek, I shut my eyes and counted to...
CAUTION: CIVILIANS MASSACRED
CREATURE BECOMES CREATOR: by Wayan; 2015/2/5, three linked advisory dreams on world trends
A weird little forest god bred me from an ordinary deer into a creature who can
almost pass for human. But World War 2 killed my god, and now I'm growing into...
CAUTION: NUDITY, CROSSBREEDING
THE CREEK: by Louisa E. Rhine; c. 1925? a lifesaving predictive dream
I was camping by a creek. I went to get soap and returned to find my baby son face-down in the water...
CROSS THE BLACK RIVER ONE DEATH AT A TIME: by Wayan; 1990? Astral landscape
Buddhism is a 12-step program; it has its pitfalls for those of us who already detach all too easily...
CRYSTAL AND GUNSEL: by Wayan; 1997/7/2, a nightmare--psychic or not?
Gunsel kills my friend Crystal in a flaming aircar crash. But that's not enough--he comes back, and...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
CUT THROAT: by Dr. Walter Bruce, 1883/12/27; a psychic nightmare
I saw one man stalk another. Unprovoked, he cut his throat. I felt I knew him but couldn't see his face...
That night, my brother-in-law was brutally murdered in just this fashion, outside a wedding party...
CAUTION: GRIM. 19TH-CENTURY GRIM.
CYCLES AGO: dream by Maud Gonne, poem by WB Yeats; late July 1891, a dream-poem
We were as if brother and sister of old in the desert land;
they sold us in slavery together before this life had begun...
DAD'S DATES: by Wayan; 2008/8/17, a dream poem, Dreamverse #8.
After my mom's death, my dad starts dating again, while I hide out and wince. Can't I do anything positive?
DAD THE WORKAHOLIC: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; an emotional blowout dream
In the paper factory where my dad worked all his life, I find him on
his deathbed. Even as he fades, he's still trying to please his bosses...
DALI CENTAUR: by Wayan; 1981/12/12; a surrealist nightmare.
I dreamed I saw what looked like an ink sketch by Dali of a horse--but I was dead wrong...
CAUTION: YUCK
DALLAS GMORK: by Wayan; 1984/8/21, a predictive nightmare
I'm a protester in Dallas, fighting Reagan's cops. A werewolf kills two of them.
I may be its real prey; is police harassment distracting the wolf from me?
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND DISTURBING PREDICTION
DANCE OF THE SUN: by Wayan, 1972/10/23, an epic mystical dream
I cross a hostile continent to a magic commune, fall in love with a flying girl who slaps a
soul-spark into my head, and follow an alien goddess leading the Dance of the Sun...
THE DARII: by Wayan; 1994/8/15, a predictive dream of another life.
I'm trying to prevent a race war, but can I kill someone I admire? And if so, can I live with it?
CAUTION: RACISM, VIOLENCE, INTENSE GUILT
A DART IN HER CHEST: by Wayan; 1984/8/21, a predictive dream
A woman loses patience with sexual harassment in an Air Force training program, and
stages a die-in. But why's she wrapped in an orange towel, why a dart in her chest?
CAUTION: TROUBLING REAL-WORLD AFTERMATH
THE DAY AFTER: by William S. Burroughs, btw. 1984 & '94; a black-humor dream poem
I'm in Lawrence, Kansas, watching a TV ad for hemorrhoid cream that won't solve your nuclear war problems...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE; ADVERTISING; HUMAN EXTINCTION
DEAD, ALIVE, DEAD: by a Minnesota teacher; well before 1960, a predictive... something.
Mrs Brown was dead; I recalled helping at her bedside. My mother swore she was alive and I'd never met her! Then...
THE DEAD BABY: by Wayan; 1985/8/4 a dream of hope.
My sister gives birth during a killer heatwave. The baby's dead. I play with the body, like a chimp...
CAUTION: GROSS
DEAD, NOT STUPID: by Wayan; 2000/1/20, a (possibly predictive) ghost dream
My little sisters tell the detectives, "Daddy's ghost has
a message for you" but at first they don't listen...
DEAD OR ALIVE? by Nancy Price; 1948, a surreal, poetic dream from the borderzone
Troutmet the moon-pigeon, Burtra the blackbird, a talking acacia,
my dead father and my dead gardener all give me afterlife-advice...
DEATH CHANTY: by E.M. Martin's friend; 1914/9/21, a psychic dream
An endless parade of drowned sailors sing a dirge. The dreamer woke in tears. Then the news arrived.
DEATH DATE: by Jim Shaw; 1994 (early?), a possibly predictive shamanic dream
I become a werewolf and climb into a strange attic. I find a grave marker for
an old friend--but her death date is two years in the future...
"DEATH! DEATH!" by William Holman Hunt; 1854/1/20 (or so); a one-year predictive dream
DREAM: Hunt's mother points at a tall figure in the shadows and shrieks "Death! Death!"
ONE YEAR LATER: in Jerusalem, his hostess finds her young son dead, and shrieks...
CAUTION: BEWARE THE IDES OF JANUARY?
THE DEATH OF ATYS: by King Croesus c.560 BCE; predictive dream, or self-fulfilling?
Croesus dreamt his heir Atys was slain by an iron blade; he locked them all in the armory. But Atys went
hunting; his guard Adrastus's spear went astray. Did Fate kill Atys, or superstition rattling poor Adrastus?
DESERT SLAVERS: by Wayan; 2015/5/29; a grim dream replayed a bit better
A gang of slavers catch my family. I flee on a bike but it breaks down. Stranded. Replay! This time I have a gun...
CAUTION: GANG, SHOOTING
DEVILMENT: by Wayan, 2017/8/13, two dreams on Queen Bee syndrome, fusing Milton & Milton Friedman
A Queen Bee devil kidnaps my grandniece; I kill her to free the child. Turns out even Hell's leaders are relieved.
She returns as a satanic housing developer. Slicker this time, but just as crooked. Must I kill her again?
CAUTION: DEVILS, VIOLENCE (NONGRAPHIC)
THE DIEBACK: by Wayan; 1998/10/12, an ecological warning dream.
A plague begins on terraformed Mars and spreads to Earth. Population biology made it inevitable...
CAUTION: POPULATION CRASH (OFFSTAGE)
DISSECTING PESSIMISM: by Wayan; 1997/4/14, a stubbornly educational nightmare.
A serial killer stalks our office, but our bosses deny it and do nothing.
I kill him. He revives--over and over! A robot I have to disassemble...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
THE DOCTOR KILLS A TERN: by Wayan; 1988/9/24. A dream poem, Dreamverse #4
Dr Who kills his best friend, a huge white tern, on a whim. Furious, I demand a rewrite...
CAUTION: WANTON MURDER
DOG THIRST: by Cecy and Wayan; 1991/10/7, shared or telepathic dreamlets
CECY: In a desert, a thirsty dog jumps out of a tree--the first known dog suicide...
WAYAN: I'm a talking dog. Our owner denies us enough water, so we protest...
DON'T SHOOT THE IBEX: by Jane Doe; 2005/8/9, a hunting dream.
My hunting license won't let me legally shoot a giraffe or ibex, but I do bag a prime Macy's salesman...
CAUTION: LICENSE TO KILL
THE DOOR THROUGH DEATH: by Wayan; 1981/10/25; a Greco-Egyptian nightmare poem
At death's door, my friend lets Cerberus devour her, so I can enter
Death's pyramid alive and expose the truth about the afterlife...
CAUTION: FATAL DOG ATTACK
DOUBLE DREAM: by "Anonymous #23 & 24"; pre-1963, two linked false-predictive dreams
Mother & daughter both dream Mum runs over a little girl. Next morning she
spots the girl in the road--warned, she swerves. But bystanders see no child...
DOUBLE FUNERAL: by Rick Veitch; c.1995; a nightmare on the First Gulf War?
Two kids I grew up with are dead. We carry their still-smoking corpses by the home of George Bush...
CAUTION: BURNT BODIES
DREAM-CHILDREN by Charles Lamb, Nov. 1821, an early, eerie parallel-world dream.
My children ask me to tell our family history, up to the death of their mother. I wake to find
myself single, my late wife alive but married to another, and my beloved children, phantoms...
CAUTION: 19TH-CENTURY LOGORRHEA
DREAMKU, MARCH 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to March 2007; 31 dream-poems--mostly haiku
Dream poems laid out like a calendar. Themes? Horses, camels, abused girls, vampires--all want their freedom...
DREAMKU, APRIL 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to April 2007; 30 dream-poems--mostly haiku
Dream haiku laid out like a calendar. Roswila's favorite is the pirate, but mine is the were-salamander...
DUCK HUNT: by Craig, age 4; 1950/11/18, an ignored predictive nightmare
"I dreamed you were in the water, Daddy. You kept trying to come out of the water to me..."
DUMP: by Thom Gunn, between 1993 & '99, a nightmare about legacies
His literary afterlife was just six inches of shelf space. But then friends brought more, trucks more, til I slid down hills of paper...
CAUTION: DEATH'S AFTERMATH
EAT THE MOON: by Wayan; 2013/9/4; a weird shamanic dream-poem
Lights on the moon! Future cities shine. Gotta fix that time-slip. But in
shaman-space, the moon's a deerskull up a tree! I take it down, pocket its
jewel-city-eyes and try to stew the moon. I'm Coyote, so my cookery goes wrong...
EATING DIRT: by Emperor Zhi Meng, c.550 CE, a predictive nightmare
The Emperor dreamt he was eating dirt. He feared it was a metaphor for
death. Wrong. No metaphor! Soon after, his enemies suffocated him in dirt...
CAUTION: BRUTAL
EEL TOWER: by Wayan; 1981/4/23, a dream of longing.
I dreamed living in a body of flesh is like being trapped on a sinking cruise ship...
CAUTION: NUDITY (but she's just crying, not giving that guy a blowjob, okay?)
THE EGG PROBLEM: by Wayan; 1990/3/2, digital painting of a magical dream.
I'm an intellectual ballerina trying to stop zombies hatching from stone eggs, but I succeed
only when I become a dragon using touch, scent and visualization to persuade the eggs...
EMADRO: by Wayan; 1983/6/4, a wild dream on clinging--and letting go.
An elephant sinks in the North Sea, and the Oracle Mink says a wizard did it. Can old Lady Gandalf help?
EMBER IN THE BRAIN: by Wayan; 1983/3/31, a dream about old anger.
I'm the Incredible Hulk, forced to do emergency brain surgery. For the patient's burning from within...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND UNLICENSED MEDICINE
EXECUTE ME!: by Wayan; 2014/1/27, a harsh revolutionary dream
I'm condemned to die for fighting a regime that's killed my minority with impunity
for centuries. I have no regrets. They'll hesitate now, knowing they too can die...
EXPERIMENT WITH TIME by Nancy Price; 1948, a shamanic-initiation dream declined?
I meet a girl who's 16 and 61, who tells me dreams are lives, not messages.
But then I must fly over a sinister parade...
FAIRY WIFE: by Wayan; 1985/1/17, an epic dream of love and choice.
A fairy woman and a mortal man? Can't work! They're flighty, we're crude. Doomed, right?
Well, some people are so sure of it they decide to help things along a bit. Or a lot...
FALADA: The Goose Girl's Best Friend: by Mardi Storm, recurring predictive dreams c.1975-79, sculpted c.2000
I had recurring dreams in which a talking horse’s head was nailed to a tree.
Strangely, this was before I read "The Goose Girl" in Grimm's fairytales...
CAUTION: GRIMM ALL AROUND
FAREWELL, FRIEND: by Lu Yuan Ming, between 386-550 CE; a psychic dream
DREAM: Lu's best friend had to go away. They composed poems on the sadness of parting...
DAYS LATER: Lu learned that on the night of his dream, his friend had been killed in an uprising...
FANNY SEWARD'S DEATH: by Harriet Tubman; 1866/10/29, a psychic dream
I saw a chariot fly south then return with the cold body of my friend. I ran into town to warn them
"Miss Fanny's dead!" As I reached town, the news came, confirming her death...
FATHER'S COFFIN: by Anonymous #63, 1852/12/31, a timely psychic dream
On New Year's Eve, I 'woke' to find my room full of light. A coffin lay on chairs; inside was my father.
My watch read 12:40. I woke again. A day later the letter arrived. My father had died at 12:40...
THE FEARFUL INSECT by Nancy Price; 1948, an episodic circular nightmare unified by a leitmotif
A bug with a horse-skull face reappears all through this nightmare of betrayal. I only know I feared it...
FERDINAND'S ASSASSINATION: by Joseph Lanyi; 1914/6/28, a historic predictive dream.
Lanyi dreamed in detail of the assassination of his friend Archduke Franz Ferdinand hours before it happened...
F.I.P: by Dr A (c.1947), a Cambridge man (1960?), a London girl (c.1916) and a Midlands mum (July 1958)
Examples of inexplicable moods that appear (after the fact) to be reactions to future events...
FIRE-CATS: by Wayan; 1981/10/10; twin dream-poems on over-discipline
For mere disobedience, I EXECUTE a forest-fire-fighting cat! So next
I'm trapped in a security-obsessed job; how do I like it? I flee...
FISH BIRTH: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; c.1978/11/15; a nightmare
My little son accidentally tears the tail off our goldfish. The wound
looks vaginal. The fish, moaning in pain, turns into my daughter...
FLOATING HORSES: by Wayan, 1972/8/10, a flying/transformation dream advising patience
That day, I did bad art. That night, my friend & I get turned into levitating horses--
though some of our fellow fliers, like the mummified Inuit, are kinda creepy...
FOOT ON THE GAS: by Wayan; 1982/3/16, a creepy little warning dream.
My car's idling too fast. After hours of diagnosis, I notice a foot's on the gas! But not my foot...
THE FOREST BRIDE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1994/7/23 & 1994/12/10; opposing solstice dreams
In the midsummer dream, I'm at a wedding in the Russian forest;
in winter, I dream I hold an emaciated girl as she breathes her last...
A FOUNTAIN IN THE ARMENIANS: by Pauline Ramsey; early July 2006, a clairvoyant dream?
I spoke a proverb I'd never heard of when I woke. So I Googled it, and found it had meaning--dark meaning...
CAUTION: TURKISH JINGOISTS WILL NOT LIKE THIS DREAM
FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE FLU: by R.T., 1918; a predictive nightmare
I dreamed that in four days a plague would hit our reservation and people would start dying.
Four days later it happened just as I was warned---the 1918 flu. And my dream caused it...
CAUTION: NOT JUST SURVIVOR'S GUILT, SEER'S GUILT
FRANKENSTEIN'S ORIGIN: by Mary Shelley; 1816/6/16, the (hypnogogic?) dream inspiring a famous book
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing
he had put together; I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out...
FRANKLIN'S NECK: by a dying Kansas grandmother; 1953/7/5, an unheeded warning nightmare
"Oh no" she moaned. "I don't want Frankie to go to that camp. He must not go there." She began to cry...
FREUD WAS SOME WRONG ABOUT DREAMS, and THE AUTUMN BREEZE: by John Berryman; ca. 1967.
After a year of intense dreamwork, Berryman rejects Freud and accepts open-ended dreaming, and writes Dream Songs...
CAUTION: SIXTIES STONER REBELLING AGAINST SPELLING... and grammar... and punctuation...
GENNADIUS: by Gennadius, ca. 415 CE, apparently the first recorded lucid dream
Gennadius re-dreams a previous dream, helping him see he's dreaming. His guide points out spiritual implications...
GET YOUR BODY BACK: by Wayan; 1997/6/11, a dreamed parable.
A man dies--his body's chopped up. He ends in Hell. But he's a stubborn guy; he wants his body back. So...
GHOST DOGS: by Wayan; a 1993/4/2 temptation dream done as a 1-page digital comic
I meet a wolf who invites me to join Dr Who's pack of sexy Ghost Wolves.
Just one catch nobody mentioned. To be a ghost, you have to...
CAUTION: FLIRTATIOUS WOLVES
GHOSTS PUSH TOWARD THE SUICIDE DOOR: by Wayan, 1997/8/7, a nightmare that wants a break.
I live in a haunted house where ghosts push you to suicide. But they're as tired of it as I am...
THE GIANTESS OF THVERA: by Viga-Glum Eijolfsson; early 940s?, a very public clairvoyant dream.
Viga-Glum dreamt a giantess came to visit. "She is the spirit-guide of my grandfather in Norway. He is dead...
GRAVE: by Wayan; 1999, a poem of everyday life, if this is your everyday life.
So I looked out my window and saw this guy burying a tiny robed woman in a trench in the street...
GRAVES: by J.S., 1901, a predictive nightmare
I dreamt my wife and I lived on a farm. I was summer and all was ripe. But I found I wasn't
digging vegetable beds, but graves. I woke. By next summer, my wife and child were both...
GRAVESTONE: by "Miss S."; late 1930s-1946, a recurring clairvoyant/predictive nightmare
I'm walking up a churchyard path. My hair clings to me, damp. Horses wander. I'm drawn to one graveside...
GREAT GODDESS, or, SACRIFICE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1970; an epic painting of a troubling dream
I'm a priestess standing on a stone terrace, holding a ritual axe. Before me kneels a sacrifice to the Goddess...
GREEN SCREEN ANGEL: by Wayan, 2018/10/18, a bizarre predictive dream
A reporter interviews the guardian angel of my dead sister Jill in front of a
green screen. He's dissolving in grief--luminous holes show through...
GREG'S GIFT: by Sheila and Trish, reported by Janis Amatuzio; June 1995, three dreams (?) of a ghost
A woman dreams of her boyfriend recently killed in a car crash. Unremarkable so far. But he
also haunts his ex-babysitter, two thousand miles away, who had no idea he'd died...
GRIEF KIVA: by Wayan; 1980/2/16, a lucid psychic dream.
In a Hopi underworld, I find even lucid dreaming can't cure guilt and grief over losses yet to come...
HAIL AND FAREWELL by Nancy Price; 1947/6/6, a revenant dream-message
A dying colleague haunts me all night. He says "crossings are often unpleasant" but death's not bad...
HEAD ON MY TABLE: by Lauren Watley; 2011/2/16, a creepy dream-image with depth
After a day of troubling conflicts over race & art, I dream I'm handed a hot, heavy, mossy head--is it art, or alive?
HEADLESS NAG: by Jules Engel; 1975/5/25, nightmare of a corpse that won't quit
Every good party leaves a corpse or two. Cleaning up, I behead this one and drag it across the street to the
empty lot where we leave them. But its throat forms a toothless mouth and starts biting--well, gumming me...
HEADLINES: by "Anonymous #21"; 1942/8/4, 1954/1/1, and 1958/8/16, a set of psychic newsflashes
All my life I've had sudden visions showing violent deaths accompanied by headlines naming the victims...
HEDGEHOG AND WHITE RABBIT: by Wayan; 1972/12/1, a dream love story.
Hedgehog and White Rabbit stick together, through the snipers on Broadway,
through the dogs of winter, through cannibal soup...
HEIRESS AND MORTAL: by Wayan; 2011/2/16, a dark advisory dream
I'm a misfit--a mortal in an immortal world. Then I meet a girl with an unpredictable illness...
HELL CAFE: by Wayan; 2009/10/21, a dream poem w/sketch; Dreamverse #62
A Buddhist scroll shows me Hell Cafe, where diners become entrees. But I read the scroll
backwards! You can escape Hell just by walking out, against the traffic flow...
CAUTION: CANNIBAL SOULS
HELL HALL: by Anonymous #3; c.1920?, a dream of initiatory cannibalism
A revival meeting goes bad--suicides, 'long pig', a hell-pit. If you sup with the devil, carry a long fork!
HER DEAD BROTHER: by a Bereaved Lady, as told by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1850s?
Saint-Denys pushes a strange theory of dream-incompetence, using as an example
a woman's dream of grief over her brother, killed in a war. But her case suggests
a second explanation a 19th-century scholar isn't equipped to see ...
HER HAND ON THE MANTEL: by Frederick Greenwood; before 1894; a disowned predictive dream
Greenwood dreams he finds a severed hand on a mantelpiece. The next day
it happens! But he sees no moral, so he dismisses it...
HILDA'S DEATH: by Sister Begu, 680/11/17, as told by the Venerable Bede; a clairvoyant dream
Hilda, founder of two monasteries, dies in one. Begu, in the other, 13 miles away,
dreams Hilda's been taken to heaven. She tells her sisters. Messengers arrive...
HORSEFALL... AND WORSE: by Wayan; 1997/5/15, a political nightmare.
Corruption in my town causes a bizarre death. But is that all? I smell smoke--will the city burn?
HOT TO TROT or BRAIN TRAUMA or HUMPIN' THE HOG or SAD-EYED SWAN OF LOVE:
by Wayan; 1993/8/4, a bizarre, epic dream on finding your way
I'm a mare hot to trot (and get laid) in the Big City, but my gay Star Trek friend's brain trauma
makes her a clueless alien with a bo(a)ring sexlife--until a sad swan enfolds her in love...
CAUTION: ALIEN POSSESSION, CARTOON PIG SEX, SMOKING SWANS
HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHT: by Wayan; 1994/4/3, a dark dream.
As my grandmother is dying, I have a dream about what really went on in her house...
CAUTION: CHILD SLAVERY
HOW TO SURVIVE NUCLEAR WAR: by Maxine Kumin; early 1980s, a dream poem.
In Japan, sick in bed, reading a book on radiation sickness, I dream of a restorative ritual for trees...
CAUTION: GRUESOME
HOWARD ANY TIME NOW: by Alice; pre-1961, a predictive dream of a ghost calling.
My dead father said "We're looking for Howard any time now. We'll be glad to see him..."
HOWL: by Wayan; June 1983, a picture-poem on a daydream of deep time
Surely the dinosaurs were as vocal as their little cousins, the birds.
But bass to the birds' soprano! So when dinos sang to the moon...
HUCK FINN'S WISH: by Wayan; 1995/12/8, a dream of flight and sabotage.
A mysterious stranger offers free wishes to the kids of Hannibal, Missouri. Tom Sawyer wants to fly...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
HUNG BY ELDER: by Wayan; 1997/7/30, a nightmare.
A disowned heiress and I sneak onto the family estate, but they'll go pretty far to hide their skeletons...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
HUNTERS' FIRE: by Wayan; 1987/9/8, a nightmare that may be a memory.
I'm an orphan shot at by hunters. They shoot my sister! But no one believes me...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
I DIED AND WALKED AMONG THE LIVING: by Starvibes, 2013/1/4, a warning dream?
My little daughter and I hardly notice when a truck kills us. Unseen, I calmly observe the alarm of the living...
I NEVER SAW JUNG DIE: by Larry Vigon; 2003/11/28; a quasi-Jungian dream
My nonexistent brother is a bank robber about to be arrested; he says
"I never saw Jung die." Meaning not that Jung's alive, but just...
I OVERSLEPT: by Wayan; 1992/6/12, a dream of loss.
I oversleep. A lot. All my friends are dead, along with my century...
"I SHALL HURT YOU WORSE": by Mrs B. when young, c. 1760; a predictive dream semi-heeded
At 14, B. dreamt a stranger attacked her and hurt her badly. She said "but I'll hurt you worse." She did:
a week later that man attacked and nearly killed her. She survived to identify him--and get him hanged...
CAUTION: HARSH JUSTICE
IDI AMIN: by Ben Bamber; 2007/6/25, a possibly predictive dream
I was teaching a class on democracy in Africa when Idi Amin walked in. The crowd turned violent, but then...
IN EL RIO: by Wayan; 1994/5/14, a singles nightmare.
My family runs a bar. I walk through, after hours. Who are all these silent figures?
CAUTION: UNHEALTHY READING FOR SINGLES
IN THE STAR; 1988/9/12 by Wayan; an epic, out-of-body, intrastellar quest-dream
I tour the heart of a red supergiant, where dreaming souls explore
their fears and heart's desires, unconstrained by solid matter...
CAUTION: SWEDENBORGIAN VISION, UNICORN NUDITY
THE INCEST DREAM: by Maxine Kumin; 1979? a dream-poem
As my brother was dying, I had a series of vivid premonitory dreams about him. But I was unprepared for...
INDIAN SCHOOL: by Hasteen Hon, 1926, a death-foreseeing dream
My grandmother told me dreams tell the truth. I was skeptical. I dreamed my brother came home from Indian school. He looked terrible--
skeletal, with sooty skin. Soon after, my brother got sick. He looked as he did in the dream. We brought him home. Four days later, he...
INSURANCE: by a young widow; 1947, a dream of lucrative ghost advice
After my husband's death, I dreamed he pointed at a small black bag I hadn't opened. It held insurance policies...
IRENE'S DREAM: parallel (linked?) dreams by "Irene May" and Jack Kerouac, c. Aug 9 1953
IRENE tries to mold Francesca like clay to bring her back to life, and does--for a moment...
JACK finds his brother Gerard dead, and all Jack's words can't revive him...
IT'S A DEAD MAN'S PARTY: by Wayan; 1988/10/18, a nightmare of identity.
I find myself at a creepy party supporting a dead man who's running for office. And am I Dan Quayle?
CAUTION: HORROR BEYOND HORROR. YOU ARE DAN QUAYLE.


See also Death, J-Z
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