DREAM: The future. A party. A woman spills her drink on my white pants. Off to Faerie, where fruit trees are mean...
NEXT DAY: I do not wear white pants to Sally's party. So? A woman spills her drink on Sally's white pants...
DAY AFTER: I open a book on musicals & see a shot from The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy baiting an angry fruit tree...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE
I'm Annie Oakley, sharpshooter, facing something scarier than gunmen: a formal ball
introducing me to my new husband's family--Austrian aristocracy! What's an American gal to do?
My two moms sell art fabrics made by grayish batwinged sisters whose newest ad is risqué...
CAUTION: ADS WITH NUDE BATS
I'm naked, flirting with two cute women. People can see us in our bay window, but I just don't care....
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
DAY: I bike across San Francisco writing down what I actually see.
DREAM: I'm an abused English heiress with a dangerous alien artifact...
CAUTION: HAUNTED BY CHILD ABUSE
A bubble of spacetime distortion lands in an awkward place,
making people mistrust the unlucky recipient...
In a world where respectable men wear masks, an old, old man rebels in the crudest way he can...
Awkward newlyweds. Not a love match! Can they co-operate to save a woman from the Nazis?...
I look down on scrawny centaurs with cropped manes & tails: butch minimalism. Unsexy! Then I'm
down among them. Now they have big eyes, luxuriant manes and tails: femme excess. I find this sexy...
CAUTION: CENTAUR NUDITY
We're slaves on the moon. But we're slowly stretching our freedom in the shadows, undoing the Braid of...
A champion swimmer tells me how she turned a sexual humiliation into excitement and liberating power...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, SHAME, PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY
At last my girlfriend and I manage to peel off the Brown Dress of Shame, and ...
CAUTION: SEXUAL HEALING
A weird urge insists "Do laundry NOW!" I go. My housemate Liz is there! I open a machine and find
the buckles for the overalls I lent Liz for a Halloween costume. She swears "I looked everywhere..."
CAUTION: FLAMES E.S.P. DENIERS
I was the new girl among rich students, then an adult among snobs, then a girl again--always craving freedom...
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
I model with ten blonde clones. They want to be seen as individuals, so it's their last fashion show before...
I always laughed at those silly superhero outfits. But when it's my turn to fly, I find out why...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE
a 2015 painting weaving seven dreams (2014/5/4, 6/9, 7/1 & 9/4; 2015/5/23, 6/26 & 8/25)
A portrait of Clotho, the Greek Fate who spins our life-threads, by a pool woven of my dreams from this time...
After a day of medical mess-ups, I dream whites routinely cheat super-fast Native American pony couriers,
till the riders demand showy down payments called Contract Cloaks. Now cheats'll get publicly exposed...
I find the feminist principle "the personal is political" leads to some alarming consequences for privacy...
CAUTION: POLITICS
Deer-mares join our theatre class. Adorable! Then pig people. Not adorable. I wake & sketch them.
Hear voices--sexy singing deer on TV! Wow, my dream was predictive! And then I wake AGAIN...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY
CAFTAN: My ultra-conservative brother wears a caftan. No way!
I woke amused. But later that day, he gave me a Christmas present...
DICKENS: A voice rants "I love Dickens! It has to be Dickens!"
Next evening on Night Gallery, Agnes Moorehead begs for...
I carelessly burst in on a friend, a gay dinosaur, during a Jewish holiday rite,
startling him so he raises his spiny crest, levitating his yarmulke...
When I was 17, an older girl pushed booze at me and came on to me... in front of my parents and teachers!
For months, I had ambivalent sex dreams trying to process what Donna taught me--not all of it negative...
CAUTION: WEIRD SEX; ADULTS BEHAVE BADLY
After our trip to Turkey, I dreamed I was dancing in
a heavy black robe like those the Turkish women wore...
One dream-poem in haiku style each day for a month!
Ghosts, snow, penguins, yoga babies, elves who leave their tree...
An experimental helmet knocks me out. I'm groggy, miserable, till I learn what it did to others...
Dancers in weird costumes from around the world audition for a contest, but
the judge lets them all in, from silly to obscene. Next day, on Doctor Who...
CAUTION: POSSIBLY PREDICTIVE; CERTAINLY EMBARRASSING
In a world of hideous haircuts (flagging your politics) I meet a dragon
running for office. But is this real or a dream? Both/neither! It's...
Every year, as Americans get fatter, the fashion gets thinner (and I look more normal)...
A coach-driving vampire seemed kind of cute until he raped me. If that's even his real face...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE
I dreamed I was one of several soldiers about to be executed. I told my girlfriend the dream.
She asked "What were you wearing?" and I burst out laughing as I saw the pun: "Fatigues!"
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.
I turn into my friend Fran, who I haven't see for months. Then I'm me, in a hot tub,
talking to Fran, who's now a sort of lemur-girl. She insists I'm psychic.
I'm skeptical. I just get hunches, if I relax in hot water. She says...
Previous dreamwork had made it clear my mother had betrayed me; I asked
my dreams how to protect myself from those who do not love me...
I walk into a Castro fashion shop with Dalí décor--golden underwear draped on branches. And my friends all buy it...
CAUTION: UNDERWEAR JOKES
My husband's sweet, supportive, but not that attractive. It's my brother (meaning creativity) who
gives me oral sex to die for, as my parents quarrel and a chorus chants "Ecstasy, ecstasy"...
CAUTION: INCEST
DEBBIE: I dream of my friend G's new girlfriend C (who I've never met) and tell her "you'll never fill my shoes."
C: I dreamed I met Debbie. She wore green shoes, and said "See these shoes, you could never fit into them"...
CAUTION: WILL ANNOY E.S.P. DENIERS
My part in the revolution in Guinea-Bissau: substantial, but not exactly planned. I just wanted out...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
I toured the factory where they make the spare heads you put on and
take off to change your mind. Nothing creepy about it, nothing at all...
After seeing The Tempest with a tattooed Miranda, I dream she has a Cutie Mark on her flank--
a logo showing her life-purpose, her life-path. Except she's outgrowing it...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
I'm a slave, a scribe in the house of a Captain of the New Aztec Empire, when he brings home a wife...
CAUTION: SLAVE SOCIETY, SEX, SPOUSAL ABUSE/NEGLECT
I'm in a palace spinning a purple royal gown for... a non-princess! And the silk's
spinning out of my fingers. What am I, a spider? Turns out it's a spell making anyone
encountering a teenage girl here re-enact a royal investiture from centuries ago...
CAUTION: ABUSIVE THERAPIST (non-graphic)
An alien-heron-dino-woman left us her cape--or is it a cast-off skin? I put it on, for I was told I need
the hood to ward off some evil. My human head won't fit the narrow hood. But the owner's manual
says I don't need a shield, I'm immune! So skip the hood; wear the cape as a minidress...
My family calls me a blonde bimbo and won't give me my inheritance, so I take drastic steps...
CAUTION: MORAL HAIRSPLITTING
I wanted to steal this pink woolen sweater. I didn't need it;
what I really wanted to steal was middle-class security...
I'm a slave dancer. I run for it, and make it over the border. But my owner comes looking for me...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SLAVE SOCIETY
My friend put an ad on her gown, so I try one on our house. I have big ideas for more, but a pickpocket...
I'm at a party in an air-lake. We fish for a girl who's gone invisible. But... what if we catch her?
A children's recital of "Where the Wild Things Are" turns into a riot-orgy. And it feels... political?
CAUTION: WILD THING ORGY
The Mummy chases me, then unwraps his bandages to show the mutilated face of my boyfriend.
"I'm getting out of jail!" he says. Then the phone wakes me. My boyfriend. He says "I'm getting out of..."
CAUTION: CODEPENDENCE, MUTILATION, GUILT AND GRIEF
A bewildering dream of a boy's borrowed bath, absconding renters' furniture and fly-eating turns real a few weeks later...
I'm Emily Dickinson reborn in 2100 as a breeder of hydroponic lilies, till my dad drafts me as
an Arctic energy-prospector, where I meet a ghost, a fiery Beast, a new me, and the girl of my dreams...
CAUTION: QUEER-POSITIVE, NUDE PROSPECTORS, GNOMIC DICKINSON QUOTES
It's the 1970s. What's a lion to do? Get fern-bar camouflage: a suit and an I'm-a-bohemian moustache...
DREAM 1: A man wearing long white underwear shoots me down with a machine gun.
DAY: Long John Nebel interviews me; his Freudian friend calls me a penis-envying woman.
DREAM 2: Long John and his buddy umpire a rough baseball game. Definitely not cricket...
CAUTION: SEXISM, FREUDIANS, PUNS
Beverly Cleary's Ramona is a popular teen, but she's having a nervous breakdown. And her best friend...
CAUTION: STUDENT-TEACHER AFFAIR
I'm inside a magical novel by Patricia McKillip, amid tricksters, cosplayers, spooks, sex changes, levitation and (sigh) cops...
CAUTION: COYOTE SEX
I dream over & over of the same place, time, & woman. We fall in love. Strangely, I'm the one who gets pregnant...
A woman models an elegant gown baring her breasts. All five of them. Wait, those aren’t breasts, they’re...
by Jenny Badger Sultan; 14 dreams (mostly Jan-Mar 2011) painted on one canvas
A dream urged me to paint a big landscape with cutout movable (magnetic) dream figures
and liftable flaps revealing hidden dream scenes...
In Palo Alto I meet strange musicians in the rain, and realize kitsune aren't born but made...
I hide a chip of secrets from thugs, fight a running light-gun battle, and hide in my workplace's
crawlways, amid live cables and pipes. As the factory burns, I run a gauntlet of goons. A girl
leads me into the underworld. Fires glow and mutants dance. I marry the leader of the pack.
I help a mutant boy find others like him, and learn why some prayers are ungrantable...
At our family reunion's parade, a tropical float goes by with a drag queen
who turns out to be physically female--but still drag! The next day...
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM, DRAG OF COURSE
a dream-poem provoking a 2008/9/16 dream by Chris Wayan
I was in my mother's closet, trying on her outfits, and trapped in Hamlet, too...
Giant worms put me on trial for wearing a nameless hat, but I like their punishment so I taunt the judge...
Two boys dream robed figures climb in the window to cut their hair--and find, awake, someone has. While Pliny...
The world was ending. Volcanoes, floods. Refugees trudged by in the mud, carrying their belongings
on their backs. I think I better get dressed to go. But I can't find anything appropriate to wear...
Down at the tideline, a man dressed in seaweed disproves John Donne's adage...
Kate Wolf sings that ads are way dirtier than porn. But my memory slowly twists her message...
I worked at Stanford too long. I got tired of observing the mating displays of the purple-prose patriarch..
CAUTION: NUDE ACADEMIC GROUPIE
I'm shyly making love with a classmate, Cynthia. Classmates gawk & point, through
the pie-hole in the ceiling. But our perspective reveals that under our critics' skirts...
CAUTION: UPSKIRT NUDITY
I walk home in cold rain; my hooded robe soaked. It has holes for my long pointed ears.
Hit a thriftshop to buy a dry one, and run into two girls I crushed on but ran away from:
Danielle is comforting Cary who's crying. Their ears are pointed too. Wait--who are we?...
CAUTION: GUILT FOR SINS OF OMISSION?
I wish I could be as body-free as my neighbor Jenna, hiking nude under the full moon...
by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1999/5/15, 6/12 & 7/14, a painting based on 3 dreams
I'm in the Hypogeum, an ancient Maltese dream-temple. I join some women
staging a ritual; a little girl draped in a web plays the role of an insect...
I was just a street rat, but I danced with the princess at a ball, and fell in love. Three rich suitors pulled their blades...
Despite corporate crooks, missiles and floods, Angelina Jolie and I find the lock of mermaid hair...
I'm in the park, feeling sad, till a girl on the lawn near me semaphores a message via rings and turquoise...
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM
Cops hunt my girlfriend & me all over town. Strangely, whenever I ask them to back off,
they do! Alma's resigned--lets them arrest her and put her on a raft. But she turns into a...
We need to get down to the sea, but Disney Corporation blocks the way. Wait--we're
dreamworkers! We ooze through the walls, and cheer the parade marching in on the tide...
I'm in Santa Cruz with my friend, a shocking-pink stuffed toy cow
with sewed-on accessories: big red lips, a floral wig, and a third eye. I wake,
draw the dreamcow--and my sister calls from Santa Cruz to sing me a song about...
His sewing-machine design failed--until dream-cannibals caught him & jabbed him with weird needles...
CAUTION: OUCH!
I visit Shangri-La, the ancient Tibetan valley of refuge. Unicorns graze. We
drive around on car-sheep. Robin Hood rebels against the Priestess of Gloom.
Pilgrims in silly gauze robes arrive. Or are they just tourists? Oh, well. Toga party!
CAUTION: GAUZE ROBES, NUDE UNICORNS
A Goddess-worshiping general gets a visit from her twin daughters who bring a puzzling message...
Swimming in Spokane, I meet two teenage girls and we have a... shy orgy?
Next day I go to a play... and see the two on stage! I still dismiss the dream
as a fantasy--consciously. But unconsciously I start taking action...
CAUTION: UNDERAGE SEX
After I (sort of) foil some elf-burglars, a friendly elfwoman shows me
a black caterpillar, then the rare white-striped skunkerpillar...
DREAM: I meet a woman with a bun hairdo, black skirt, black & white striped blouse. I think she's a spy!
TWO DAYS LATER: I meet that woman--bun, skirt, blouse. And all the hotel guests here say she's a spy...
DAY: a stranger screams "BITCH! Plant a TREE!" Thinks I'm female and wants to fight over an old bumper sticker?
DREAM: I'm a horse detective. In shades, lipstick, & high heels I try to pass as a mare. Absurd! A stallion in drag...
CAUTION: HORSE NUDITY. OH WAIT, THAT'S NORMAL.
I pull my mom's sweater onto my legs but get tangled (and bits of anatomy dangle).
Worse, I'm emulating Jesus. Is this any way to get a date?
CAUTION: WARDROBE MALFUNCTION, GENDER MALFUNCTION, MOM MALFUNCTION
A ship-captain insisted some castoff clothes were mine. They fit. As I put on an elegant coat,
I recalled it was made in a past life to disguise me so I could enter a temple excluding women...
Usually I wobble on high heels--but with four feet, maybe I can follow the Yellow Brick Road...
CAUTION: NUDITY
That day: I read of a young healer in rural Indonesia harassed by the local mullah.
That night: I dream she leads a revolution on a starship against her elders...
In a world where speech is in Mayan glyphs, comedian Tina Fey (dressed for prom night)
climbs a Tibetan peak to learn levitation. But the flying monks are scared of women...
CAUTION: COOTIES; ROWDY JESUS; MAY FLUNK THE BECHDEL TEST
Asparagus, wings, an unhinged hand, a boxed ghost, butter, sister incest, tomato-pincushions,
secret volcanoes, one-eyed integers, chickenleg dresses, mirrors and bananapeel beds...
A TAILOR'S APPRENTICE: I become her to fight back against his abuse...
DAMSEL ON THE PYRE: I become a girl being burned alive, but get
so distracted by my beautiful body I forget to escape until it's too...
My friend Verity's given a beautiful set of wings. I'm envious until I consider what angel wings imply...
My scalp had an infection that just wouldn't heal. I tried everything. Then I dreamed I met
a big, black man who advised me to use certain ingredients from Africa...
Huge balloons labeled "Waymo" in bad Chinese are taking over San Francisco.
But the sexy balloonists seem to be more into masturbation than conquest...
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM OR OBJECTIFICATION?
I'm nine years old again. But my mom acts like a child--crawls into a hole. I follow, scared,
and find my grandfather packing to leave the Old Country before the Nazis kill us all...
CAUTION: FEAR & PERSECUTION
Thordhr dreams a pack of wolves attack him in a trade-booth! He wakes sure the trade-fair will be trouble...