Agassiz, faced with a fossil he had to crack open, was unsure where to strike.
But for three nights he dreamed...
Why'd I have to get my big inspiration deep in a lake
in the Land of the Lizard People high in the Andes?
by "Veronica Franco"; 2006/8/19, a dream of penned creatures and those who love them.
Alpine deer-hamsters, pigs, birds, children, even fundamentalists' daughters grow up and want to fly free...
The garden varies, but I have always turned away and walked into the whole world. So far...
An Army nightmare suddenly changes--my enemy kisses me, & we start doing every kind of sex...
CAUTION: GAYS IN THE ARMY? DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL!
Jaundiced dreams of an art show spell out just how deeply I reject the rules behind modern art...
All that spring I dreamed of climbing, cold, fatigue, risk, and fear.
But shamanic training involves toughening; ascent isn't always easy flight...
Jung's ally in killing the murderous German archetype Siegfried was Atmavictu.
Here he's worn out, turning to stone, ready to manifest as a different guide...
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...
Giant snakes chased me. I go lucid, turn & slay one. As I woke, the snakes cried. So I re-entered...
CAUTION: SNAKES, BEHEADING, REHEADING
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...
A bee-doctor in the city of Propolopolis diagnoses me as having a rare syndrome, Ambition Denied...
I'm Bill Cosby's wife, finding it hard to cook for him without a stove or fridge...
CAUTION: SLANDER, I HOPED. I HOPED WRONG.
At first I was afraid of the blackbird, who asked me to come away with him--I wasn't ready to die--
but now I see him as a friend and guide. One day when I'm ready, we'll fly--and I won't be back.
Mrs Griffiths has the same nightmare three times before she asks her nephew to skip a fishing trip...
A recurring childhood dream on how weird a boy-body is when you've been a girl too many lifetimes.
CAUTION: PUBLIC HUMILIATION, NUDE MONSTERS, SILLY GENITALIA
I was at a dream conference and brought up a recurrent theme
that others hadn't mentioned: multiple antlerlike branchings...
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
Our gods demand sacrifices. I let Mother mutilate me so I'd be unfit. But the priests turn out to be blind...
CAUTION: YOU CAN FEEL PAIN IN DREAMS
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 mysterious old woman with cat-face and claws threatened me; she seemed
to be guarding a treasure. Sometimes she appeared as a praying mantis...
I have recurring dreams of this sexy feline anima or familiar who loves dance.
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
I kept dreaming demon cats tortured me. At last a vicious dog joined them. He wanted to kill me, but
the chief cat wanted to keep playing with her prey. I realized they were my mum and dad, and said...
Me and my sisters at the beach. Strangers rarely think we're related, and you can see why...
Ballooning over Middle Earth with a metamorphosing butterfly-girl, we drift into forbidden territory:
A bee-doctor in the city of Propolopolis diagnoses me as having a rare syndrome, Ambition Denied...
I keep dreaming I'm in a multispecies family full of centaurs and satyrs, having a reunion at the beach...
CAUTION: NUDE BEACH, STRANGE RELATIVES
In my home town there were tales of coal-eaters. I dreamed of a miner who
transformed the mine-owner into a canary--at a price. He became coal himself...
CAUTION: GRIM MINE, HARSH SACRIFICE
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
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...
The House of Comics has a shabby annex jammed with self-publishers.
We make a human ladder and climb out a high window, but I don't fit;
as the tenement collapses, I must smash the windowframe to free...
After breaking with the Catholic Church, Greg had recurrent nightmares about its history of atrocities
and cover-ups. Out of this came a series of paintings unlike his famous book covers. This was the first...
CAUTION: MURDEROUS MOB
I never go on cruise ships but I keep dreaming I'm on one and meet the same man, and marry him.....
A carpenter demolishes a ruined abbey despite dreams he’ll be crushed by stones falling from a window...
Alli/Tip could only imagine loving the strange, intense, and unavailable--and Bronte was all three..
I used to dream of this violent anthropomorphic being. At times I'd put on his deer-skull head
and become him, inflicting and inciting violence. Naming him gave me some control...
I protect my friends from a demon, but the dream-guardians I summon terrify me...
As a kid, when I had a fever I always had the same nightmare: a high brick or stone wall
shaking apart, faster and faster. This scared me very much. Finally, in my teens, I...
A bomb's planted on our ship! But when a teen finds it, rather than fetch a responsible adult...
I'm in Hell. No fire, no guilt. Just endless forests under the moon. My mother paints
endlessly but never gets it right. A sunny day, but I can't go out to play. Cut off...
CAUTION: DEPRESSION
2004? to March 2008; repeated meetings with a guardian--in dreams & out!
For five years now I've been dreaming of this guy. Many dreams, same guy...
My new editor starts rejecting my poems. My new new editor rewrites them for me. I feel lucky not to be arrested...
Egbert decides to go convert the Germans. A brother monk dreams twice that God wants Egbert in Scotland, but he
sails--and nearly drowns. At last he gives in. Another monk sails to Germany. Two years later he returns defeated...
CAUTION: STUBBORN MONK, DEITY, AND GERMANS
Their bodies shift, and alter. Antlers sprout... much has been taken, and something terrible is grafted...
CAUTION: HUMAN SUPREMACISM
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
I dreamed of flying like a bird over beautiful meadows to a border or river I couldn't cross. But ladies in white
helped pull me over. After I did escape, I met some of those ladies and knew by their faces who I could trust...
Will and El each dreamed of gold buried under a walnut tree near Tulpehocken. They didn't talk about it, just
walked up there and dug. They never said how much they found, but they were rich for the rest of their lives...
Lucifer throws firebolts from a Montreal tower; monsters stalk us; next comes the flood...
Ever since I was a little girl I've been dreaming of this luxurious bright-colored mansion...
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
I dreamed at least weekly I had to view a slide showing something wrong with my fetus.
I assumed the dreams expressed doubts about motherhood--until my miscarriage...
After my father died he attacked me in recurring nightmares. I fought and beat him, but he always came back.
When he showed up as a tiger, I negotiated, agreeing to make some changes. He's left me in peace ever since.
I had an epic dream lasting subjective weeks--a true other life. It wasn't Earth and we weren't human.
I was a teenage lemur, sailing with two friends into unknown waters--a rite of passage. One night,
my friends curled round me, I saw I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a woman, marry, and have pups.
I loved my girl friends. In a world lacking the very word, I was groping toward queerdom.
Sailing into unknown waters! "Here be dragons," the old maps say. And they were right...
2600K loads slowly? Try it in parts: 1: HOME, 650K, 2: VOYAGE, 1200K, 3: BACK 750K.
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
As a child, landscape artist Paul Nash dreamed of flying over the countryside
of southern England. But he was threatened by the legendary Black Dog...
In my ballet class, we were learning to leap. But I wanted to FLY. So I went outside alone...
When I'm stressed, I build a set of luna-moth wings and fly invisibly. Though once a blind man caught me by ear...
Our group's being hunted. We flee into a cave. A gulf ahead that we can't jump. We have to fly.
I know how, and I teach the kids among us quickly enough, but the adults are scared to try...
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
Dream-elephants slowly bring John to terms with the early loss of his dad--and lead him out of a cult he’s outgrown..
I wanted spiritual guidance. A guide appeared regularly in my dreams for months, but then
vanished. I incubated a dream, and was told "you have a big job you forgot! Come back when..."
A recurring dream of a fourway marriage of animal people. I don't think it's symbolic, but predictive...
CAUTION: FURRY SEX
Every full moon, kidnappers jump me. Sometimes I escape, but when they succeed, they torture me till
the moon wanes. They're careful to leave no physical scars...
Mrs Claughton moved into a house known as haunted. She dreamt multiple ghosts asked her for help.
She crossed England to pass messages to heirs, containing private details Claughton couldn't have known...
CAUTION: ENOUGH CORROBORATION TO MAKE SKEPTICS UNEASY
Laurel and Frank each dream the gardenia in their bedroom went
neglected & unwatered, but with care is now blooming again...
Gennadius re-dreams a previous dream, prompting him to notice he’s dreaming. His guide points out the spiritual implications...
Comics character Doctor Blasphemy, on stilts, bares his secret identity:
poet Allen Ginsberg! But who chopped off his missing fingers?
CAUTION: BLOODY FINGERS
Four thugs stalk a gawky girl through the Everglades. She treads on a black stone and...
becomes a blue heron! Her stalkers vanish--did they become birds too? Should I step up?
A huge gold cup was stolen from the Temple of Hercules. Sophocles thrice dreamt Hercules named the thief...
I keep dreaming of sex with my friend Connor. But a wound on his dick oozes white gunk. He says it's common...
CAUTION: SEX, WEIRD GENITALIA
I hear voices: "The road to success is in Kafkat, in a place called Goshen." I look back, and see seven male shadows...
I'm walking up a churchyard path. My hair clings to me, damp. Horses wander. I'm drawn to one graveside...
Green Day singer Billie Joe hocked a lugie on me in concert. I felt blessed...
CAUTION: EWWW
Some Christian oneirologists barge into the Haunted Firehouse. But I pose for nude unicorn photos, and...
CAUTION: DUMB CHRISTIANS, EXHIBITIONIST UNICORNS, ETC.
After heart-lung surgery, Claire had dreams of her donor that told his name, his appearance and some of his
behaviors. She contacted the donor family and verified these. Can dreams access nonbrain cellular memory?
I'm Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island. But the theme song repeats endlessly--not the later version with
my name, but the early one dismissing me and the Professor as and the rest. I wake up screaming...
A London Protestant dreamed Bloody Mary would find the congregation's member-list and burn them all...
My earliest memory's a recurring dream: I'm a wild horse near Shiprock, recurrently dreaming
that I'm a human child! The two lives alternated for years, each a dream to the other...
First I met an assassin girl who could raise dust storms; then a monster-hunted named Rho;
then I was the hunter, with a futuristic hovercycle and low-tech bow and arrows...
I'm an orphan shot at by hunters. They shoot my sister! But no one believes me...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
From age six on, Simon nightly climbs mountains and faces roaring floods in a sort of naptime bootcamp...
My first memory is of being a wild horse and waking up to find I was suddenly a human child...
From Hawaii to Wyoming, I fight for beauty, always waking to find I'm someone new...
I read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind; I dream
I'm a pilot who deduces an alien illusionist's in my plane...
Cilda Spitzer and Hillary Clinton sentence America's bimbos to a shitty fate. But what of their cheating husbands?
I admire a baby, and talk the tired mother into washing it. I go get some
clean baby clothes and return to find she's roasting her baby in the oven...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, DENIAL
Not long after Jake died, I dreamed he took me on a magic carpet ride. Since then, I've been flying...
Deep Duck's interview with Jasha the Krelkin goes rogue, as she urges tossing out human habits like... death?
CAUTION: REDWOOD-SPRITE SEX, PEEING ON TREES, DRUNK DUCK
I saw a snake with a white-bearded man's head, and two younger heads alongside. Men attacked the
snake, cutting off the younger heads. The eldest looked at me, mournful, and they cut off his head too.
Soon after, I met John Brown; I knew it was him. But only on the day of Harper's Ferry did I understand...
Jung's visions of dragons evolve from fiery destroyers
to thieves who can be forced to give up treasure
to peacful, luminous guardians of the sacred...
Twice a condemned man's wife dreamt of a key lost in rubble below a wall. The second time she went out to find it...
I'm a sexy singing beast, the Krelkin, trying to lure the Reading Man out of his Moral Kiosk...
CAUTION: NUDITY, INTERSPECIES FLIRTATION
I was in Hell. My mom was in a cage suspended over lava. The devil
gave me a cruel choice: "Fry up these kittens or let your mom drop!"
CAUTION: CRUELTY
I met two strange sisters on a train who turn out to be half-cat. They open my eyes
so I realize that my neighbor Elaine must be a shapeshifter too...
CAUTION: FLIRTATIOUS UNDERAGE CAT
My psychology professor insists that nature spirits faded away as science rose.
But I still dream of krelkins! Jasha is the one I know best...
A sexy dream-creature hides by splitting her body visually,
her red mane and tail matching her background...
As a child, Paul Nash dreamt he flew over rural southern England.
As an adult surrealist painter...
For years Martin's dreams were all set in a parallel world untouched by World War, until...
From the neck up I was me; from the neck down, Woodrow Wilson in his old age, paralyzed.
My presidential aides divided up my duties, and ignored me...
I found myself in a cage, with only a bench and piles of old books. A mirror showed
I was old and twisted with speckled skin. In horror I said "I must get away"...
As a boy I dreamt I was trapped in a wooden chair, paralyzed, as a stampede
rushed toward me, just as my grandmother was paralyzed and chair-bound...
This couple keeps appearing in my dreams--as equals, as mount and rider, as friends, as enemies, as lovers...
CAUTION: NUDITY
Linscott dreamt of a murder and woke to find it'd happened down the block. Friends
nagged him to tell the dream to the investigators. He did. They tried him for murder...
I save our horses from a fire, but they run back in. Then it's
my family I must save from themselves. At last, it's my turn...
Each time, I'm a young Elizabethan man in a grand, new-built country house. In the main room,
I find a man in black by the fire. He comes at me, and as he shoots me point-blank, I wake...
A traveler dreams his friend's attacked, but he ignores it. Next he dreams his friend begs him to at least avenge him...
All my life, from age three or four, I've dreamed of being a young monk named Stefan
somewhere in southern Europe. And aspects of his short life have shaped my own...
CAUTION: SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
At the airport, I'm told I can't take my flight; I must finish my education first. Decades have passed,
and I still dream of borders and officials who won't let me go until they decide I've finished my...
Every night the same nightmare--the creatures take flight again, and I wake shaking...
(plus a 2018/8/31 dream by Wayan provoked by Panter's dream art)
Rather than a dream narrative, this is a tour through Gary's common dreamscapes--
forgotten places, empty streets. Or ones you wish were empty...
Sexy dreams of Chinese archeology, authorized by the fairies, make me face that my family abused me...
Thrice I saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer shot in the House of Commons. I nearly went to London...
My dreams support a radical break from my past--to let go of possessions and friends in a cross-country move...
For a week the same dream-figures and settings have been recurring:
shapeshifters and sea monsters. What are they hiding? Or guarding...
(plus a 2018/8/31 dream by Wayan provoked by Panter's dream art)
Rather than a dream narrative, this is a tour through Gary's common dreamscapes--
forgotten places, empty streets. Or ones you wish were empty...
DREAMS: I'm arguing with a worker on our oil rig when a huge piece of steel falls, crushing me instantly.
MONTHS LATER: that very worker gets in an argument with me. I recall my dreams, step back, and...
Age 7 to 11, I often dreamt I inhabited a consistent geography of mountains & deserts. I was an adult of dark
complexion in non-European clothes; I spoke a tongue (and read a script) that I didn't recognize when awake...
CAUTION: ADULT DRUG EXPERIMENT; PAST LIFE MEMORY?
Frederick dreams a monk writes words on the door of Wittenburg’s church
with a pen so big it pokes the Pope. The next day...
Beverly dreamt her party guests all wore masks. What were they hiding? Next she dreamt they passed around a
breadbasket. In it was her husband's penis! She woke, asked around, and found he'd had affairs with half their guests...
CAUTION: GENITAL SYMBOLISM
My heart's desire was a new piano, as hopeless as owning a yacht. The dream: a huge space in the air, full of wonderful...
What if comics panels and layouts weren't so square? I try triangles,
pentagons, hexagons, circles, spirals--and some serious stuff pops out...
CAUTION: IDEAS, OCCASIONAL NUDITY, MENTIONS ABUSE
Three teasing sex-dreamlets chipping away at my shyness with women I like...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
Dou dreams he marries Lily; when a monstrous snake attacks her huge family, he reluctantly hosts
them all... when he wakes, they turn out to be bees driven from their hive by a (very real) snake...
Margherita's dreamworld is lonely, empty, endless. She wanders on foot. Her husband
gets her a bike, a patch kit, and when she crashes, hears her cry for help--while awake...
CAUTION: MARITAL TELEPATHY OR ITALIAN HYPERBOLE?
Only at age 33 did Marc Liblin at last meet someone who spoke his dream language.
He married her, and moved to Rapa Iti, the only place in the world it's spoken...
The wildcat Rare Bit Fiends slinks out of the hills to stalk and maul
dreamers--until one day she rears up to teach a dream workshop...
Is our brain trying to tell us something that, evidently, we haven't heard the last 70 times? Or is the
dream-manufacturing area feeling a little lazy? I have no idea, but here are some of my "classics"...
Julie keeps dreaming that she gives birth to a cat, or a part-cat baby...
CAUTION: NUDITY, BIRTH, UNBIRTH, REBIRTH...
Trapped in elementary school, Julie is forced to study the alphabet
until she declares "I'm a professional cartoonist, goddammit!"...
I recognized the saboteur. If I had neglected that dream warning we all would likely have drowned...
In dreams, I kept meeting a dinosaurian person who was proud, strange, beautiful.
S/he introduced me to two sisters I just had to paint...
I dreamed a sentence over and over: "In my country I shall plant birds."
And I saw a man with many birds flying around him...
For three weeks he wakened screaming in fright; he said he "fell in a hole." Then, one snowy day...
A dream-lecturer says Shadows aren't just what we hate or fear, but what we admire yet see as "not us"...
CAUTION: IDEAS
Black holes can be scary enough outside you, but what if you have dormant ones inside you?
I'm a hot archeology student till I open the wrong tomb. A plague
turns us into green moldy monsters--at first...
CAUTION: DISEASE, DEATH, GRIEF, SHAME
I found myself on a stone pillar in a valley. Invisible people sat on other stalagmites, but my voice didn’t reach...
I'm playing poker with a dragon. But we barely dare move: we're both crackling with thousands of volts...
A man in a blue coat on a white horse delivered papers from a nearby wrecked ship, signed Stephenson and...
Stevenson’s dreams changed over decades: from childhood nightmares into
creative collaborators dreaming whole stories...
This strange girl reminds me "I rode your bike recently but you forgot." She's right! Rode it in an earlier dream...
The Crocodile King & the Geisha Queen, the couple who guard
the bridge over the River Styx, seem to quarrel a lot...
Chapman dreams he must walk 100 miles to London Bridge; on the bridge, a stranger says
"dreams are nonsense! Why, I dreamt of buried treasure 100 miles away, in some town called..."
I have recurring dreams of figures broken up by hair the color of the background...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
A toxic site in Silicon Valley isn't a chemical spill, but angry ghosts, killed in a camp and forgotten...
CAUTION: THE CAMP TURNS OUT TO BE REAL
As a kid, my nightmares were of Sesame Street characters. In my teens I graduated to
slasher nightmares and recurring lucid dreams. Alcohol trashed my dreams for years, but
now they're not nightmares--just surreal. Hitler wrecks my sex life! What a spoilsport...
CAUTION: (MOSTLY FRUSTRATED) SEX
I dreamt again of that mountain east of Concord where no hill exists. I ascended that long
rocky ridge where wild beasts haunted, into a superterranean grandeur and sublimity...
Thorhadd's been slandering his enemy Thorstein. He spars publicly with a dream expert
who interprets all his dreams as: "Your tongue just can't quit!" True. It can't...
CAUTION: VIKING EGOS (AND BODY COUNT)
When I overwork, neglecting my body's wants, I dream of an angry tiger. Over
time, I've learned (mostly) to feed my tiger, and sometimes he's an ally now...
A timewarp started to swallow my house. It looked normal outside, but everyone inside was in a trance...
As a toddler I repeatedly dreamed I was a married adult with a daughter
of my own, but the dreams always ended with my husband shooting me...
CAUTION: RECURRENT MURDER
Daniel thrice dreamt of money hidden under a great stone in a nearby field. He dug and found a surprise...
CAUTION: IRISH HUMOR
I get painful menstrual cramps, and with them come nightmares of birth. Not always child birth;
once it was five kittens. Most recently the baby was human but encased in a Butterball turkey...
After my mother died, I dreamed I was a girl living after the Apocalypse. I rode my elk
past cars full of corpses, saw friends die, and never could find a single fertile mate...
An assassination plot using two planes triggers an invasion of our kingdom. Flee? Fight?
I'm a peaceful hobbit who'd rather be playing Frisbee with the dryads...
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
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...
After fasting for six days, I dreamed of three spirit helpers who aided my village,
guiding hunters toward game and healing others. But I lost so many loved ones...
CAUTION: SPOUSE MURDERED; CAREER BURNOUT
Someone's prowling outside my window. I'm paralyzed in bed, but I force myself into action...
I was bodiless but trapped. All I could see were these moving wires. Whenever a knot drifted by...
CAUTION: MADNESS, TORMENT, TELEPATHY, SEXUAL REBELLION
First I dream the neighbors are powerful witches offering dog-collared children
to the local men. Later, on a train, I meet two kids who managed to escape...
CAUTION: CHILD ABUSE, NUDITY
After his dad's death, a boy dreams he's an orphan facing cannibal witches--every night! Therapy helps;
his recurring dreams shift to a manhunt for a criminal who hides on the ceiling. The dreams shift again, to
a tiger hunt. That is, the tiger hunts you. The boy jumps in the sea. Swimming with sharks...
CAUTION: INTENSE NIGHTMARES, PARENTAL LOSS
I dreamed of a dragon-woman on a reef. She was my guardian, but she let me drown! She had her reasons...
CAUTION: SCALY NUDITY
Each spring my mom took us up to Yellow Crane Tower.
One night I dreamed I rode the crane over the city of Wuhan...
The house I'm looking at has unexpected rooms, even a pool, but another buyer beats me out.
An old woman says "Don't worry dear, in time you lose everything." A comfort at first, but then...