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Self-Flagging Dreams

Freud, Jung and most brain researchers would agree that the sleeping brain is not self-aware. The dreams on this list suggest otherwise.

I've had a few predictive dreams in which a dream character mentions ESP or even warns a dream scene might be predictive. And I've had lucid dreams in which I don't catch a dream-inconsistency and deduce I'm dreaming; instead a dream character says it's a dream, or the dream waves something bizarre at me till I'm forced to go lucid. A dream can label itself! Self-flagging dreams hint that the "unconscious" is quite conscious what's it's up to, and willing to co-operate in your dreamwork--if you'll just notice!

Louisa Rhine's Hidden Channels of the Mind contains a series of recurring dreams, Avenue of Trees, whose setting always presaged a death. Those self-flagging dreams proved mine weren't unique... and that a flag need not be literal to work! I looked for more such dreams, and started this rough list. Please email me at wdreamb@yahoo.com and add to its examples!

One European dream-type dates back to antiquity: dreams that come (usually) three times, such as Goblet of Gold, The Pen, Perceval's Murder, Stephenson and Bell or Agassiz's Fish. In this folk tradition spanning at least 2000 years, triplication flagged a dream as concerned with outer not inner affairs. But recurrence can easily be added later to an account. So I focus here on dreams that either establish their own signal, as in "Avenue" above, or directly label their own nature; dream-flags without such cultural support. I think they make a stronger case than mere recurrence that some dreams actively try to be recognized.

Self-interpreting dreams are similar but have their own list. Such dreams show a similar helpful intent but focus on the contents or themes; a self-flagging dream steps back to warn that it's not to be taken symbolically but existentially--as clairvoyance, as prediction/warning, as lucid experience.

One vivid warning dream, Kelly Field, just failed to meet my criteria--and failed to save two lives, too. But it was so maddeningly close that it started my thinking on the subject. So near, yet so far...

RELATED TOPICS: self-interpreting dreams and dreams about dreams - lucid dreams - incubated dreams - oracular dreams - unsolicited dream advice - psychic dreams in general - cledonic dreams - Natalian dreams - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ACORN AND PELT: by Wayan; 1983/7/19, a simple sex dream growing to a mystical extravaganza
I fall in love, defying kidnappers, dwarf-tossers and
Toulouse-Lautrec, until I become a time-traveling bunny...
CAUTION: SEX, SHAMANISM, DWARF-TOSSING (LAUTREC!)
AIR PIRATES IN FAERIE: by Wayan; 1984/8/25, a complex predictive dream
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
ARIEL and THE UNICORN COMMITMENT: by Wayan; 1983/12/26-27, an epic psychic dream & sequel
DREAM: to stop an idiotic bout of war-fever, I have to take on the power of the Goddess herself...
NEXT DAY: I stumble on a fantasy book, Ariel, full of details straight out of the dream...
THAT NIGHT: I sign the Unicorn Commitment, but personalize the magical contract...
CAUTION: DISSES REAGAN & SOUTHERN MASCULINITY
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...
BEAST BIRTHS: by Wayan; 1989/9/19, a predictive dream of family secrets.
My family has a hidden gene for incest--and griffins.
When I bring the family skeleton from the closet...
CAUTION: RAPE, INCEST
THE BEE QUEEN: by Wayan; 1997/6/26, a hard-headed dream.
Two time-traveling paleontologists get a gift from their friend the Bee Queen. A gift with six-inch fangs...
BEETLE: by Daniel Quinn; spring 1941; a life-defining shamanic dream
A black beetle insists I'm not needed or at home in the human world; my lifework is elsewhere...
THE BEST HOTEL: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; an escalating surrealist dream
Rajiv keeps trying to convince me it's the best hotel in India: the orgy of biters, the
bowls of twitching fingers. But it's only the oracular spirits that really impress me...
CAUTION: CREEPY FINGERS
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
BLUE BRAINS: by Wayan, 2017/12/11, a false-waking, self-flagging predictive dream
Our brains are really squid stuffed in a skulljar. I wake, see the image on TV. "So it's predictive!" I think.
Then I wake to find that too was a dream. "Not predictive!" I think. Until my friend turns on the TV, and...
BOAT MEETING: by Wayan; 1985/4/28; a predictive dream that hints at its own nature
I swim far out in a lake to a business meeting on a dinghy; but that's trivial.
What matters is mapping the murky lakebottom, dive after dive...
BUFFALO PERSON: by Plenty Coups, summer 1857; a child's time-traveling, tribe-saving dream
I was led into the future, where all the buffalo disappeared, to meet a frail old man by a ranch house...
BUGS AND ROOSEVELT: by Wayan; 1982/5/2, a wild predictive dream illustrated as an epic poem
I'm Bugs Bunny. I torment Daffy Duck till I learn that in many time-branches the New
Deal happened late... or never. I decide to prod a reluctant Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
CAUTION: FIRESIDE PETTING, DUCK TORTURE, BAD POLITICS
BUNNY GROPER: by Wayan; 2022/2/4; a dream on harassment's roots and goals
A fantasy bazaar full of wolf, cat and rabbit shoppers. But my human friend Mark has a booth
by the exit, and grabs a rabbit girl's tail! She glares daggers, but seems resigned to harassment...
CAUTION: SEXISM OR SPECISM?
CLOCKTOWER: by Wayan, 1986/4/2, a predictive dreamlet
DREAM: a girl peers in my window & flirts with me. But why's she perched on a miniature clocktower?
NEXT DAY: on campus, I spot a girl perched on a ledge of a new miniature clocktower. Oh, that's...
CAUTION: CHILDHOOD TRAINING: "MEN ARE SCUM"
CRAZY HORSE'S DREAM: by Crazy Horse; summer 1854 (age 11-12) a life-predicting dream
I saw a man riding across the face of a lake. Bullets and arrows flew at him, but all missed.
He reached the shore. Men who looked like him rose from the ground, and pulled him down...
CAUTION: GENOCIDE DIRECT, GENOCIDE BY PROXY
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
A DATE IN MINSK: by Wayan; 2009/8/23, a possibly psychic dream of adaptability
A spacetime traveler inadvertently strands his pacifist vegetarian date in a gun-crazy mob-run town...
CAUTION: DEFAMES BYELORUSSIANS
DAWN'S TOILET: by Dawn Z and Wayan; 1999/1/6, two strongly parallel dreams
Wayan dreams of surprising Dawn on the toilet. She dreams that flushing away evidence of Foul Play won't work...
DEER VERSUS PIGS: by Wayan; 2015/5/20; twin dreams; joking or serious?
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
DOPP: by Wayan; 1988/11/5, a predictive dream
DREAM: On a farm, I meet two sexy shapeshifting sisters. But mushroom clouds rise on the horizon...
NEXT DAY: at SF-MOMA, Susan Marie Dopp's paintings: shapeshifting sisters, mushroom clouds...
CAUTION: NUDITY; ESP
DREAM FIGURES: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, dreamlets between 1835 & 1865?
Why do I treat dream-figures as real people, even in otherwise lucid dreams?
And if dreams universally suspended disbelief, how did I know, in one
recent dream, that the woman I argued with was another part of me?
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...
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??
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...
A FINAL GOODBYE: by Justin Hall; dreamed summer 2001, drawn 2003; comic of a lucid dream on closure.
I found myself in a cafe in Amsterdam--or was it Sevilla?--with Kevin, who I knew was dead...
CAUTION: GRIEF
FIRST LADY: by Alder; 2008/7/2, a possibly psychic dream-within-a-dream.
I'm the First Lady. I have a dream that my husband's assassinated, and wake and try to warn him...
FLAMING LEAVES: by Dr. Adele A. Gleason and John R. Joslyn; 1892/1/26, a shared dream.
Adele: alone & scared in a dark wood--but her friend John came & shook a tree; it burst into flame!
John, the same night: found Adele scared in a dark wood. Shook a bush & it burst into flame...
FLEEING KAMPUCHEA: by Laura Lawrence; early 1990s?; recurring nightmares of a future client's life
My Cambodian village was burned, my family murdered. At 12,
I was the oldest survivor; I led a band of kids to the border...
FLUID REALITY: by Wayan; 1983/8/8; a magical dream-sea voyage that turned out to be predictive
On my quest I find magic portals, snarky flower-fairies, undersea redcoats,
reassembling bodyparts, living chess, and Nosferatu the Cheating Vampyre...
THE FLYING SCOTSMAN: by J.W. Dunne, fall 1913; a lucid predictive dream
Just north of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, a train fell from the track to a grassy park where small groups of people
wandered. I sensed it was one of those odd dreams of mine & tried to get the date--next spring. On April 14, 1914,
the "Flying Scotsman" jumped the parapet 15 miles north of the Forth Bridge and fell to the golf links below...
FOLLOWING THE ELEPHANTS: by John Goldhammer; 1990s, a ten-year series of 13 short dreams.
Dream-elephants slowly bring me to terms with the early loss of my dad, and lead me out of a cult I've grown beyond...
FRAN SAYS "THAT'S WHAT PSYCHIC IS": by Wayan, 1982/1/15; a self-flagging predictive dream
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...
FREUD'S FOUR POINTS: by Wayan; 2008/11/11; a dream critiquing four of Freud's dream-theories!
Freud and I argue dream-theory while we're stuck in an elevator that projects dream-examples on the walls...
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...
THE GHOST IN MIRIEL'S BUG: by Miriel & Wayan; 1985/10/1, an apparently shared dream
WAYAN: I dream a transparent ghost steals my sister Miriel's white VW bug...
MIRIEL: I dream about a ghost and my old white VW bug that was stolen...
CAUTION: E.S.P. CLAIM
GISLI THE OUTLAW: by Gisli the Outlaw of Iceland; 966-973, a series of at least ten life-saving dreams.
Gisli had two spirit-wives who told him in dreams how to evade the bounty-hunters after him... for 13 years!
GOBLET OF GOLD: by Sophocles, between 450-406 BCE; a detective dream.
A huge gold cup was stolen from the Temple of Hercules. Sophocles thrice dreamt Hercules named the thief...
GOSHEN: by Percy Konqobe; 1940s-1960s?, a lifelong recurring psychic dream
I hear voices: "The road to success is in Kafkat, in a place called Goshen." I look back, and see seven male shadows...
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...
HELL-BOUND TRAIN: by Franz Jaegerstetter, summer 1938; a political dream
I was ordered to join Hitler's army. I dreamt a booming voice proclaimed, "This train is going to Hell!" So I...
HERSELF IN REVERSE: by Wayan; 2013/6/13, three surreal future-prompting dreamlets
1: In a theater I meet weird big-eyed ballerinas, & realize I'll choreograph for them soon...
2: A sorcery student & her powerful future self flying back through time meet & fuse...
3: A squirrel-mage meets his future self too. He gives us a mild fever to protect us against a deadly plague...
CAUTION: NOT FOR TOTAL SKEPTICS ABOUT PREDICTIVE DREAMS
HIDDEN INTENT: by Wayan, 1978/10/21, a possibly predictive, self-flagging dream
A huge bridge spans the Pacific; my depth perception reaches miles instead of mere yards.
A crowd worships a guru hidden in a tent on a pier. I don't trust him! He has hidden in tent...
CAUTION: THE JONESTOWN MASSACRE
HORSESHOE MAGNET: by Wayan, 1983/12/3, a predictive dreamlet
I'm badly disoriented because I'm seeing through walls! My sixth sense is from a high-tech helmet
shaped like a horseshoe magnet. Four days later I see Brainstorm, a movie about a high-tech helmet
shaped like a horseshoe magnet, recording and playing back mental experience. Talk about disorienting...
HORSE THIEVES: by Plenty Coups, early 1870s?; a practical psychic or subliminal dream
Thieves stole 100 of our horses. The tracks suggested white men, but that night
my dream Helpers declared them Sioux. We tracked them across Montana...
HUNT OF THE UNICORN: by Wayan; 1989/5/18, an overlooked psychic dream.
I marry, just to get into a clannish world where I'm seeking symbiotic unicorns. I end up fleeing...
Next evening, a TV movie--Goldie Hawn marries into a clannish world and ends up...
I GOT OUT: by Wayan; 1992/1/4, a psychic dream drawn as a 9-page digital comic
I flee our love triangle when Abe turns mean. He's telepathic, but
I have my escape all planned: the goldfish, the snakepit, the caves...
CAUTION: THREESOME, SNAKES, MOTORCYCLE FATALITY
INANNA'S RIVER OF BLOOD: by King Sargon I; c. 2335 BCE, a call-to-greatness nightmare
Sargon, a delivery man, dreams the Goddess drowns the King in a river of blood. He wakes and tells the King...
INTERPRET THOSE SIGNS: by Wayan, 2024/4/16, a dream on prophetic dreams?
An archeological dig inscribed in the Roman alphabet, Chinese characters, Ethiopian
syllabics and unknown scripts. A carved egg bears news from the future, not the past...
CAUTION: CALLS PROPHECY A LEARNABLE SKILL
INVADE GREECE, OR ELSE!: by Xerxes I and his uncle Artabanus; 480 BCE, three linked, deceitful dreams.
Xerxes twice dreams a god orders him to attack Greece. So he asks his uncle to dream of the god to confirm...
JAPAN, 4:34 A.M.: by Laura Atkinson, 2011/3/11, a dream warning of the Fukushima disaster
My Japanese friend Kotaro looks at me sternly and shoves his phone inside my chest. In my dreams, a phone
can mean ESP, so when I wake I check the news. A huge quake and tsunami have devastated Japan...
JASON: by MariNaomi; 1989, a romantic-warning nightmare
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
JELLY REBELLION: by Wayan; 2008/8/19, a poem of a diagnostic dream, Dreamverse #9
I interview my own metabolism. Trouble in Cellville! I've got strikers and usurpers. But at least no invaders...
JUNG'S PREMONITIONS OF WORLD WAR I: by Carl Jung, 1913-1914; five ignored warnings.
Jung was told in dreams and visions that Europe would soon drown in blood. But he just couldn't believe it...
JUST BEFORE 9/11: by Patti Viscardi; 6 AM 2001/9/11, a predictive nightmare
I was on a plane... It was almost graceful, the plane actually entered the building before everything dissolved into flame...
CAUTION: DEATH. DEATH TWICE.
JUST KNOWING: by a St Louis woman; summer 1934 and 1941/11/20, two very pure ESP experiences
I suddenly knew I had to get off the bus and wait for the next. We passed the first bus, on fire...
I was at Thanksgiving dinner when I felt my mother dying two thousand miles away...
KELLY FIELD: by an air cadet, 1941; an almost-lifesaving dream.
I dreamed a plane took off northeast, and flipped by the main hangar, killing two men. I forgot the dream until...
LADDER OF FEAR by Mike & Wayan, 2021/2/9; parallel dreams
MIKE: A reckless friend races up a hazardous ladder. I follow slowly, reluctant, scared. Almost a nightmare...
WAYAN: Mike recklessly climbs an outdoor ladder as lightning strikes. Scary! Wait--this dream feels psychic...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
LAING: by R.D. Laing; 1983/2/18, two excerpts from a talk on transpersonal dreams.
R.D. Laing gives two examples of dream-spillage suggesting it's not passive but playful...
LAKOTA TRAINSCAPES: by Wayan; 2018/10/30, art seen in an anti-lucid dream
In a general store on a High Plains rez, I find two surreal collaged postcards. If only
this were a dream they'd qualify for the World Dream Bank, but sadly, it isn't. Right?
CAUTION: STUPID, STUPID CONSCIOUS!
LEARNING SCALES: by Wayan; 1985/6/26, an epic dream of Chinese dragons.
I find myself in astral China. The Empress is banished, the Jester rules. Wisdom is lost.
We need an Imperial Dragon...
LEMON-EYED SPIRIT: by Wayan, 2019/10/24; a predictive dream-poem
I dream I'm a woman possessed by spirits with yellow eyes that tint the whole world lemon...
I wake, the sun rises, and for a single minute, the world turns that exact, strange yellow...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
LETTUCE HEAD: by Wayan, 1992/1/18; a predictive characterological dream
I'm flying backward over Utah. In the brush on a canyon rim I spot a head of red
lettuce big as a man growing as camouflage from a revolutionary warrior's head...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
LILY OXYGEN: by Wayan; dreamed 1984/1/19, drawn 2000; a strong psychic dream.
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
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION DREAM: by Abraham Lincoln, ca.March 31 1865, a predictive nightmare.
Lincoln dreamt his body was lying in state in the White House. A guard said he'd been assassinated. Two weeks later...
LION FATIGUE by Xanthe and Wayan, 1989/8/24; parallel dreams on, well, L.F.
Wayan: a mother mountain lion got quantum-entangled with farm animals, exhausting her...
Xanthe: my dogs hurt this lion and I had to tend and calm it all night, exhausting ME...
LONG ROAD TO HEAVEN: by Edwin Muir; 1920, an epic hypnogogic shamanic initiation
Creatures in the primal sea touch my third eye, dragons cry their eyes out, I fight the Sphinx, and arrive at last in...
THE LOST RING: by Helen Fraser; 1924; an astral lost-and-found dream
A friend in Heaven promises Helen a lost ring would return to her. Three days later it did; but its path had been strange...
LUCID GIRDERS: by Wayan; 1993/8/18, an illustrated dream about dreaming.
Stayed up late, painting foreshortening. Then I saw a scene in color, motion, 3D, and knew
I had to be dreaming: I was visualizing too clearly, THINKING too clearly, to be awake...
CAUTION: NUDITY
THE M9: by David Parkinson, 1940; a dream-designed invention.
Parkinson dreamed his new telephone device got added to an anti-aircraft gun. He told his dream;
guns with M9 units turned out to be so accurate it gave the British hope against the Luftwaffe...
MAMA BEAR'S ADVICE: by Wayan; 1985/12/8, a dream on love-tactics.
A bear-girl seduced by her coyote professor gets a
little advice on revenge from her anthropologist mom...
THE MAN-EATER: by Carl Jung, 1879; a precocious formative nightmare.
Jung (at age three and a half) sees a terrifying god deep underground, and is told "That is the man-eater!"...
MAN OVERBOARD: by Sir Stephen King-Hall; 1916, a lifesaving premonition acted on
I was officer of the watch in the Southampton. I knew that as we passed an islet a mile ahead, a man would fall overboard...
A MAREOTIC QUARREL: by Wayan, 2018/10/10; a dreamlet about truth & experts
My friend Lily misuses the word 'Mareotic'; I know, because I once saw it in a Yeats poem, thought
the footnote explaining it was fishy, checked it myself, and found the editors hadn't even bothered to...
MAZAMA: by Wayan, 1990/8/16, a predictive dream on deep vs. shallow sight
On our roadtrip, I notice strange crags north of our highway, and deduce they form a ring: a caldera like
Crater Lake. But my friends can't see the pattern, just the pieces! I wake. The mail comes. With postcards of...
CAUTION: ANNOYING TO E.S.P. SKEPTICS
THE MEGARA INN: by an Arcadian Greek c.200 BCE; two dreams that don't prevent a murder but do solve it
A traveler dreams his friend's attacked, but he ignores it. Next he dreams his friend begs him to at least avenge him...
MENTOR: by Wayan; 2001/6/13, six advisory dreamlets.
I meet a shapeshifting mentor who warns of coming war (9/11?). Then a sentient book, "The Art of War," gets intimately involved...
CAUTION: ELECTRODES, LIBROPHILIA
MEREDYTH AND LILLY: by Meredyth Watts; May 2010, 2010/11/14 and 2010/12/7, episodic dreams
I dream over & over of the same place, time, & woman. We fall in love. Strangely, I'm the one who gets pregnant...
MIRYAM'S THEFT: by Wayan; 1996/9/24, a psychic dream on being used
I'm a ghost dwarf in love with a Lady trapped in a magic Arabian castle. But our love is being used...
CAUTION: SEX, BETRAYAL, SACRILEGE
MISCARRIAGE: by John Donne; 1612, a clairvoyant hallucination.
Donne, in Paris, was alarmed by a vision of his wife holding a dead baby. At that hour, in England, his wife...
MISTRESS TOOTHSMOOTH: by Yves Delage, 1915/1/20, an early anima dream
I'm in the cellar, petting a tiger-cat. She speaks inside my head: "I'm tired of living on bread. I need meat."
I make excuses--it's pricy--then see big hanging quarters of meat. I hide them! She says "Call me Mistress
Touttmouss"--well, something like that--I know it's English, but can't make it out til I wake, when I see...
MITHRAN'S LAKE: by Wayan; 1988/1/17, a predictive dream justifying personal reserve.
DREAM: Gay boys, underage girls & my own sister all mock me, sure I want their forbidden sexual fruit
at a beach where grotesque trees make their own precipitation and salt-dunes spill into saturated, toxic brine...
NEXT DAY: I read Margaret Atwood's The Salt Garden--sex, guilt, and grotesque trees in saturated, toxic brine.
CAUTION: SEXUAL GUILT, EXHIBITIONIST TWEENS, APPARENT E.S.P.
MONKEY WITH A GUN: by Wayan; 2010/8/7, a predictive nightmare
A monkey who stole a handgun aims at a troopmate and fires, ignorant of the consequences.
The next evening I hear gunfire for real, and...
THE MOONS OF THE NEXT TEN DAYS: by Wayan, 1983/3/7, an otherworldly predictive dream
Two moons rise. From one unpeels a sort of rind; on it I see the future
tracks of these moons' shadows and tidal sway on Earth, predicting ...
MY EX-WIFE: by Wayan; 1982/3/23, a dream on delusions--and maybe ESP
A woman with two teenagers breaks in and says she's my ex-wife and they're my kids.
I'm in my twenties; I CAN'T have teenage kids. And I have no ex-wife! Just my girlfriend Cassandra.
Forty years later it all makes sense. It's not about me then, but John now...
CAUTION: ADULT THEMES--TRULY STUPID ADULT THEMES. E.S.P., TOO.
THE NEW DALAI LAMA: by Wayan; 2011/9/9; a prescriptive AND predictive dream.
I dream the new Dalai Lama's a kind woman who gives me startling health advice
AND shows me how to fly. The next day...
NUCLEUS: by Wayan, 1979/3/18, a surreal dream of character-insight, set inside an atom
I dream my theatre friends are particles dancing inside an atomic nucleus--
particles that reveal their character, motivations and power. And I'm one too...
OCARINA, or, MILLION-YEAR SENTENCE: by Wayan; 1972/5/27, a lucid / predictive dream.
I go lucid and drive my bed to the Nevada desert where I see my next million years. And so far, it's been true...
OLD AND IN THE WAY: by Wayan; 1999/5/3, a veiled predictive dream.
On the street called Old And In The Way, I meet a psychic I crushed on as a kid,
and then, in a hearth, fight the tentacled alien who's been stalking me...
ORPHEUS AND POOH: by Wayan; 1972/4/9, a dream echoing Cocteau's film Orphee--before seeing it
I meet my true love during a coup. We go through Hell together, like Orpheus and Eurydice--only we...
PAGES: by Wayan; 1993/9/2 & 9/3, punning predictive dreams.
Dream-journal pages, Tarot's four Page cards, getting paged,and
a girl named Page--all warn me I lie to myself about what I want...
PELÉE: by J.W. Dunne, April/May 1902; a predictive nightmare with a scientifically important error
I was on an island about to explode like Krakatoa. I warned the French colonial authorities "4,000
people will die if we don't get them out!" but no one listened. I woke. The paper came. "Mont
Pelée erupts, kills 40,000". I had missed a zero! But 40,000 turned out to be wrong too, implying...
THE PEN: by Elector Frederick of Saxony; 1517/10/30, a predictive political dream.
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...
MR. PERCEVAL'S MURDER: by John Williams; 1812/5/2-3, a recurrent predictive dream.
Thrice I saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer shot in the House of Commons. I nearly went to London...
PETE: by Norman, a soldier on Guam; 1944, either a ghost or hallucination with a lifesaving warning.
Pete told me to skip the shortcut. Only after I'd turned the truck around did I realize Pete had died weeks ago...
PIPES AND TIME: by Wayan; 2017/12/21, a dream of the far future that came true next day
A timetraveler shows me a hotspring shrunk to a quarter of its old flow.
Valves? Pipes? Or drought, from climate change? This IS the future.
A day later, a local main breaks, and our water flow shrinks to a quarter of normal...
PLANET-SCULPTING APE: by "AE" (George Russell); mid-1870s, a childhood characterological dream.
On a cloud in space I met an ape molding a model of Earth, glancing at the original far below. We were much alike...
PORTALS OF THE PAST: by Wayan, 2021/2/6; a timish dream.
The time-caves under Golden Gate Park lead to supervillains, magical girls, miniphants,
bamboo thugs, adorable dinosaurs, and... pandemics. But is there a way back home?
PRECOG TUNNEL : by Wayan; 1984/1/1, a small psychic dreamtale.
I'm riding a train through a tunnel in Marin full of symbolism. I wake, interpret it all, and open the paper...
PREGNANCY FROM HELL: by Wayan; 1994/6/6, a predictive dream-farce.
I'm pregnant with the Antichrist. This is going to ruin my vacation! Why do I think this is all about money?
A PSYCHIC READING: by Wayan; 1981/10/13, a self-labeling dream
My friend Beryl's unconvinced that my dream of her death was a warning. Okay, it WAS hazy. But they get clearer...
RED LIGHT by Nancy Price; 1948, a predictive dream of the past!
I'm in my home town, but at two times at once! Murderous boys explain why: I died here in 1861...
RED-SPATTERED DANCERS: by Wayan, 2023/2/15, a surreal predictive dream
DREAM: I climb a stair to a surreal space where kids dance in tights spattered with wet red paint.
NEXT DAY: I watch Wednesday--Wednesday Addams dances & gets spattered with wet red paint...
CAUTION: NUDITY, ESP SPECULATION
RHINZL'S SHADOW: by Wayan; dreamed 1984/8/28; two unlikely predictive dreams.
DREAMS: 1: I can't afford language classes. 2: A beautyqueen rigs a stargate; I kill monsters & sell their bones...
NEXT DAY: I'm asked "Why don't you get a language degree?" I can't afford it! I go home & watch Dr Who...
A stunning girl fixes a spacetime portal. Smugglers kill alien monsters & sell their ashes as a drug...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND CREEPY DISPOSAL OF BODIES
THE RIPPLE EFFECT: by Wayan; 1992/6/19, a double dream of false judges.
A dream of innocent incest turns guilty, growing to a war of ghosts versus a cult of sexy but dishonest psychics...
CAUTION: INCEST ISSUES, NIGHTMARE
RONALD'S FORBIDDEN FIELD: by Ronald, patient of Jan Ehrenwald, before 1954, a telepathic dream?
DREAM: a distinctive house with a tempting green field by it. But the field's forbidden...
DAY: Ronald's analyst had rented that house--but the adjacent field was forbidden...
CAUTION: E.S.P. THEORIES
SAGAN: by Wayan; 1996/5/3, a psychic dream in response to Carl's challenge.
DAY: on the radio Carl Sagan calls those who've experienced ESP or UFOs "proto-fascists"...
DREAM: a flying pewter teapot orbits a round blue vase--like a starship round the Earth...
NEXT WEEK: My mom calls. She's selling that pewter pot after a century in the family...
CAUTION: DISSES SAGAN
SALTFLAT FAIR: by Wayan; 1984/7/11, a predictive, possibly self-flagging dreamlet
Dream: a fair and swap meet out on the salt flats, full of scruffy bikers. One of them is... ME?
Next day: I'm shown a photo of a fair & swapmeet on salt flats full of scruffy bikers...
SELF-MADE COW: by Wayan; 2013/4/10, a surreal psychic dream.
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 cow--and my sister calls from Santa Cruz to sing me a song about...
SEVASTOPOL: by Sydney Dobell: 1855/9/8, an apocalyptic, possibly psychic dream
A friend scoffed at Biblical talk of the apocalypse, but as we spoke, the evening star came down and burned all our
cities. I knew it was no ordinary dream. Next day came the news: the Russians had burned the city of Sevastopol...
CAUTION: WAR CRIME
SEVERED HEAD: by Dr. Walter Prince, 1917/11/27, a detailed predictive nightmare
DREAM: a thirtyish blonde says her death is ordered. Her head's cut off. But it won't die--bites his hand!
Dr. Prince feels the dream shouts "premonition!" and writes an account at the Society for Psychical Research.
Next night, a thirtyish blonde nearby commits suicide, leaving a note saying her severed head will live on...
CAUTION: CREEPY DREAM, CREEPIER NEWS
A SHARP CLICK: by Herbert W., 1932/5/30, apparent spirit-rapping
My friend Mr D. studied psychic research but was skeptical of telekinesis. But 24 hours after his own death...
SHEEPISH: by Wayan; 1985/9/24, a clear but stupid psychic dream.
Floundering through the snows of 1917, I fall in love with actress
Linda Evans, who is a sheep teaching ballet. When I wake...
SHOCKWAVE: by Wayan; 1996/7/27, a predictive nightmare.
My childhood home explodes into a vast pyroclastic cloud that comes boiling toward me, miles away...
CAUTION: DOOM
SHROPSHIRE: by Wayan; 1985/1/6, a predictive warning dream
DREAM: chased by a sniper, I trick him into blowing himself up. Then, in the Watchtower,
I know every name & address in Shropshire, but must hide them till all the snipers are caught...
NEXT DAY: at work I run across a book with every name and address in 17th-century Shropshire...
CAUTION: FATAL EXPLOSION
A SIRIUS MISSION: by Wayan; 1983/9/21, a nightmare predicting a painful fall
Exploring a planet in the Sirius system, we raft down a river. A local guy warns
there's a waterfall ahead, but my raftmates won't believe him! Over we go. Ow...
Next day, glad my druggy housemate's leaving, I learn of a big letdown...
A SMOKE IN THE SIXTIES: by Wayan; 1983/12/2, a genderbent, predictive, self-flagging dreamlet
I'm a girl in the 1960s, but not a native--a time-traveler. I'm smoking with friends (not necessarily
tobacco)--but I have this strange sense smoking may lead to serious danger. I wake, get invited
to the film Terms of Endearment, and watch Shirley Maclaine and Debra Winger enact my dream...
SORTING HAT, DRUNKEN CAT: by Wayan; 2013/10/18, a steadily mutating warning-dream
I discover a Sorting Hat, as in Harry Potter--and it moves in with us. Our cat crawls in and plays peekaboo.
She becomes a teenager eager to get drunk at Thanksgiving--like every adult in her life. But she's not
puking drunk like them, so she must be OK! Just as I think I am--I only overwork to exhaustion.
CAUTION: DRUNK TEEN CAT, SEVERELY ALCOHOLIC ADULTS
STEPHENSON AND BELL: by Matthew Talbot; 1768, a recurring predictive dream.
A man in a blue coat on a white horse delivered papers from a nearby wrecked ship, signed Stephenson and...
STOCKDEN'S MURDER: by Elizabeth Greenwood; Dec 1695-Jan 1696, six dreams solving a murder.
Greenwood dreamt her murdered neighbor's ghost gave her tips helping her catch his three killers...
STRANGE GIRL STALKING ME IN MY DREAMS: by Mike Hanes; 2010/12/11, a dream recovering a lost dream!
This strange girl reminds me "I rode your bike recently but you forgot." She's right! Rode it in an earlier dream...
SUDDEN DEATH: by Cory; 2008/3/1 to 2008/3/14, a series of dreams on a friend's suicide.
I've had premonitory dreams of friends' deaths, but never ones clear enough to spur action...
SUVY & JOHN DOE: by Shawnodese, c.1970; a precognitive warning dream
I dream my friend Suvy introduces me to a man who just took a class I'm considering.
Weeks later she introduces me to him--but just as in my dream, he feels a bit insipid...
THE SWAFFHAM TINKER: by John Chapman and a London shopkeeper; c.1454, two interlocked dreams
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..."
TED'S DEATH: drawn by Joey Epstein from her aunt's mid-1980s dream; a psychic dream
Ted died of CO2 poisoning in Hong Kong. His mom dreamed he came to tell her
it was painless. To prove he was real, he told her...
TIME-CAT: by Wayan; 2013/11/23; a self-flagging predictive dream
I'm a cat person, grooming. But not MY fur--it's a woolly mass of timelines!
We cats travel time, smoothing out snarls... Then I wake, go to a party, and...
TOADFISH TOWERS: by Wayan; 1992/8/6, a psychic little dreamtale.
I'm in Houston, gawking at giant starfishy towers looming through the smog. Their shapes are familiar...
TORCH-BEARER: by Queen Hecuba of Troy; c. 1270 BCE, an alarming dream.
Hecuba dreams she gives birth, not to a child but a flaming torch! But she lets Paris live...
CAUTION: MORAL NO-WIN SITUATION
TRANSPERSONAL PUPPIES by a dog breeder; pre-1961, a cledonic dream of a ghost
The stranger seemed to know me. He said "Tell her about the little dogs, it will comfort her." Two weeks later...
TRESPASSERS IN MALANCHAI: by Hyal; Feb 1996, an epic dream with a psychic intrusion.
A maneless lion-boy wins his people's respect. While training, he sees weird trespassers
who seem to be from someone else's dream... and ten years later, he finds that dreamer.
TRUSTING FOXES: by Wayan; 1997/8/20, 2-page comic of a psychic dream.
Evicted. Lawsuit. I dream a lawyer sends me a letter full of fox-girls! In East Asia, foxes
mean trouble, but these are friendly--good news is coming! I wake to find we've won a home...
TWAIN'S BROTHER: by Mark Twain, early May 1858, a premonitory nightmare.
My brother Henry lay in a metal casket. He wore a suit of mine. On his breast were white roses, with
one red at the centre. A few days later, the boilers of the riverboat Henry worked on exploded...
TWIN GODDESSES, or, LOGA-SHANA: by Patricia Garfield, 1980/12/26, a self-flagging psychic dream
DREAM: at a dreamgroup, I tell a predictive dream that my artist friend's front tooth will get infected. Then
we all chant "Loga-Shana!" THREE WEEKS LATER: my artist friend's front tooth gets a serious abcess...
CAUTION: WILL TROUBLE E.S.P. SKEPTICS
UMBRELLA: by "Anonymous #"17; pre-1963, a helpful cryptomnesic/predictive dream
My wife dreamt where to find her lost umbrella; the next day she did.
But the finder said word for word what she had in the dream...
VACUUM DOG: by Laura A. Dale, 1942/12/19; a surreal nightmare labeling itself psychic
DAY: I'm an experimental subject given a drug in hopes it'll induce ESP. I just babble stupidly. Humiliation!
DREAM: my vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack my terrier & me. I flee, but there's an explosion...
TWO DAYS LATER: at the movies, a cartoon: a vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack a terrier. Then, BOOM...
CAUTION: WILL REALLY BOTHER E.S.P. SKEPTICS
VAGUE HOUSE: by Rick Veitch; c.1995; a dream labeling its own symbols!
I grope through fog to the Vague House. Fog inside, too. Find a stone carved with an Eye of
Horus, and know it's my anger. Find a bigger stone scarab, and know it's my REAL anger...
THE VERIZON EXPERIMENT: by Wayan; 2014/3/31, three linked dreamlets, the last self-flagging as predictive
1: A nature spirit's physics experiment proves that time forks. But how much? How dense is the multiverse?
2: I sculpt a model of this multiverse. A physicist likes it; the nature spirit likes it more. So she swipes it...
3: A 'friend' offers refugees my bedroom, crowding me and my work into a corner. I wake. The phone rings...
A VIOLIN DEATH: by Wayan; 2015/11/24, a nightmare (vaguely) anticipating a real-life massacre.
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...
VIRGINIA'S TRAIN: by Emily Joy; 2005/9/24, a psychic dream and poem
We lose control of our new time machine, which seems to have its own agenda...
CAUTION: CONTEMPLATION OF SUICIDE, CHRONOLOGICALLY IMPAIRED DREAMER
WATERCATS: by Wayan; 1987/9/10; an epic, clear predictive dream
I dream I find a few 'extinct' watercats--in a slum! They talk. They say I'm one of them,
brainwashed to think I'm human. I wake, go to a dinner, and hear a tale of... watercats!
WAYMO BALLOONISTS: by Wayan; 2021/7/16, a surreal predictive dream
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?
WE GO IN PEACE: by Florence; pre-1961, a telepathic dream-report of another's death experience
My father-in-law looked me in the eye and said, 'Florence, the Lord is my shepherd and we go in peace'...
WHOSE DREAM IS THIS, ANYWAY?: by Anonymous #25, c.2005, as told by Patti Allen; a cledonic dream
A dreamer I know dreamt she was fired by a Mr Bleeden. Baffled her, but made shocking sense to me! My dad...
WOLVES IN THE BOOTH: by Thordhr "the Terror"; c.1000, a warning dream
Thordhr dreams a pack of wolves attack him in a trade-booth! He wakes sure the trade-fair will be trouble...
A WOMEN'S WORLD: by Wayan; 1996/8/6, a psychic dream.
I visit Earth during an all-female era. I'm a woman, can pass for local--so why do I lie to fit in?
CAUTION: SEXIST SLUR
WONDERFUL SPECTACLES: by Anna Kingsford; 1877/1/31, a clairvoyant advisory dream
A mystic postman delivers a letter on the world's best glasses and a reply from me, telling how to find them...
WOUND-BARGAIN: by a Marine from New York; 1918/9/12-14, a prediction and possible alteration of the future
I was sure I'd be wounded, but dreaded being crippled. So I tried on injuries! I settled on a flesh wound in my left shoulder...
YOU NEED TO FIND HER: by B. Bigham; 2010/4/27, a strong psychic dream of history
I walked into a 19th century home--and family quarrel. Decades passed in seconds; then
the house burned--with me in it. Two years later I learned the house and its history were real...
YOU REALLY AREN'T LUNCH; 2012/6/11 by Maia Spencer; a cledonic dream of facing fears
Hiding in the woods I meet a Cyclops. But I'm not me, I'm the editor of the World Dream Bank...
"YOU'RE SO GAY!": by Wayan; 2013/1/24. A psychic dream of a time-short oracle.
I'm in line to meet a shockingly accurate psychic. But she's running late, so as I frame my question...
CAUTION: I'M NOT GAY BUT I SURE AM QUEER
ZOOOP'S MAZE: by Zooop and Wayan; 1999/1/21, apparent shared/telepathic dreams.
I wander a sunken maze, meet a playful woman, find a hidden treasure. Meanwhile, my friend Zooop...


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