Treasure!
But early in my dreamwork the meaning was often self-referential: the treasure to be unburied was either dream-recall itself, and then (once I got better at recording dream events) their meanings, and then, once I got good at that, acting on dream advice.
But it can also be literal. A fair number of these dreams prompt the dreamer to find a real lost treasure. So before digging for symbols, look under the sofa--or wherever your dream suggests. Your unconscious catches things you miss.
RELATED TOPICS: money in dreams - crystals and gems - archeology - memory, buried memories and cryptomnesia - therapy - dreamwork - quests - hunts (though in most of my dreams of hunting, I'm the prey...) - museums, libraries, zoos and other collections - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.
ADORABLE CYBORGS: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/10/5, a dream-poem on inner teamwork A child dreamer and two different kinds of cyborg must cooperate to free the hostages imprisoned under San Francisco Bay... |
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THE BATTLE FOR THE RAI DRAGON: by Rikutsu; 2015/12/6, a dream declaring change is ready at last In a corrupt world, a talisman called the Rai Dragon offers hope of real change-- IF it can be found, AND used by someone decent-hearted... |
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BEET: Five Dreams One Night: by Wayan; 2013/10/30, Halloween dreams as minipoems Parasites, Rambo, huge fetus-beets, an exhibitionist and a living statue advise me on my love life... CAUTION: NUDITY |
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BIRD, CAT, TREASURE: by Anna Kingsford; 1877/8/3, two warning dreams in one night Should Anna quit hiding her psychic dreams? She dreams a cat eats her bird & burglars loot an open house. Maybe keep hiding? |
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BOOK OF GOLD: by a four-year-old; pre-1961, an apparent telepathic flash A woman urged her friend to give her daughter a musical education. Without hearing this, the child went hunting for... |
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BREAK FREE: by Emily Joy; 2006/5/11, an encouraging dream on the price of safety. I search for family skeletons, but then a talking plant on TV inspires me to seek the sun and fly free. But certain velociraptors and barbarian swordswomen object... CAUTION: DUELS, FISH ABUSE, THE F-WORD |
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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 |
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THE CRYSTALLIZERS: by Wayan, 2014/11/21, a surreal dream on the lost art of talking to strangers I'm in an airport full of aliens who, when bored, crystallize until things get fun again. My long planeflight glows like a dragon-hoard! But it's lonely... |
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THE DRAGON ECONOMIST: by Wayan, 2011/1/7, a surreal dreamlet prodding me An economist gets a job as a dragon guarding a data-treasure. Heroes plot to slay him, but I trust the dragon more than the heroes... |
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DRAGON-JEWEL: by Wayan; 2013/6/27, a 1001 Nights epic dream disturbingly predictive of ISIS In Old Palmyra, I stumble on a dragon-hoard. Wizards and caliphs hunt me--how to get out of town? Magic carpet? No. I put on a brown coat, borrow a delivery bike, and slowly pedal... |
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THE DYE-HOUSE RECORDS: by a Christian secretary, pre-1961, a prayer-induced intuition Our archivist had had a stroke. When an engine failed, my boss said "Find its records if it takes two weeks!" Five minutes later... |
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ERMINE, or, GOTHMOG'S GHOST: by Wayan, 1984/2/11, a gender-bent & species-bent warning dream I'm a delicate little ermine-chinchilla whose best friends are all sewer rats. They push their food and drink on me, and I nibble to be polite... |
AN ETHNOHISTORICAL INTERVIEW: by Will & El Nichols, c.1935? ; linked dreams leading to treasure |
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... |
FALSE BOTTOM: by Edith Wharton; October 1913, a summing-up nightmare. |
Demons open a trunk full of the horrors I've faced this year, and lay them out, mocking me... but is that all? |
FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH: by Roswila, August 2002; a dream-poem illustrating dream reentry |
My horse and I dove into a lagoon and sought buried treasure on the sea-floor. What are we really after? |
GEODE: by Anonymous #30; pre-1961, a clairvoyant dream |
I dreamed of a valuable geode on a gravel bar in a nearby river, a place I'd never been. The next day I went... |
THE GIFTED CHILD: by Brenda Ferrimani, 2013?, a painting of an incubated dream |
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... |
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... |
GOLD EATER: by Wayan; 1993/1/15 dream drawn as 9-page comic. |
I'm an orphan shapeshifter enslaved by a gold-eating monster. But I meet a cat-girl with a hammer... CAUTION: BAD FOSTER-DAD; CAPITALIST MONSTER; VIOLENCE (TO VENDING MACHINES) |
GOLD VERSUS DIAMONDS: by Wayan; 1972/1/20, a shameful dream fable. |
We're children seeking gold in a fairy wood. We meet some elf-kids, chase them off, and dig where they played. Then their parents show up... CAUTION: INTERSPECIES BULLYING |
A GOLDEN KEY IN A CHEAP LIGHT: by Wayan; 1996/7/9, a subtle dream lesson |
I was so lonely the potheads on Haight looked good. I dreamed I had the Golden Key, but under a cheap sodium streetlamp, ALL my keys looked gold! Then I met true gold: a woman meditating until she shone... CAUTION: NUDITY, HAIGHT STREET STONERS |
GREEN RAY, BLUE WINGS: by Wayan, 1974/7/14, a joyful apocalyptic dream |
High in the Sierra during a thunderstorm, I dream aliens steal the gold, and the sun's going nova. But Life wants us to conquer space, so we all grow wings... |
GUDRUN'S FOUR HUSBANDS: by Gudrun Osvifursdottir; summer 988, plus spring 1026
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Four childhood dreams predicting Gudrun's life; plus a predictive dream by her husband Thorkell Eyjolfson Gudrun dreams of four treasures: a hood, a bracelet, a ring, a jeweled helm. Her cousin sees them as four marriages... |
GUNTRAM'S SNAKE by King Guntram, c.570 CE; a profitable out-of-body dream |
On a hunt, Guntram took a nap. His courtier saw a snake emerge from his mouth; it tried to cross a creek. The courtier lay his sword out like a bridge, and the snake crossed, climbed a hill, and went in a hole. It returned and crawled in Guntram's mouth. He woke and said "I was crossing a river on a great iron bridge..." |
HEIST THE GOLDEN EGGS!: by Wayan; 2008/7/18, a dream of do-it-yourself tech--and ethics |
Two teens crack a bank with a homemade rocket--but forgot a crowbar! Caught, but the bank can't press charges; the kids have proof the bank uses slave labor... CAUTION: DISSES CAPITALISM |
HIS MINE: by Wayan; 1985/12/2, an epic Wild West dream |
I'm a hobbit seeking Henry Fonda's haunted gold mine. And find it. Or is that chocolate? But then I'm caught in a shamanic showdown in a bar where they serve real spirits... |
HOT FEET: by Patient 2 of William Hammond, c.1868, a nightmare--but subliminal or mystical? |
I'm in the Rocky Mountains. Gold-hungry Mexican bandits capture me and put my feet to the fire, demanding "How do you transmute copper into gold?" I scream "I don't know!", waking to find... CAUTION: TORTURE PLAYED FOR LAUGHS |
ICE-TRAY: by Anonymous #28; pre-1961, a waking intuition so unlikely it suggests ESP |
I lost two rings. Searched hours; nothing. I hadn't touched the freezer all day, yet I peered into the icecubes... |
IN THE VAULT: by Wayan; 1983/4/6, a dream of treasure. |
I was a sheltered girl till I entered my family's secret ancestral vault. I didn't expect to meet... |
JADE JACKPOT, or, A HEAP O' CHANGE: by Wayan; 1990/1/7, a dream of shaking down God. |
I'm slipping dimes into a boulder of jade: a vending machine that fills every order wrong. Why feed it? Well... |
JUNG'S DRAGONS: by Carl Jung, 1917/1/17 to mid-1922; recurring dream/trance figures |
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... |
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... |
LOST OPAL: by Anonymous #27; pre-1961, a clairvoyant or subliminal dream |
The opal fell out of my ring somewhere around town. I was heartbroken at the loss. But that night my husband dreamed... |
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... |
THE MARTIAN FEUD: by Wayan; 1994/3/10, a warning dream. |
On Old Mars, before it died, two rival families' teasing finally goes too far, despite the whale's warning... CAUTION: VIOLENCE |
MARTIAN VIGILANTE: by Wayan, 2006/3/25, an absurdist nightmare on inner killjoys |
After a busy exhausting day, I find myself on a dream street flirting with a really cute artist. Until this stumpy green Martian slithers up, calls us criminals, and threatens us with a raygun... CAUTION: DUMBEST INNER CRITIC EVER |
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS' JEWELS: 1845, a hypnotic experiment by a Major Buckley |
Mary Queen of Scots' will (1556) was lost for centuries. In 1845, Major Buckley hypnotized a fellow officer and had him 'read' a family heirloom. He said it was Mary's! Her lost will was found in 1854 and published in 1863. Turned out the claim in the trance was right... CAUTION: MARY'S LIFE WAS BRUTAL |
MEAD'S ADVICE: by Beverly O'Neill; c.1977? 78? a dream on seeking a female rolemodel |
I try hard not to invade Margaret Mead's privacy, but I need her advice; after I find a fruit true growing in a forgotten room, she unbends... |
THE MER BUILDING: by Wayan; 2001/2/23, a dream of a double life. |
I’m a puma with a night job as a cellist. But my day job with The Architectives is the bizarre one... |
MINE BACK DOOR: by Wayan; 1979/9/7, a dream on mining the unconscious. |
Deep in a secret diamond mine, I see stars. A door opening to the night sky! But this shortcut's heavily guarded... |
NEW LEVEL!: by "Julian"; 2006/5/22, 3 gamelike dreams in one night, two of them epic |
My mom and I road-duel an alien beetle, then investigate a deepspace Marie Celeste; then I spy for the Angevin Empire to protect the Crown Jewels... |
THE OCEAN'S FLOOR: by Cheryl Fish, c.1986, a dream of failure-analysis? |
I dream we canoe down a river. You say it's barren because this was once the ocean's floor. You're protective but not longing. I wake on a beach, puzzled why I still feel for you a year later... |
PARVATI SAWS THE WALL: by Wayan; 2013/6/26, a dream-poem about a Himalayan kook |
Martial-arts student Parvati just won't fight the teacher she loves (too much!)-- not even for her final exam. Instead she gets a rotary saw and... |
THE PHOENIX: by A.C. Benson; 1894. A dream-poem. |
I don't understand this poem's symbolism or even its style. It came to me whole, in a dream... |
THE PIRATE TWINS: by Wayan; 1996/7/25, a dreamtale on intrigue. |
I love the Twins. They love intrigue. So when a hired crocodile sabotages our Egyptian treasure-hunt... CAUTION: BAD GIRLS |
PITS OF POWER: by Wayan; 2005/11/16, a dream of rival miracles |
One tribe builds earth-magic pits that can teleport you or grant wishes. But the other tribe's more powerful flow-state magic is harder to define... CAUTION: SEX FANTASY GRANTED |
REGEANA’S DRAGON: by Regeana; 1996/3/9, a dream of generosity |
The jewels in the hoard had strange powers, but the advice of the dragon guarding them was even stranger... |
A RETRIBUTION OF MERMAIDS: by Bruno Oliveira; summer 2011, a treasure-finding dream |
Despite corporate crooks, missiles and floods, Angelina Jolie and I find the lock of mermaid hair... |
RING-DUEL: by Wayan; dreamed 1988/12/21; a transformation dream on reclaiming your power |
A mad scientist sneaks me into a museum that holds the Ring of Power I made at 14. I put it on, and slip into the spirit world--as a dragon! An ice-drake sent by Sauron comes to duel me for my Ring... |
THE RINGMAN'S SQUIRREL: by Wayan; 1982/9/17, a dream of a time after us. |
One day, in the ruins of an American city whose name was lost, I met a Ringman under an oak... CAUTION: GROSS WORK, IF YOU CAN GET IT |
ROAR OF THE SAILS: by Wayan; 1973/9/6, a magical scavenger-hunt dream goes lucid--absurdly. |
Our teams search through fountains and pavilions, finding & trading the glowing stones. None of the magic makes me go lucid, but as we sail toward the finish line... |
SCARAB: by a patient of Carl Jung's; c.1925? a predictive/synchronistic dream |
As she told me her dream of receiving jewelry--a golden scarab-- I heard a tapping on the window behind me. I opened it. In flew... |
SCATTERED TROVE: by Wayan; 2008/5/15; an esthetic-advisory dreamlet |
I find little cards all over town, each with a check for $512. A fragmented treasure! I wake and see the 512 implies a digital treasure-trove, and search my computer... |
SECRET SCREEN: by Wayan; 2018/4/19 and 2018/5/16, three linked dreamlets of escape |
A friend nags me to be lookout as he steals a cult's papers. I know it'll end in murder, but foresight paralyzes me! In a videogame that keeps freezing unplayably, I find a button calling up a secret screen of second chances... I'm lost in a grim basement, but two kids show me a cobwebbed glass door you can walk through like air... |
SHIELDS FROM THE GODDESS: by Wayan; 1996/8/3, a dream that's a slap in the face. |
A Goddess-worshiping general gets a visit from her twin daughters who bring a puzzling message... |
SHIP OF JADE: by Wayan; 2009/11/7, an illustrated dreampoem on dreampoetry! Dreamverse #64 |
My dreams are made of lovely carvable jade. Too bad my tools and skills suit our plastic age... |
STATUES ON ICE: by Wayan; 2021/3/12, a dream of blue politics |
Weird blue snow covers a dump of unwanted historical statues, but they seem less political than... strange. Is that a griffin? What's really getting covered here? |
SULFUR GROTTO: by Wayan; dreamed 1988/8/30, a psychic genderbent rescue-dream |
I'm a teenage girl diving for treasure. In an eerie coral grotto reeking of sulfur, I spot a diver in trouble... and wake to find the grotto is real.. |
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..." |
SWORD IN MY BACK: by Franz Kafka; 1915/1/19, a surreal but un-Kafkaesque dream. |
I slept late and felt a bit stiff, but until my friends pulled it out of my neck I had no idea... |
TAROT: MINE CHILD: by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978. |
Deep in the strata inside you, gems lie waiting in the dark for this child to dig them free... |
TEMEMTIM: by Wayan; 1995/3/3 and 3/16; two linked archeology dreams. |
My cold-sensitive dinosaur friend makes a find at our archeological dig by thinking like the Old Ones... |
THEFT OF THE ARK: by King Solomon, c. 960 BCE; a dream acted on too late |
Ethiopian records say Solomon and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, had a son who stole the Ark of the Covenant! Solomon dreamt of the theft but didn't check til it was too late... |
THE TOMBSTONE TEST: by Wayan; 1986/8/18, a deceptive dream. |
I walk in a vast graveyard full of history's most famous people and treasures. But it's all fake, built to test your... |
THE TOOTH: by SAO (Shawn Allen O'Neal), 2003?, an epic, oracular, baffling dream |
Psychics give me an incomprehensible reading. A book from the tree-library gives only Victorian dating advice. At last a madman gives me a treasure-box holding a tooth that unfolds into slices carved in unreadable symbols... |
TREASURE UNDER STONE, or, OOPS: by Daniel Healy; Jan. 1774, a recurring dream of treasure |
Daniel thrice dreamt of money hidden under a great stone in a nearby field. He dug and found a surprise... CAUTION: IRISH HUMOR |
UNCORK A SUB GOD: by Wayan; 1998/8/11, a cryptic warning dream. |
Exploring a sunken sub, my buddies salvage a something ticking. Toss it back, but it won't stay sunk... |
VISIONS UPSTAIRS: by Wayan, 2007/1/15, an ero-spiritual dream-comic |
Junk in the attic? Treasures! The cat musicians shift from cartoons to life as I ascend, til in the ultimate attic--the astral beach--I meet a cattaur made of pure (de)light... CAUTION: SEX-CRAZED CATS, NEW AGE FINALE |
VOLCANIC OATH: by Wayan; 1972/5/20; poem of a teenage Tolkien nightmare. |
DAY: our ex-cat comes back, needing surgery. Dad doesn't want to pay. Big quarrel. DREAM: Cats, birds, elf-girls; in their asteroid library, a tale of oath-breaking... Now I'm the one who stole a tooth of jade from the volcano hall. Greed... erupts! CAUTION: NUDE BIRD-ELF, DEATH BY LAVA |
WARM MOTHER: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2001/3/24, 3/29, 3/30 & 4/1; dreams | I dream my mother takes over caring for my sick daughter; I feel pushed aside. When I wake, I try to paint a more positive image of mothering. For a week, dream after dream has opportunities for patience and letting go of jealousy... |
WASTE: by Wayan; 1990/5/7, a desert singles poem, 11 images. |
A road trip through New Mexico mutates into a tour of my relationship disasters... |
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! |
WITCH AND WITTENS: by Wayan, 2012/2/20, a dream on sexual ambivalence |
I never find girls I dislike hot... so why do this smugly seductive witch and all her pointy-hat minions simultaneously attract and repel me so? CAUTION: JUST... WRONG. |
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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