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I'm Just Not Myself Today!

To speed loading of this big list, it's split: A-I, and this one, J-Z.

"I'm just not myself today!" Dreams where you've changed age, name, identity, culture, tribe, race, species, or even fundamental nature--you're silicon-based life, or a robot or energy being or a ghost...

It's funny--about half the people I've asked are nearly always themselves--they literally wouldn't dream of being someone else! The other half... anything goes. And few dreamers fall between. The number of entries that are mine shows which group I belong to...

RELATED TOPICS: dream careers - cross-age dreams: you're much older or younger - cross-gender dreams: you learn how the other half lives - cross-cultural dreams: your race, culture, professional or tribal identity has changed - you're not even the same species! - cross-platform dreams: you're not even carbon! Silicon, steel, energy, data, spirit... - 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.


JESSICA THE MERMAID: by Jessica, mid-1977, dream-provoked dream
At a dream workshop for kids, James's trickster dream-figures provoked Jessica to dream one chased her;
fleeing, she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, became a mermaid, and married the trickster...
JOIN THE WOLVES LATER!: by Wayan; 1980/9/4, a dream of false but useful fear.
Shepherding a group of cityfolks through an alien wilderness, I need a werewolf's help. So why do I lie?
JOVE'S LIMBO: by Wayan; 1994/11/27, a dream of astral muckraking.
Half elvish, rejected, I wander the worlds, and find a limbo built by Zeus--but do the inmates deserve it?
THE KENNERBIRD: by Wayan; 1973/5/20; a naive shamanic dream.
I'm a cartoon flamingo; with my sisters, the frog and the rabbit-squirrel, I meet our Maker--the cartoonist...
KICK HER: by Wayan; 1994/8/9, a gameshow nightmare.
I'm a blonde gameshow bimbo. Each week, I'm beaten up. Ha ha ha! But my bruises are real. At last, I...
CAUTION: GAMESHOW FROM HELL
KIOSK: by Wayan; 1994/5/1, a 4-page dreamcomic on the power of song (or illustrated text version)
I'm a sexy singing beast, the Krelkin, trying to lure the Reading Man out of his Moral Kiosk...
CAUTION: NUDITY, INTERSPECIES FLIRTATION
A KRELKIN SMEARED: by Wayan; 1996/9/23; a dream of bold intervention .
I'm a slender, clever krelkin. I draw me, but then red rage erupts and I trash myself... can I be saved?
LAMEST CAR CHASE EVER: by Wayan, 2023/10/2, a dream predicting not events but emotions
I'm caught in a surreal traffic jam--balky horses, teeny cop cars. Get so stressed that I split
into a big creature guarding a small human sleeper. But even sleep is now a crime...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE?
LANDSCAPE FROM A DREAM: by Paul Nash; recurrent dreams 1895-9, painted summer 1937
As a child, Paul Nash dreamt he flew over rural southern England.
As an adult surrealist painter...
LBJ OR WOODROW?: by Lyndon Baines Johnson; July-Sept 1955 and Feb-Mar 1968, recurring paralysis dreams
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...
LEARNING TO SING AND DANCE: by Marilyn Barrett; 1988 or before, a dream of heritage
I'm a kid again, waltzing with my dad, though he's long dead. He hands me the trumpet inside his chest. When
I wake, I feel it still. My mom just died; I've reclaimed a playful part of him she condemned all her long life...
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.
THE LEMON SEA: by Wayan; 1982/2/22, a dream warning.
I wake up as someone else. I go through her working day, till Captain Kirk comes to take me to...
LEOPARDS AT THE FRINGE: by Wayan; 2014/3/28; poem of a cryptomnesic species-bent thespian sex dream
I'm at the Fringe Festival, onstage in a Performance Orgy, playing two roles:
a leopard with human pets and a leopard's human pet. But I'm not quite playing...
CAUTION: STAGED ORGY
THE LEOPARD'S CLUE: by Wayan; 2012/3/17, an incubated advisory dream.
My boyfriend, a leopard, sniffs out a clue to an old murder involving me in a past life. But did I witness, die, or kill?
THE LEOPARD'S TURN: by a Brazilian woman, c.1990-'98; a see-both-sides dream
I see a leopard chasing an Indian man who defends himself with a knife; then
I wake. To find I'm still witnessing the same scene, only now I'm the leopard...
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
LION-GIRL TRIANGLE: by Wayan; 2000/12/11, an uncomfortable sex-dilemma dream, possibly predictive
I'm a betrothed teenager having to choose between mates, in an alternate Africa where
lions are another tribe of people--and occasionally adopt humans...
CAUTION: NUDITY
THE LIZARD LESSON: by Wayan; 1996/12/12, a hard-hittin' shamanic dream.
I'm a shaman in Nunavut who has to teach a guy in a lizard
suit (and his foxy niece) that reparations have limits...
LIZARD OR WIZARD? Or, ARACHNOLYPSE by Wayan, 2021/2/10; a cynical magical dream
An idiot wizard lures car-sized spiders into town. I find a spellbook that repels them, but have to hide it
so my community college professors, Gandalf & Saruman, don't take it. For I'm no wizard, just a lizard...
CAUTION: HUGE SPIDERS, HUGE SELLOUTS
LOBSTER ECSTASY: by Wayan; 1970/11/1?, a teenage lobster love dream.
One of my first recorded dreams--how I foolishly turned away from Lobster Love...
CAUTION: CHITINOUS SEX
LOLA: by Wayan; 1995/4/22, a wild dream: psychic, shamanic and... economic?
How the hell do I summarize this? Lola, a werefox I'm hot for, becomes my feudal Japanese brother, and
her fox-shape reappears as the truck-driving maid for a Han Dynasty lady. We counter the interdimensional
energy vampires by importing ghost unicorns on sailing ships, who have an orgy. Two weeks later,
it all comes true. Literally? No, but closer than you'd think....
LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD by Wayan, 1989/2/11; a chthonic transformation dream
While spelunking, I blunder into the Lord of the Underworld's court where dragons swim--and
become one! My human friends stare at me, coiled with my two mates. Do they even know me now?
CAUTION: SCALY THREESOME
LOST AGAIN: by Wayan; felt pen, 1983/2/27, sketch of daydream? or dream?
I was a bird-person in a post-nuclear future, touring North America on the wing. But ruins all look the same...
CAUTION: ALL YOU LOVE IS GONE
LOVING A COP: by Wayan; 1981/5/5, a dream on initiative.
I'm a cop's wife, having trouble with his need to protect me. He's hurt if I take too much initiative...
LUNAMOTH (Around #11): by Wayan; soon after 1998/8/7; 2 portraits of a dream-self, one digital, one acrylic
Day Me curls up and Night Me unfolds: a girl with dark moth-wings, not angel-white but camouflaged...
LUNCH WITH THE STARS: by Wayan; 1981/2/2, a dream on beliefs.
I'm in a loving animal dance troupe, but wake to find I'm alone.
For consolation, I eat at The Terrace, and meet stars. Not film stars...
MAELEN AND ME: by Wayan; 1972/5/1, a transmigrational dream.
I'm a psychic circus animal who's just managed to teleport my humanoid girlfriend. It's for our act, but...
CAUTION: PETTING
MAGIC SCHOOL: by Wayan, 1982/1/26: a waking event and replying dream.
Phyllis Schlafly, killer of the Equal Rights Amendment, provokes a dream of being Captain Kirk
trapped in a magic school with no way out but the graduate exam. Can I learn the lesson of the tree?
CAUTION: POLITICAL JOURNALISM BEFORE THE DREAM. OH NO!
MAGICAL LIGHT: by Wayan; 1985/10/8, a dream on micromania
Linda Evans of Dynasty survives a shapeshifters' war, though her mansion's wrecked.
She meets a caped superhero--and superdog, and supercat, squirrel, hamster, mouse!
These micro-heroes make me see I too have been minimizing my own bravery...
A MAMMOTH FIGHT: by Wayan; 1996/2/26, a dream of another life. A tacky other life...
I'm a fight promoter. But my biggest deal ever is growing out of my control.
Mammoth versus Rex, sure. But now it's a four-way bout--schoolbus, whale...
CAUTION: CRASS ACT
THE MAN IN BLACK: by Florita Thesiger, 1930s, recurring genderbent pastlife dreams
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...
THE MAN WHO MISTOOK...: by Wayan; 1995/9/19, an insane dream.
I'm just an ordinary guy, who beats his son so he'll grow faster, and sees tits on drinking fountains...
MANTA MOTHS: by Wayan; 1990/10/3, a transcendental nightmare echoing a dream 8 years before, (1982/1/22)
Manta Moths pick us off us explorers... or do they? An old scroll spoke of fear leading to transformation...
MANTA-SQUID: by Wayan; 1986/3/13, a nightmare on the Senoi hoax
DAY: I read an exposé on "Senoi dreamwork"--the Malaysian Senoi people disavow it. Some white guy just made it up!
DREAM: I'm a dream researcher in Malaysia. A manta-squid attacks! Now the "Senoi" focus on my needs makes sense...
CAUTION: TENTACLE-RAPE ATTEMPT
MARINE GEOLOGY'S NOT IT: by Wayan; 1984/6/2, a dream farce.
After finding marine geologists in my chocolate pudding, I'd rather be a Frenchman and insult my wife...
CAUTION: DECADENCE
MARJANE: by Wayan; 2005/6/3, a nightmare about... articide? Watercolor comic or illustrated text
I'm cartoonist Marjane Satrapi. I passively tag along with friends (and a fiancé I tend to forget)
in the Mission District of San Francisco. But they blunder into real trouble...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
MATILDA, or, HITLER'S GIRLFRIEND MULTIPLIES: by Wayan; 1998/10/1, a dream of math and courage.
I'm Hitler's girlfriend. Not Eva Braun, just me--gentle, weak, thrown in among killers. What can I do?
MCKILLIP'S NEW BOOK: by Wayan; 2010/7/23, an epic literary dream
I'm inside a magical novel by Patricia McKillip, amid tricksters, cosplayers, spooks, sex changes, levitation and (sigh) cops...
CAUTION: COYOTE SEX
MEGALITHIC BREAKOUT: by Wayan, 2019/8/29; a half-lucid dream that needed to be
I'm a kid imprisoned in an empty stone castle. Squeeze through a stone slit, and prepare to drop ten feet
down the face of a great stone gate. But I go lucid, and my dream and waking body-senses conflict...
MEN CATCH FIRE: by Shannon Frazier; 2020/12/8, an identity-bent dream
I was a South Asian teenage girl. Strange men throw rocks at our house,
then explode into fire. I don't trust my dad to get my little brother out...
MENDELIAN CHIMERAS: by Wayan; 2015/1/1, a New Year's dream warning of medical uniqueness
I meet a girl who's a Mendelian hybrid of human, animal and peavine! But I'm no more human than she is...
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...
MERBOY: by Al Davison, 1961, a joyful dream remembered from infancy
At around one year old, Al dreamed, while in hospital, that he was a merboy
leaping from the sea, trying to figure out how to swim in the air, too...
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...
THE MERMAID TOW: by Wayan; 1994/2/17, a rescue-fantasy dream.
I rescue some drowning kids by turning into a mermaid, but towing one girl has an unexpected effect...
METEOR OR STAR?: by Wayan; 2007/9/17, a dream of uncertainty
I'm an anima. But we rarely walk the day-world for long. When will I fade? Ignorance isn't bliss, it's paralysis...
MIGRATION THROUGH FIRE: by Wayan; 1999/9/3, a dream of what matters.
I'm a shaggy primitive whose tribe's outgrown our caves. We migrate, and meet two new species of people...
MINER'S LETTUCE: by Wayan; 1989/1/4, an indigestible little dream.
Our cowboy posse tracks a fugitive to a strange amethyst mine, where we're offered peculiar jobs...
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
A MISCARRIED LIFE: by Wayan; 1981/2/12, a dreamlet just a century long.
I'm Mattie, a pregnant girl on a Lewis and Clark expedition. I miscarry, and they tell me...
MOA: by Wayan; 1995/9/9, a dream on assertion.
I was an avian Mr Niceguy with sore knees, till I got some advice from my supposedly extinct big brother...
MODELING A ME: by Wayan, 1994/8/29, a mirroring dream
I find a 3D program that shows your true self, the self that can love, IS love. And my wireframe is...
MOLY: by Thom Gunn, c.1968, a nightmare poem.
She turned me to a pig. I rooted hungrily, not for food but for moly, the sacred herb that could undo her spell...
CAUTION: TRAPPED IN PORCINITY
MOUNTING PROBLEMS: by Wayan, 2021/5/22; an anti-Freudian punning math dream.
I'm a giant wolf with a human girlfriend. A formula says I must shrink until my paws are 128 times
the volume of her feet. But I'll still be way too big for sex! Eight seems more like the right volume...
CAUTION: HORNY WOLF, MATH, CLIMACTIC PUN
THE MOUSE BANNER: by Wayan; 1986/9/4, a dream fable.
I'm a mouse with a protest banner saying "FREEDOM!", having a slight argument with a cat...
MOUSE WORKOUT: by Eric, ca. 2005/9/28, a nightmare for my own good?
I'm a mouse trapped and tortured in a maze/machine who gets killed four different ways at once...
CAUTION: OW, OW, OW, OW
MUIR ON MARS: by Wayan; 1994/5/14, a dreamtale.
I'm John Muir reborn on Mars, supporting Mars First against tree-cutters, who poison their enemies...
MULTIPLEX: by Wayan; 1987/1/9, a dream on multiple dreamselves.
Inside my brain's a fractured legislature--a hive-mind where da beez disagreez...
MUPPET WITNESS: by Bill Tjaden, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; an absurd dream
I work in a witness protection program. We hide the Muppet on the bottom
of an empty swimming pool, hand him a long straw, and fill it with...
MURDERER: by Dusan Makavejev, c.1960, twin nightmares with peculiar joyful moods
I'm given photos of what a murderer saw, but I recognize these scenes. I am the murderer! At least I've solved the case.
I'm in a bare white room. On the wall, a long fuse sparks. I feel euphoric from ozone--it means I've had a fatal radiation dose...
MUSCLES: by Gayle Delaney and "John", before 1979, simultaneous out-of-body dreams
I dreamt I was out of my body. My friend John was too, so I slipped into his to see how it felt. Big lungs,
big muscles! When I woke, John told me he'd had a great out-of-body dream and was reluctant to wake...
MY BEST FRIEND'S HOUSE--AND MOM: by Barbara C., 1983/11/22; a psychic dreamlet
I dream of my best friend, but she's in an unfamiliar house. I notice its address.
On impulse, when I wake, I go to that address and ask the woman living there...
CAUTION: APPARENT E.S.P.
MY DREAM NIGHTJOB: by Jack Kerouac, late 1956 or early '57, an outa-the-mouths-of-babes dream.
I commute to my dreamjob on a four-story bus; then my baby brother
(who I wouldn't let eat any chocolate pudding) utters a new poem by William Blake...
MY DREAM OF CELIBACY: by Sibbie O'Sullivan, c.1984, a flirty lost-opportunity mermaid dream
I lie on the bottom of the pool. The life guard lifts me in his strong arms. We flirt till my legs fuse, ready to go deep;
but he says "It's only a part-time job" and turns away. In day, the highschool pool lies empty, widowed of water...
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.
MY FAVORITE DREAM OF 1991: by Mary Fleener; 1991, a joyful dismemberment dream.
My friend Carol and I are carrots. We crawl out of our vegetable bed
through the kitchen window, and end up happily hot-tubbing in soup...
MY GATE: by Wayan; 1996/5/29; a bizarre, joyful dream; 4-page comic (or ill. text version)
The full moon rises: I become Weregirl, do the Moondance, and gnaw open the lock on my heart...
CAUTION: MOONING
MY MOTHER'S CLOSET: by Rachel Hadas, c. 2000;
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...
MY PET MONSTER: by Katie Hofgard; 2005/5/17?, an erotic nightmare
I'm a sexy monster, but my sister sells me to the Devil as his bride...
CAUTION: SEXY CREATURE, ROTTEN SISTER
MY THREE HUSBANDS: by Wayan; 1981/2/26 & 1991/5/26, dreams drawn as a 15-page comic
I'm three women at once! We marry a unicorn, a goat philosopher,
and a magic talking cat. But cops raid our furry commune...
CAUTION: INTERSPECIES MARRIAGE, TEEN SEX, BAD COPS
MY TREE: by Wayan; 170K, 12/12/2007, 2-page comic of a persistent delusion.
I keep feeling I'm a reincarnated rainforest creature just passing for human. When all I want is...
CAUTION: TOBACCO
MY WILDCAT WOUND: by Wayan; 1994/7/8, a dream on gender trauma.
I'm a wildcat in a cat/fox team led by a woman who wants us to merge with a man/wolf team...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE
NAMED: by Kathleen Raine, between 1981 & '87; a mystical dream poem
A voice calls to me by name--but not the name I now bear, evoking memories of another life...
THE NEPALESE DROP: by Wayan; 2000/4/20, a predictive nightmare.
I climb a crumbling slope to a cliff with a Himalayan view; I slip, and no one lifts a hand to help as I...
A NEVADAN ASS: by Wayan, 2007/5/17, a dream-poem on sabotage in art AND love
DREAM: on a Nevada ranch, I'm a were-horse into mares--when I'm human. And when I'm a stallion?
Why, cowgirls! Always date the wrong species--just to be sure of rejection.
NEXT DAY: I let a class of commercial artists critique my dream-comix. Just to be sure of rejection...
CAUTION: FURRYPHILIA, SELF-SABOTAGE
NIETZSCHE EATS A TOAD: by Frederick Nietzsche; c.1867; a (prodromal?) nightmare
At a party, Nietzsche told a young woman "my hand was transparent as glass;
and a fat toad sat on my hand. I felt compelled to swallow it, and did..."
CAUTION: CREEPY DREAM, CREEPY FOLLOW-UP
NIGHT-BLIND: by Wayan, 2023/9/14, a dream incubated for another
My sister Miriel asks me to ask my dreams if it's safe for her to get cataracts removed.
I find myself in her body, biking at night--near-blind. Surgery has risks, but this is riskier!
NIGHT MARE: by Wayan; 1990/11/23; digital painting inspired by a friend's dream.
I dreamed I was a feral mare: gentle, affectionate, sensual, but gone wild, wary of being tamed again...
THE NIGHT OF CHANGE: by Wayan; 1994/2/8, a dream on the order of deep changes.
Festival night in a strange town, where, one night a year, dancing in the street transforms you into...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
A NIP IN THE EVENING: by Wayan; ink 1980 tinted 2000; daydream image.
Like a lot of playful beasts, I like a friendly nip in the evening...
NO BLUE RIDER: by Wayan; 1956-8 recurring dreams; a 1987/6/22 dream brought them back; painted 1996/1/21
My first memory is of being a wild horse, and waking up to find I was now a human child.
Franz Marc's "Blue Rider" paintings felt like my dreams; but as I learned of his life...
NO "I": by Wayan; 2003/10/22, a dream of identity loss.
I'm in San Francisco trying to throw Sauron's Ring into the Cracks of San Andreas.
But a sexy sorcerer steals my sense of I! How can you act without a self?
NOCTURNE: dreamed 2011 & 2013/11/19 by S---; nested, incubated advisory dreams
After asking "Am I ready to say yes to someone new?" I dreamed I met my old love...
NOT A CAT: by Wayan; 2022/11/27, a dream of being a sort-of-ghost
I wander New York City, a homeless ageless child, unnoticed--unless I climb stairs. Then people panic--see a huge cat!
But today I meet a crew lugging big paintings, who seem blind to cat or child. I think they're art thieves, mid-heist...
CAUTION: SHAMANIC INTERPRETATION
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...
NUKES AND WEREBIRDS: by Wayan, 2020/6/28, a surreal shamanic dream about... Covid?
I'm a were-crane in a flock fighting the dreaded Human Flu, setting off sterilizing nukes. But
birds aren't great with explosives; I end up hiding from a flash behind Stonehenge megaliths...
OCTOPIA: by Wayan; 1996/3/21, a spiritual dream-comic on play; ill. text version
I'm a stratospheric bat who finds a flying swastika. Is it creeping fascism?
Or a Hindu blessing? Neither! It's an Octopian frisbee. I return it...
OFFICE NIGHTINGALE: by Wayan; 1982/9/21, a dream warning I'm in the wrong place
I'm a lonely bird flying in a glass office. Seeking friends, seeing reflections, I fly into windows.
Ow! There's hope of escape only where no false friend beckons...
ON DRAGONS: by Roswila; July 1986, three poems of dragon dreams
The first two dragons numb my pain. I demand it back, and soon regret my haste.
But the third dragon I seduce, for I'm a dragon now...
THE ONI PLAGUE: by Wayan; 2018/2/2, a dream implying our leaders are sociopathic
Humans and elves like me can get along, but not oni (Japanese demons)--they'll hurt anyone for gain...
CAUTION: POLITICAL BITTERNESS
OPHIDIOPHOBIA: by Wayan; 1986/2/12, a dream on race and religion.
I'm a therapist with a client diagnosed paranoid--but are his doctors racist? He's not just black, but scaly...
ORACULAR RAVENS: by Wayan; 2023/1/24, a genderbent, predictive/synchronistic dream
DAY: I see Avatar: the Way of Water. Two films in one: Blue Lagoon alternates with Mad Max...
DREAM: As an oracle, I have to go topless so the magic mini-ravens can perch on my nipples...
CAUTION: BRR, OW!, BREASTS, and SNIPING AT JAMES CAMERON
ORBITING MOM: by Wayan; 1997/1/7, an uh-oh dream.
I'm trying to get a moontan when my mom appears.
My astral body starts orbiting her like a moon. Uh-oh...
OSENTO: by Wayan; 1991/2/15. Digital painting based on a dream.
Osento is a bath house that my friends all love. But women only. So I dream I change sex just to...
CAUTION: NUDITY, GRATUITOUS HAPPINESS
THE OTHER LAND: by Walter de la Mare, c.1881-4; an episodic or "installment" dream series
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?
OUR BEST SONG: by Wayan; 1983/10/25, a decade-long dream of song and flight.
The artcops search-and-destroy our flying band, and my wings are shorn. But ten years later,
songless, apathetic, I climb through my TV--and the women of Vietnam show me a new way to fly...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, ATTITUDE, ALTITUDE
AN OUTGROWN BED: by Wayan; 1990/10/14, a dream of growth and time.
I'm a girl in a Catholic school. But a magazine and my too-small bed combine to change my life...
CAUTION: MASTURBATION, QUEER-POSITIVE, CHRISTIAN-NEGATIVE
PARROT TAMES BUSINESSMAN: by Wayan; 2011/10/6, a surreal career-advice dream poem
My last two businesses went bust. So I let a giant parrot talk me into interviewing
her people, who've been settling all those alien ruins in Amazonia. Great career move...
PEACHES AND CHERRIES: by Phyllis Davidson, 1977 and early 80s? two dreamlets of being inanimate
PEACHES: after painting a peach all day, I find I AM one, reclining on a mound of cottage cheese...
CHERRIES: after a day in Reno, I find I'm a wheel in a slot machine, whirling, coming up cherries...
THE PEGASUS CHILD: by Wayan; 1982/4/4, a dream of family diversity and spiritual advice
Dad's human, Mom's a weird owl-lynx, the kid's a baby Pegasus... and I,
W.C. Fields, that fat cynical drunken old actor, am the babysitter...
PERPETUA'S LAST DREAM: by St Perpetua; 203 CE, a flying, sex-changing, defiant dream.
Facing death the next day in a Roman arena, Perpetua dreams of the spiritual duel behind the physical one...
PESSIMIST HELIX: by Wayan; 1996/6/9, a wise time-travel dream.
I work the info desk in a futuristic library. But one question leads me into a DNA-helix, a tornado of doubt...
PICK ME!: by William Dement's daughter, 1959 or '60, a not-yet-two-year-old's dream
I went into her room one morning before she awoke and saw her eyes moving. Suddenly she said,
"Pick me! Pick me!" I woke her and she immediately said, "Oh, Daddy, I was a flower." ...
PIER'S END: by Wayan, 1989/2/21, a Raymond Chandler dream.
My detective lover warned me, "Stay away!" Now I'm trapped. Dare I follow the lion over the edge?
PLANET CAT: by Wayan; 1995/11/12, a First Contact dream of love.
I'm the first man on Planet Cat, falling in love with my guide. And then I'm the Cat, falling for an alien ape...
CAUTION: NUDE CAT
PLESIOSAUR: by Wayan; 1985/9/5, a comic medical nightmare.
An itchy patient of mine insists he's turning into a four-
headed, man-eating plesiosaur. He left one thing out...
POINTED EARS, POINTED DREAM: by Wayan, 2019/1/4, a surreal dream
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?
POIROT'S FLIGHT: by Wayan; 1994/11/15, an anti-lucid dream.
I summon an aeroplane to escape a trap. Lucid? Not at all! Why should Poirot bother with such abstractions?
POKER WITH A DEMON: by Wayan; 1980/8/15; a comic predictive financial dream.
I'm authorized to play high-stakes poker with a scary-looking but rather nice demon...
POLYGON DREAMS: by Wayan; 2007/4/23, a 32-page comic on the effects of shapes
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
POTLATCH SMOKE: by Wayan; 1988/5/10, a shamanic dream-inside-dream 4 levels deep!
Refugees flood the spirit worlds! War looms. Wolf, Silky, Dr Who, even the Bug-Goddess of Love are alarmed.
I'm just a blonde ditz, but I help inspect realities till we trace the source: a Tlingit potlatch! Why?
THE POWER BEHIND THE GODS: by Wayan; 1972/10/25, a dream on the uses of universe-hopping
I meet the terrible Power Behind the Gods. I don't like it. So I get my squirtgun & shoot its butt.
The enraged Power chases me as blindly as I hoped! I jump into a secular universe, and...
CAUTION: SACRILEGE
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?
PREGNANT WITH KRYTHA: by Wayan; 1998/2/3, a monomaniacal dream
My best friend and I are shapeshifters; I seduce him, just so my daughter Krytha can be born...
CAUTION: MAMMALIAN NUDITY, PHEROMONAL SEDUCTION, RECKLESS PREGNANCY
PULLED UNDER: by Wayan; 1976/4/15, a nightmare.
One by one, we're pulled under the water, the earth... eaten. That's the fate of all flesh. And we're flesh.
CAUTION: HORROR
PUMA ORGY: by Wayan; 1988/2/5, erasable crayon drawing of a dream.
I dreamed I had to go through the Animal Orgy to get to the City of the Shining Spirits on the horizon...
CAUTION: STRANGE SEX
PUNKZINE BALLERINA UNDERWEAR: by Wayan; 1995/4/25, a short dream with self-portrait.
Am I a punk dyke or a shy ballerina? Both! And they're complementary facets. Underwear never lies...
PUPPY: by Naoki Higashida; March or April 2015, a role-reversal dream
I walk home with a puppy to meet my mum, who addresses the dog by my name
and invites him in, while I head for my doghouse in the garden...
PURE LOVE: by Wayan; 1986/10/9, an epic time-travel dream with ego shifts
Two shapeshifters meet, fight and love over the centuries--
and I live out scenes from both their long lives...
QUADRUPLE WEDDING: by Wayan; 1995/5/15, a unifying dream.
Day: Why did I get sick from figure-sketching? Guilt?
Dream: I'm at a group wedding; shall I wed a dwarf, a feral boy or a horse?
QUEEN COBRA: by Wayan; digital painting of a 1987/1/15 dreamlet.
I asked "I'm still scared to date anyone. Why? What's my next step?" That night, I was answered...
CAUTION: SEXUAL IMPLICATIONS
RACCOON MOON: by Wayan; 1993/11/22; a short psychic dream.
A precognitive dream about levitating snake girls, raccoons, and lunar eclipses.
CAUTION: MY SNAKE BREASTS
RAPID TRANSIT: by Wayan; 1999 hypnogogic image; watercolor 2000/11/15.
I was just sitting, minding my own business, when these
golden wedge-birds and a tiny flying white mare divebombed me...
THE REAL MAO: by Wayan; 2006/7/9 and 7/11: two dreams (one possibly psychic) about an appalling book
Jung Chang’s exposé of Mao's brutal deeds and legacy
provoke dreams of leaders who don't listen--till I scream...
REBEL OWL: by Wayan; 1971/10/9, a dream so mysterious it mystified its inhabitants
My city's invaded and occupied. I become a gigantic Owl and fight with impossible stamina.
But in the end I'm dead, stuffed, on a museum wall. Can I let go NOW?
CAUTION: WAR
REBELLION: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, a dream on dreamwork?
I was trapped in a Handmaid's Tale dystopia; I was a mannequin, naked &
helpless. I couldn't even walk. But I hid one rebellious act: I kept a diary...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY, CARTOON DYSTOPIA
REBORN IMMORTAL: by Reneta Scian; 2010/1/3, a three-stage flying dream
First I try to break the sound barrier like my girlfriend. Nope!
Then I fly slowly to her apartment. Nothing flashy, but I make it.
Last, I zoom back to ancient China, where I find a candle-lit shrine dedicated to... me?
RECURRING SCHOOL NIGHTMARE: by Julie Doucet; July 1995, a dream of... oh, read the title!
Trapped in elementary school, Julie is forced to study the alphabet
until she declares "I'm a professional cartoonist, goddammit!"...
REDUCED TO THE STUDHOUSE: by Wayan; 1980/11/16, a warning dream.
I'm not a normal wolf: I'm a were-woman. When I turn wolf again, I'm in heat; but I want to be alone! So...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
REFLECTIONS IN THE POOL: by Wayan; 184K total, 2 panoramas; a 1994/7/2 dream.
Night. A mirror-maze of contradictory preachings. But in the secret mermaid pool, I find love.
Then... sphinx-angels war in the air! A war of riddles. Can I, a batwinged devil, make peace?
CAUTION: SEX, NUDITY, MEAN ANGELS, AND ONE HAPPY DEVIL
A RENAISSANCE WOMAN: by Wayan; 1997/7/3, a dreamtale.
I'm an abused girl turning tricks to survive. But this is San Francisco: I join a prostitutes' co-op, and meet...
CAUTION: PROSTITUTES WITH SELF-RESPECT, OH NO!
RESHAPE MY FACE: by Wayan; dreamed 1988/9/21; a dream on the benefits of indulgence
Lounging in the sun, I do a magical make-over--molding my bones to give myself more room for
intuition, judgment, nerve--all the while feeling shallow & indulgent for self-improving!...
THE RESTLESS FILTER: by Wayan; 2011/2/4; a dream explaining my loneliness and American politics
I'm a kid in Nevada around 1950, learning that both my folks are lone wolves who gave me a genetic double dose...
CAUTION: RACIAL THEORY ABOUT... LIBERTARIANS?
REVOLUTION IS MESSY: by Emily Joy; 2006/4/26, a political dream
When whites invade, two shapeshifting Native American cubs resist architecturally...
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
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...
RING OF STARS: by Gayle Delaney, c.1967, a transcendent lucid dream
I knew the universe worked perfectly. Its existence was joyous, and I was part of it. This was imageless insight,
but to aid recall, I summoned images; I depicted the universe by a flowing circle of stars. And I was one...
ROBOT DREAMS: by Wayan; 1985/2/5, a dream on dreamwork.
I'm a robot in high school. I have my first dream, but I'm deaf to its message cuz it's not spectacular...
ROGER AND TINA: by Lisa Horton Zimmerman; 1991?; a gender-bent dream
As Roger, I can't get enough of Tina, though I know she lies and steals. After she vanishes with
my leather jacket, I hunt for her. Spot her shoplifting, and I want to catch her, but let go at last...
RONALD REAGAN STOLE MY SOUL!: by Wayan; 1983/3/7; a dream-comic
I was a robot who had a soul--till the Reagans stole it! I track them down, and
demand it back. Simply confronting them works--the hole inside me is filled...
CAUTION: CAUSTIC POLITICS
RORAIMA JUMP: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/9/18, a surreal dream of deadly outrage
I'm a Brazilian in the Olympic waterfall-jumping finals. The Russian & American cheat--threaten my family.
I snap! Fight recklessly, knocking them off their ropes. We all tumble down the cliff...
CAUTION: BULLYING, VIOLENT REVENGE
THE RUNES: by Denise Levertov; c.1963, an identity-bent oracular dream
I'm a small child in Finland writing out the meaning of three ancient runes
about trees, ships and elbow room. They seem to hold serious advice...
RUNNING BIRD: by Alder; 1953, a kinetic nightmare with double selves.
I'm a flightless bird hopping down a line of marble columns rising from the sea, as they topple behind me...
SAFETY GETS ME HOT: by Wayan; 1997/3/27, a dream on sensitivity.
I'm trapped in a post-apocalypse pulp story! Fun for my readers, but not for me! How to escape?
SALIA AND CHUR: by Wayan; 1989/2/25, a psychic Star Trek dream.
Our starship signs up a strange new woman whose quirks turn out to be fallout from slavery...
CAUTION: SEX, ABUSE ISSUES
SALLY: by Sy Montgomery, Jan. 2008?, an apparent dog-telepathy dream
I dreamt I was trying to save dying puppies; then a new dog appeared at our door, one
I was sure we had to find and adopt. We found Sally, and it turns out, when I dreamt
of doomed puppies, she was trapped in a freezing basement, trying to save hers...
CAUTION: PET ABUSE; APPARENT CROSS-SPECIES TELEPATHY
SATYR: by Wayan; 1999/4/1, a frustrating wish-fulfillment dream (yes, both).
I'm a faun, the oracle for a Greek village. But my predecessor set up rituals I want to change...
CAUTION: SEX, PAGANISM, SELF-SATYRE
SATYR AND TWILIGHT: by Wayan; 2018/9/1, an epic dream perhaps foreseeing the pandemic
A spell kills off nearly all humanity and mutates the rest of us. Now I'm a satyr living in a co-op home with
unicorns, dryads, cattaurs, and shy vampires. Thing is, I prefer the Apocalypse to what came before...
CAUTION: NUDE CREATURES
SAVONAROLA: by Mrs C., circa 1867; a dream mocking excess self-criticism
Mrs C. dreamed she was the ascetic preacher Savonarola, who wanted to burn all vanities.
In her audience she saw... Mrs C! So she, Savonarola, aimed her barbs at all of C's flaws...
SCALDED: by Wayan; 1993/7/3, a near-nightmare.
The feud between our magical families is getting ugly. Hawk-Head's dad throws boiling water on me, so I...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
SCISSORS AND FOX-FLIGHT: by Wayan; 1996/8/20, a marsupial flying dream.
Camping in strange mountains (Australia?), I can't sleep. So I nightwalk, and find I'm changing...
SEA MASSAGE: by Wayan; 1995/10/3, a puzzling dreamtale.
I can fly and breathe water. So I fly into art-rich mansions, though
not to steal--I earn plenty from undersea massage...
SELF-PORTRAIT AS A YOUNG COYOTE: by Wayan; 2000/1/23; portrait of recurring dream self.
I'm more a dream artist than a realist, but one day I set up a mirror and looked in it...
THE SERMON OF CARMEN DOG: by Wayan; 1990/9/10, the ultimate public-speaking nightmare.
Animal poets at an open mic. My turn! And I find... I'm one. A creature without grammar...
SHARK SENSE: by Wayan; 1988/12/9, a diagnostic circus dream.
I'm a circus tiger, then a performing shark. One day, I block my human partner's high dive... Why?
SHE TOOK MY BALL: by Matt, 1994 or earlier, as told by Gayle Delaney; a sex-advice dream
After moving in with Gemina, Matt suddenly had erectile dysfunction. He asked
his dreams why. He dreamt he was a kid being bullied by his big sister Cindy...
A SHELLFISH EPIPHANY: by Wayan; 1996/6/14, a spiritual dream.
Our family of Japanese pearldivers is cast away on an atoll. One day, lonely, scared, I cast away fear...
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
SHOVED OFF A CLIFF: by Wayan; 2017/9/7, a nightmare-warning (I'd asked what to do next).
Atop a sea-cliff, I meet a young couple in love. One look at me and they
push me off! When I see I can't save myself, I try to take them with me...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARE BARING UGLY TRUTHS
SHY FOX: by Wayan; 2 images, 1997. Digitally tinted pencil, spinoffs from a 1997/8/20 dream.
I love to play, but I'm a shy fox. And pushing myself to be socially brave has unforeseen drawbacks...
SILKY'S BRIDGE: by Wayan, with brief parallel dream by Liz; 1987/5/7, apparent shared dreams
WAYAN: I'm a cat climbing on sea-cliffs. Fear I'll fall. Run into Silky, an archer firing
a line across to an islet. Now the Deer People can build their gossamer bridge...
LIZ: I was hiking along a trail atop sea-cliffs. But I feared I'd fall...
SILKY'S MASSAGE: by Wayan; 1981/2/2, a dream on workaholism, with 2/16 follow-up
I tried to cartoon a joyful dream but nightmares kept intruding. Finally, aching, I half-slept...
My spirit guide Silky came, and said the obvious, and stretched my sore neck and back...
CAUTION: NUDE ANIMAL DANCE TROUPE
SISTERS OF THE INTERFACE: by Wayan; 1983/12/21, a shamanic dreamtale.
My sister's beautiful; I'm plain. When she's murdered, I ride into the Interface Desert, where worlds meet...
SKINK WEDDING: by Wayan; 2018/3/9, an out-of-lizard-body dream poem
I get assigned a life as a skink. Eat flies, mate, do my lizard pushups, but
behind my daily mind, my soul gets so bored it finally flies out...
SLUGS: by Patagia; 2010/11/24, a molluscan dream poem
My friend and I are banana slugs on the forest floor. We wander out into chaparral, and across a bike path...
SNAPDRAGON by Wayan; 2009/12/17, an illustrated dreampoem.
I'm a werewolf-girl in love with a gender-dysphoric weredragon in love with
a man who's very, very patient with all our crazy shiftiness...
CAUTION: NUDITY (SKIN, FUR and SCALE), SHIFTY PEOPLE (BI, WERE and QUEER)
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...
SMOKING REX: by Wayan; 1989/3/29, a dream of unlikely alliance.
A cigar-smoking tyrannosaur moves into our neighborhood,
upsetting us bluebirds and vampire bats. So we...
SNAKE APOLOGY: by Wayan; 1972/6/24 or 25, a dream on solving communication problems
I'm a snake being hunted by the FBI. I know English, but I can only hiss.
So I need to find an indirect way to show I'm peaceable...
A SNAKE PROMPT: by Rebecca Solnit; before 2005, a brief but effective warning to pay attention
As I recalled what I'd dreamed the night before, a snake, I looked down and saw my foot was poised to come down on...
SNOW STALLION: by Wayan; 1994/6/4, a tangled political/spiritual dream.
I'm a peace terrorist trapped in Squaw Valley, herded like a mare by a huge stallion made of snow...
And then the dream shifts. I blurt out the truth behind our idiotic waking world! And wake believing it...
CAUTION: MERMAID AND HORSE NUDITY
SOUL-SHARD: by Wayan; 2000/10/5, a rebellious dream
I'm a wolf in an ashram studying astral travel with my spirit-wife. Our souls blend a bit, enraging
our guru, a minor Hindu god, who sends demons to make us stop this spiritual "contamination"...
SPACE PIE: by Wayan; 1999/4/8, a sociological jungle-gym dream.
I'm a Latina crossing the border at a nightmare bridge,
while an Anglo rants at me about the Space Race...
THE SPARE: by Wayan; 1998/6/9, a disorienting dreamtale.
I wake to find I have two penises, one connected, one free-floating! How do its sensations reach my brain?
CAUTION: WANDERING WEENIES!
SPEWING WINE: by Wayan; 1992/8/17, a Freudian-slip dream baring family dysfunction
My family moves into a damp, leaking basement. My dad just sneers at us for fussing
about the cold, the damp, the mildew, the leaks. "I'll show you REAL leaking..."
THE SPHINX APPROVES: by Wayan; 1991/5/2, a dreamtale on growth.
A great war shrinks to wrestling, then hopping from page to page! Once they were worlds to me, but now...
A SPHINX IN CLAY: by Wayan; 2017/2/25, a dream urging me to face my heritage. Also sculpt!
I'm a half-sphinx--human dad, sphinx mom--stuck in human form so far.
Will I ever learn to shift? I practice--sculpt my elegant feline future self...
CAUTION: SPHINX NUDITY
A SPHINX'S SKETCHBOOK: by Wayan; dreamed 1994/7/2 & 7/19; a 23-page dream-comic
I find the sketch-journal of a beautiful winged sphinx who left her mythic isle
to explore a great city of crazy bipeds, called San Francisco...
CAUTION: SPHINX SEX, SPHINX ATTITUDE
SPIN, SPIN, FLY AGAIN: by Wayan; 2009/8/8, Shakespeare in drag inspires a flying-dream & poem
Night. I'm scared of the men in the park--till I see they're all gay. I dance,
and as darkness flares to dawn, remember how to fly--regain my falcon-wings...
SPIROGRAPHY: by Wayan; 1997/9/29, a one-page cartooned spiral autobiography
Laying my timeline in a Fibonacci spiral, it's clear great changes come in a pattern--
as soon as I've digested the last couple, a new revelation/revolution appears...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY, HEAVY ISSUES
SPLIT THREE WAYS: by Wayan; 2010/8/24, a quantum dream of overwhelm
On the freeway, my car and I split into quantum possibilities. I steer both entangled cars
till I split again--now I have to steer three cars with just one pair of hands and eyes...
SPORECOUNT: by Wayan; 1990/1/5, a dreamtale on patience through change.
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
SPOTTED FAWN DODGES ARROWS: by Amanda Strong; 1998, a dream on the power of names
Soon after I was given the name Spotted Fawn, I dreamed I was one,
fleeing faceless hunters under the full moon. There's history in this...
THE STAIR: by Mrs. Bickel; c.1991, a time-bent gender-bent dream of a ghost
I find myself in armor, sheltering from a hard rain in an English undercroft.
As I climb out, I meet a second knight on the stair. But he won't step aside...
STALLION, NOT MARE: by Wayan; 2018/2/12, a road-rage weirdo provokes an even weirder dream
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.
STOMPERS: by Wayan; 2013/8/24, a surreal dream of confidence
I dream I'm a runner named Silky; but straying outside the crowd can get you stomped by giant aliens...
STREAMLINING: by Wayan; 2004/11/10, a dream within a dream
I dream I'm an otter, and wake into a dream about sculpture--and learn my style's due to my species...
STRETCH NOW!: by Wayan; 1991/7/25 lost dream plus 1991/11/13 digital sketch
DREAM: I was a cheetah seeking a book of cheetah rolemodels, but this specist librarian harassed me...
PAINTING: months later, dream forgotten, I painted myself without knowing why as a cheetah stretching...
STRUCK BY THOUGHT: by Wayan; dreamed 1956-7, 71/11/26, 78/12/28, 82/10/5, & 83/9/12
A picture-poem experiment: one dream per stanza!
Five short dreams exploring the weight of culture on our animal selves...
STUCK SNAKE: by Wayan; 2011/9/8; a set of dreams that out-Freud Freud
Girls flash and strip and crawl into bed with me, but I'm blind to their interest--
till I become a snakeboy and discover the real limitations of phallic symbolism...
CAUTION: NUDITY, STUPIDITY
A SUDDEN SEX CHANGE: by Wayan; 1994/4/18, a wish-fulfilling dream.
I spontaneously change sex! At first I'm happy, but I find unexpected disadvantages...
SULE SKERRY: by Wayan; 1984/8/13, a non-nightmare.
My sister and I are on a ship abandoned by its crew, heading full-steam for the rocks, when...
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..
SUN AND MOON: by Katherine Mansfield; 1918/2/9, a dream-story
I dreamed a short story--even its title. Not that I read it. No, I lived it, through the eyes of a 5-year-old...
SUNLIGHT'S THE CURE: by Wayan; 1990/12/29, a surreal, sexy dream
I find the cure for an alien plague, then visit its homeworld, to find it has a curious variant...
CAUTION: SEX CUSTOMS OF THE NEWT PEOPLE! MY COUSIN'S GAY WEDDING!
SUPPORT TEAM: by Wayan; 2005/6/6, a dream-comic on what creative leaps need
I'm a married couple--the cook and laundress for an English observatory in 1948.
Why are we testifying to a Labor Party committee that we WANT to be servants? Well...
SUSPENSE ABOVE THE POOL: by Carl Linkhart, 1990 or before; dream poem/painting
The past. Summer. Sunset. I want to sneak in a final
swim--in someone else's forbidden backyard pool...
SWAN: by Wayan; 1995/4/8, a transformation dream; 3-page dreamcomic (or as ill. text)
I wake amnesic in a cabin in Alaska, in a dress printed with self-putdowns.
I track down the wizard who cursed me. He turns me into a swan! Worse?
No! His first curse was on a human being, and now I'm a bird. My mind is free!...
THE SWORD DANCE: by Wayan; 1988/4/29, a very unlikely predictive dream.
I visit my friend Xanthe's lungs, where I meet a swordswoman in a red bikini. I get a unicorn pendant,
go lucid, and become a heron too, but next day, it's the red-bikini-swordswoman I actually meet...
SYBIL SUE FLANNERY: by Wayan, 1986/10/29, a dream noir.
I'm Sybil Sue, a hard-boiled shapeshifting shamus, on the track
of the most wanted bankrobbers in LA: the Bad Girls...
CAUTION: IN BETWEEN GUNSHOTS, THE BAD GIRLS SWEAR
TALISMAN: by Wayan; 2016/3/3, a dream hinting I need some long-term dreamwork!
I'm a boy from a Southwestern tribe whose rite of passage is a bike race.
I wear a jasper pendant with mysterious powers...
TAROT: THE WINGED COYOTE (Freedom!): by Wayan; tarot card from a dream, 1979/3/14.
I dreamed I was the Spirit of Mexico: a winged coyote flying around Sonora howling at the moon...
TEACHER'S NAME: by Robert Brust; 1977; an apparent predictive dream
I DREAM I'm a kid again, in detention after school. The teacher eyeing me is familiar, but... what's her name?
I WAKE and go to art group. One member says "I visited my retired sister. She talked of you. She taught you!" It's...
TEMENOS: by Wayan; 1997/6/17, a psychic dream.
I'm at a Robert Bly camp for men only. But I'm no man--not even human--some faun or satyr-like species...
CAUTION: THIS 'TEMENOS' IS A SACRED PHALLIC IMAGE
THE TEMPLE COAT: by Gayle Delaney, fall 1972, a pastlife dream
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...
TEN TRIALS: by Wayan; 1976/10/2, a dream of love distracted.
While living with violent Kay, I dream I meet a cute, gentle moth-girl.
But we must undergo ten trials. Mustn't we? Mustn't we?
CAUTION: RELATIONSHIP TROUBLES, BOTH GAY AND STRAIGHT
THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME: by Wayan; 1989/10/4, an unbelievable dream with 15 illus.
My dog and I are abducted by aliens who turn us into cats. We escape & go feral to survive.
How we got back, and what happened along the way, even my own shrink refuses to believe...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUID AND KLEPTOMANIAC BUGS
THIEF OF DREAMS: by Wayan; 1996/11/29, a sexy soul-swap dream; a 22-page comic (or text w/pics)
I was a mermaid trying to find Count Coyote's stolen dreams, so I could marry my human girlfriend...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, LESBIAN MARRIAGE, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
THREE WOMEN IN ONE: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; 1984/2/5; a multiple-self dream
Intimidated by stylish friends, I split in three--myself, and a small child
nursing at the breast of an earth-mother priestess--or Earth herself...
THROUGH THE WIRES: by Wayan; 2007/9/16, two surreal contrasting dreams
I meet some alien wolves, and see the social scene as they do--pack, status issues. But then...
I cross a pasture & slip thru a barbwire fence, as I explain cows, wires & organic life to an energy-being...
TIE MARK UP: by Wayan, 2019/2/1, three dreams warning lifelong habits demand serious change
1: Crystal-skulled wizards, dino & lionfolk parade by. 2: I curl up with three skittish beasts. Patience!
3: My friend Mark tries to rape me. I tie him up, seek a restraining order. Will the cops believe me?
CAUTION: RAPE ATTEMPT
TIGER TALL: by Wayan; 1992/7/3, a marathon dream.
I'm a tiger from Planet Cat, visiting Earth to run in San Francisco's "Bay to Breakers" race.
I knew racial tensions were high, but why is William S. Burroughs out to kill me? Oh. Because...
TIL: by Patricia Garfield, c.1986, a mystical work-advice dream
I'm a spirit flying over the dead, blessing them. They're in mass graves, sorted & grouped
only by their life-stages--kids, adults, elders. Wait... is this how to structure my book?
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...
TIMEDOORS OF THE GODS: by Wayan; 1998/2/17, a mysterious initiatory dream.
I'm mortal, yet I'm offered a residency in the Commune of the Gods,
along with Xena the Amazon Warrior and... Little Red Riding Hood?
TIME PIRATES: by Wayan; 1979/6/6, a genderbent pirate dream about... healthcare?
I'm a modern girl facing pirates from the 17th Century Caribbean. Outgunned, but I
have something intimidating to bluff with: perfect teeth...
TO HELL: by Katie Hofgard; 2003/4/19?, a nightmare of loyalty
I loyally served a demon who punished me until at last he sent me to hell. And STILL I didn't rebel...
CAUTION: BLOODY ABUSE
TODDLER SHOT BY SPOUSE: by Gloria Reiser; 1948-49; recurring childhood nightmares
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
TORCH THE ROSE-ROT: by Wayan, 2024/7/24, surreal dream written as poem
I'm a rabbit girl living in New Orleans. Humid summer. My roses all died;
a rot that needs to be disinfected. So I light a torch and burn them back...
CAUTION: HARSH POLITICAL INTERPRETATION
TORNADOES AND TESTOSTERONE: by Dream Junkee; 2008/9/3, a lucid dream of transformation
I've always been scared of tornadoes, until I went lucid and became one...
CAUTION: HORNY TORNADO
TOWERS: by Wayan; 1998/11/15, digital. Based on flying dreams (but no specific dream)
Cities are fun when you're a bird--all those updrafts and perches and nests with great views...
THE TOWN THIEF FEELS CHEATED: by Wayan; 1993/7/27, a dreamtale.
Long ago he cut a deal with the cops. But town's grown, and one victim fights back. Our thief is outraged...
TRAILER PARK ELF: by Dolores J. Nurss; 2001/11/18; a troubling dream of incompatible realms
I dreamed I was a blond guy tracking down an elf who lived in a trailer park. She'd gone mad; elves trapped
in the human world mostly do. Awake, I sketched her, then saw she's a lot like my younger self! Disturbing...
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.
TRINITY: by Nashoba Hostina; 2002? A nightmare of losing best friends to romantic love
We were inseparable: the tiger, the fox, and the wolf.
Together our magic lit up the darkness around us, until...
TRUE LOVE = CHOICE! by Ms. Mira; Jan. 2008, a dream-lesson on compassion and free will.
I'm on an alien world inside the minds of two women and a child struggling with moral choices in a civil war...
CAUTION: DEATH, LOSS
TRUMPOCALYPSE UNDERLING: by Wayan, 2020/5/3, a reality-based nightmare
Donald Trump is Satan. I'm just a low-level devil, under his thumb.
I feel helpless to stop his businesslike plans for the Apocalypse...
CAUTION: POLITICAL RAGE; PREDICTS COVID'S LATER WAVES
TURNER'S RECURRING DREAMS: by Jack Turner, 1991-2, a set of genderbent grief dreams
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...
MY TUTELARY UNCLE: by Wayan; 1993/5/28, a shamanic dream.
I'm half Anglo, half Kwakiutl. My uncle the shaman died,
but he still wants to teach me his medicine...
12 SWALLOWS, 700 DAUGHTERS: by Wayan; 1972/10/14, a dream poem on compassion; Dreamverse #5
Alchemy demands I kill ten swallows. I refuse! Instead, twelve birds and I fuse and fly over a magic wood...
TWO RESCUES: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1836 & '60-66?, early genderbent dreams
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...
TWO PLANES: by Wayan, 1994/9/6, a multistaged psychic dream.
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...
U.F.O. PROJECTION by Carl Jung, 1958/10; an ego-humbling dream
UFOs hover near enough so I can see they're truly lenses--lenses projecting images.
I judged UFOs to be projections from our minds, but now I see I am their projection!
AN UNDERCOVER TROLL: by Wayan; 1994/7/6, a dream of personal growth taken too far...
Disguised as a literary troll, I spy on the Neo-Nazis, but my disguise
can't last much longer: I ate a magical herb, and I'm growing...
UNDO THE PARALYSIS: by Wayan; 1985/7/14, a dream on persistence.
In a future society, I'm deliberately, permanently paralyzed. Yet my home-grown cure slowly works...
UNGIRDLE THE TREE: by Wayan; dreamed 2018/10/6, a shamanic warning dream
I'm a girl living alone in a forest. I go patrolling after a storm and find a red cable
strangling a tree. Though scared, I climb up and tear it off. But there are more...
CAUTION: POLITICAL INTERPRETATION
UNICORN AND A.I.: by Wayan, 2023/1/12, twin dreamlets on how the other half lives
UNICORN EMISSARY: I meet a unicorn diplomat in Japantown. Beautiful, formidable...
THE A.I. WHO RUNS THE WORLD: I meet and then briefly become our world's
leader; before the strain of it wakes me, I learn she rules mostly by not meddling...
UNIVERSITY OF THE SIERRA: by Wayan; 1975/10/30, a pun-studded dream poem
Jealous of newlyweds, I grind my teeth. But the Ice Age ground the Sierra's granite teeth, and they're lovelier for it...

UNICORN TAG: by Wayan; 1986, a linked series of illustrated dreams.
Animal teachers, mostly equine, drag me (as I scream NO!) beyond plain dreamwork into shamanism...
Chapter 1: The Deer Party: by Wayan; 6 illus.
Chapter 2: Ariane's Honeymoon: by Wayan; 8K
Chapter 3: The Everest Marathon: by Wayan; 1 illus.
Chapter 4: Who'll Be My Love?: by Wayan; 100K, 4 illus.
Chapter 5: Dreamrider: by Wayan; 7K, a nondream interlude
Chapter 6: Half Shaman, Half Statesman: by Wayan; 170K, 4 illus.
Chapter 7: Eight To A Horn: by Wayan; 2 illus.
Chapter 8: Black Magic: by Wayan, 7 illus.
Chapter 9: Misfits On Mars: by Wayan; 300K, 7 illus.
VAMPIRE LOVE: by Sarah Binkley; 2013/9/6, a near-drowning sex dream
I volunteered to meet him underground. He held me underwater and slammed into me. I nearly drowned, yet...
CAUTION: ROUGH SEX
THE VAT MESSIAH: by Wayan; 1985/2/27, an epic dream of magic, flight, and sex
In our cult, we lie in vats of goo till we grow wings. But we're feared more than we knew...
CAUTION: SPECIST LYNCH MOB, NUDE IN SCHOOL, LESBIAN FEELINGS, OBSCENE CARROT
THE VERA DREAMS: by Vera and Wayan; 1991/7/25 & 8/3, a set of shared/psychic dreams.
I dream my friend Vera's ordered to just study & sleep--no play, no dates. Then I dream
Vera works with gangs as an armed peacekeeper. I tell her; Vera's shocked, since...
A VIAL CRIME: by Wayan; 1984/5/21, a cartoon dream protesting that I wasn't me today
I'm a flying fox in England. I see a poisoning and call for help. Ugly knockoffs of
Peanuts characters attack me! The real Peanuts gang defeats them; Snoopy drives
the victim to the hospital, saving her. It really is vital to be... authentic.
CAUTION: PUNS
THE VOICE OF GOD: by Wayan, 1993/1/31, a psychic nightmare-epic.
Half-mad with fear, I massacre a cult, till my gun manifests stigmata: a gory miracle.
Then I'm a cultist, resisting the Voice of God pushing all us mortals to murder in His name.
I woke up haunted, and wondered for weeks what this was about... until the Waco Massacre.
CAUTION: CREEPY VIOLENCE, CREEPY GOD, CREEPY PREDICTION
WAPATO BIRDS: by Wayan; 1986/2/2, a subtly psychic dream.
I'm a Wapato Bird: part crane, part elk, part tree-bud. Despite my
shyness, I must lead our people's migration to the Grand Teton lakes...
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!
WATERSHIP DOWNTRODDEN: by Wayan; 1983/6/22, a dream of another life.
I'm an intelligent rabbit in an alphamale's harem, organizing a feminist movement...
WAX WALL, PUMA COMA: by Wayan; 2022/8/8, 3 surreal genderbent time-bent dreams
I'm a demon girl out to sabotage a pirate radio station by climbing a tall
wall of glowing wax, carrying a comatose mountain lioness on my back!
WAYAN SAYS: by Wayan; dreamed 1986/5/23 & 1991/7/25, silkpainting 1992/5/9, digital 1994/2/25
I'm a lean loose cheetah who works best in short bursts
and long lazy rests. If I start acting human, I overwork...
THE WEB-BIRD LED ME: by Wayan; 1992/8/13; digital sketch previsioning the World Dream Bank?
Maybe the web like a shining dove will lead me from my lonely cave
into the light. The glaring light... Wait! That can't be right!
CAUTION: SEPIA HALFTONE NUDITY
THE WELL OF WOMEN'S WISDOM: by Wayan; 1991/3/25, a dream on gradualism.
I find the Well of Women's Wisdom. Lucky I'm female tonight! A girl sneers "Narrow!" Is it, or her?
WELLS'S QUEST: by Wayan; 1992/7/14, a benevolent dream.
I'm on a world inhabited by hobbits when H.G. Wells shows up, looking for a Ring of Power...
'WE'RE ALL HUMAN': by Wayan; 1987/3/13, a dream trial.
For flirting in the astral cafeteria, we all get sentenced to group therapy--
till I catch the lie in my life. What lie? Read the title...
WERECAT SYNDROME: by Wayan, 2017/4/23, dream advice on Asperger's. Or masculinity?
Werecat Syndrome runs in my family. Academics assume I'm a savage predator.
Why? All I want to do is rub up against girls and find one who purrs back...
WEREDOGS AREN'T RACIST: by Wayan; 1974/3/31, a surreal sarcastic dream
I'm a girljock waiting to see a movie when a weredog in line involuntarily shifts
from dog to human, and a Berkeley radical takes offense at the symbolism...
CAUTION: SNIPPY ABOUT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
WEREMAIDS: by Wayan; 2020/5/14, a species- and gender-bent dream.
I'm a weremaid, able to pass as human but growing a tail in water. I meet a cute but sad girl,
and deduce she may be like me--just in the closet. Worse! Turns out she thinks she's a freak...
CAUTION: DAMAGE FROM CLOSETING
WERE-TROUT: by Wayan; 1997/8/2, a dating-advisory dream.
I'm a one-legged hopping hermit in the ruins of LA, and my only hope
for love is to conjure up a girl out of a trout and a puppy...
WEREWOLF TRANSFERENCE: by Larry Vigon; fall 1997?; a nightmare reversed by courage
Chased by the old movie Wolfman, I get tired of fear and turn on the monster. I take on his wolfness!
But in me, wolf-nature manifests differently--as a human body with a calm, happy wolf's head...
WEREWOLF PARADOX: by Garvin Jabusch, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; an ironic nightmare
I must outrun the rising moon so I don't turn into a wolf and
kill my friends, but only a werewolf is swift enough to...
WERTZ!: by Wayan; 2023/10/14, a night of cartoonist-inspired dreams
After seeing Julia Wertz's cartoon history of her entire dreamlife (on one big page!) I dream
Wertz style all night! I don't mind the nightmares--what gets me down is comics' black & white...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARES, SEX
WHALE SPEAKS: by Brenda Ferrimani; dreamed 2014? An epic dream painting.
I dreamed I was a whale swimming against a Christian ebb tide,
trying to lead humans to a cleaner spiritual current...
CAUTION: HARD ON AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY
WHARTON TOWER: by Wayan; 1985/7/24, 3 surreal dreamlets on gender & class?
1940s reporters almost trap me in a mob shootout. I shelter in a gender-segregated hotel.
The owner of Wharton Tower shakes the hotel so it swings between its butch & femme halves.
I fall off the Hudson Palisades, but I land safely on the Glass Ceiling...
WHAT E.S.P. IS FOR: by Wayan; 2012/12/10, three dreamlets on my real nature and purpose
I dream ESP isn't just for oneself.
A romance between a wolf singer & a deer guitarist.
I'm furry too, and better accept it!
WHERE IS MY MOTHER?: by Kelly Simon; 1992?; an epic time-traveling dream of roots
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
WHICH ROAD? 1999/1/13. Digital sketch of a dream voting for slow.
I was on a path winding over grassy hills, while humans zoomed by on a freeway below...
WHITE-KNUCKLE FAIRNESS: by Wayan; 1999/3/23, a dream of not being me.
I'm a conscientious saurian who feels obliged to duel with a hot-tempered friend.
Preparing, wanting to fight fair, I don't just file my spurs blunt, I...
WHOSE DREAM WAS IT?: by Wayan; 2008/10/18, a nested-dream poem, Dreamverse #35.
I'm a Chinese kid fleeing the Japanese Occupation in 1938. As we near San Francisco,
I wake to find it's all my dad's dream. Wait--he's alive again? But he was never a refugee.
Is it a pastlife memory? If so, whose--his or mine?
WHY COWGIRLS LOVE BROCCOLI: by Wayan; 1987/8/19, a surreal dream of love.
I'm a cowgirl in Nevada circa 1900. In the canyon below Haunted Mansion,
I meet a broccoli-green lizard girl. Naturally I help a lady in distress...
CAUTION: QUEER-POSITIVE
WHY I BECAME THE SEA: by Wayan; 1980/6/19, a vengeful flying/transformation dream.
I get so mad at some gaybashing cops and gangsters
that I become the sea itself and chase them...
CAUTION: UNCHARITABLE REPRESENTATION OF OUR SAINTS IN BLUE
WINGS by Nancy Price; 1948, two bird-people dreams, one psychic
I have a long chat with two songbirds. Next I'm a parrot, living in rainforest. Then the mail comes...
WITCHMARE SEDUCES TWILIGHT: by Wayan; 2021/3/12 & 13, a dream with a confirming follow-up
DREAM: Witchmare the sorceress patiently wins over Twilight, a unicorn who thought she was straight.
NEXT NIGHT: at a queer picnic, I find I know my orientation--witches! But I'm less sure what sex I am...
CAUTION: LESBIANS, UNICORNS, FANART, COMPLEXITY
WITWEET WAYAN: by Wayan, 1979/1/10, a dream of butch and femme.
Six generations in the future, I find a poodle who can defuse the bomb my snotty friends can't...
CAUTION: MAD SCIENTIST, EXHIBITIONIST GIRLFRIEND, POODLE MOCKERY
THE WIZARD'S HORSE: by Wayan; 2018/9/3, a magical dream about... toxic waste?
I'm a wizard's horse, trying to warn him about a toxic spell on a roadside corpse...
Wake into a second dream, but try to return to being a dream-mare and warn my rider...
And then wake to realize my Nightmare was warning about a home-renovation project!
WOLF DROOL: by Wayan; 2011/12/16, a seeming sex dream that's really health advice!
Miniaturized, smuggled over a border inside a she-wolf's mouth, I long
for where I got briefly hidden--her labia. But healing first, sex later!
CAUTION: FURRY SMUT; WEIRD SCIENCE (BUT REAL!)
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
WORKIN' FOR PEANUTS: by Wayan; 1990/12/11, a crude but perceptive dream.
I'm an elephant working in a diner. In the bathroom, I inadvertently summon the Genie of the Urinal...
CAUTION: PISSED PACHYDERM
XANTHE'S TUNNEL: by Xanthe & Wayan; 1999/6/11, two possibly telepathic dreams
I'm a dyke playing baseball in Golden Gate Park. Some guys harass us and run into a tunnel. I follow, but...
XANTHUS: by a client of Artemidorus, c.150 CE, a prodromal dreamlet
A man dreamed he was the River Xanthus at Troy. I interpreted it to mean he'd bleed for years, but not die of it...
YELLOWBALL ABSTRACTION: by Wayan; 2001, ink sketch at first unrecognized as a dream!
Another lie from those fiendish abstractionists. Turns out it's not a yellow ball at all...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE
YOGI by Carl Jung, (April?) 1944; an ego-humbling dream
Hiking, I come to a chapel where a yogi is meditating--on me. Creating me! And when he stops...
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...
YUM YUM!: by Wayan; 1985/1/31, a smelly dream.
DAY: a toxic potluck. Not the first! But this time I say no...
DREAM: I'm a scent-oriented alien, tossing stinkbombs back...


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