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Manta-Squid

Dreamed 1986/3/13 by Wayan

I'm reading William Domhoff's The Mystique Of Dreams. He says Senoi work is a fraud. I've tried this practice--it pushes you to confront dream figures, threats and fears, never backing down, and going for any desire you recognize, no matter how taboo. Domhoff found the practice was made up around 1930 by a white guy who claimed it was the ancient shamanic tradition of the Senoi people in Malaysia. It wasn't, and they're mad about it. Don't want credit for promoting theft, incest, rape and murder--in dreams or out.

I ask my dreams to comment on Domhoff's exposé. Senoi work's origin was a hoax, but parentage isn't practice--does that make the technique invalid?

My dreams answer.

Malaysian train. I'm a scholar of dreams
lured up on the roof in engine-smoke,
by a wonder to put us all on the map:
a manta-squid from the dreamest deeps.
Only seen lesser specimens, dead.


But this giant new exemplar, it seems,
was shoddily caught, for it just woke
and burst from its prison-jar, to wrap
lustful tentacles round me, and leaps
into lagoon. I hold my breath,


pry with the moments I have left,
fight rape, while colleagues shriek
and curse the control-board--try to zap
beast-brain, turn passions off & on...
but monsters have a life of their own.

A manta-squid drags me underwater. Dream sketch by Wayan. Click to enlarge.
NOTES IN THE MORNING

LISTS AND LINKS: book-inspired dreams - shamanic traditions - dreamwork - truth & lies - dreams about dreams - I'm Just Not Myself Today - gender-bent dreams - trains - mantas, squid & monsters - vats & jars - cages & escapes - underwater - rape, violence & self-defense - nightmares - incubated dreams - dream poems & pencil dream art - Malaysia - same dreamer, 2nd manta-nightmare: Manta Moths

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