skip down to the dreams!
Dreams about addiction and fighting addiction; also 12-step programs and their peculiar culture.

Dreams can warn you're addicted to non-drugs. Dreams on this list warn of addictions to train noises, magic, sleazy guys, and fairness. Some warnings are literal, while some (like train noises) stand for addictions harder to name. I suspect dreams sometimes make the "drug" unfamiliar to remove it from the picture and focus on your addictive behavior or attitude itself, without the distraction of an external villain. You can't blame alcohol or tobacco if your dream turns it to fairness or prunes--you have to face the absurdity of your naked behavior, stripped of its trigger--its excuse.

Can you be addicted to dreaming itself? To dreamwork? I think so. But it's hard to be, at least by my definition of an addict--someone whose life is being swallowed by the addiction. Just spending time on your dreams doesn't make you an addict--for dreams push you to change, and change takes time and energy, particularly when you're stuck or scared. Even if you're paralyzed for a while, wrestling with the devils and angels of your psyche, that isn't addiction--metamorphosis sometimes requires a cocoon.

You're a true dream addict, your dreamwork has gone wrong, only when you spend all your time on dreams, but don't act on the advice they give you. Of course, dreamers are not the only ones to turn good advice into holy texts they worship but don't really enact! We all know religious people like that. Don't become a cult of one.

Heh. I should talk, right? With this huge, mad site...

RELATED TOPICS: drugs including alcohol - eating disorders especially anorexia - truth and lies - slavery and freedom - diagnostic dreams - healing from abuse - stars to navigate by: goals, purposes, values - over-all life-paths - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

The World Dream Bank has 1500 dreams and dream images plus 500 other pages on dreamwork and shamanism, creativity, genius, art, surrealism and fantasy. Unless otherwise noted, all material copyright Chris Wayan, 2001-2006.

What this site is - How to read these entries - Ratings: profanity, sex, etc - Add your dreams! - Copyright - Downloading -

	THE ADDICTION: by Wayan; 1988/1/26, a thoughtful nightmare I'm addicted to faraway trains. I quit cold turkey, but I shake the house down! Junkie poltergeists... CAUTION: DRUG ADDICTION. SORT OF.
	ARSON MUSIC: by Wayan; 2000/10/4, a parallel-world dreamlet Driving through California farm hills with subtly different natural laws, I find social consequences. Can physics create evil?
	CHUNKS, or, BABEZILLA!: by Wayan; two dreams 1990/10/4 and 1991/9/4 told as digital comics. I meet a giant psychic baby feared by 12-step people. So I go to the beach and find I'm a shark-bit girl who can have her missing chunks sewn back in--if I still have room for them...
	COMYN RESTRAINT: by Wayan; 1983/3/25, a dream on abandon. I'm from a race of self-policing psychics, starting to wonder if we've created our own Inquisition...
	CRYSTAL AND GUNSEL: by Wayan; 1997/7/2, a nightmare--psychic or not? Gunsel kills my friend Crystal in a flaming aircar crash. But that's not enough--he comes back, and... CAUTION: VIOLENCE
	DICTY: by Wayan; 1990/5/?, a rantish poem on high-tech distraction A catalog of American addictions and the absurd distinctions we make between them.... CAUTION: EMBARRASSING DRUG LIST
	FAMILIARS: by Wayan; 1986/4/2, a dreamtale on the dark side of reading. In ancient Britain, as Christianity moves in, I'm a slave--sailing through centuries, but never free...
	HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHT: by Wayan; 1994/4/3, a dark dream. As my grandmother is dying, I have a dream about what really went on in her house... CAUTION: CHILD SLAVERY
	SPEWING WINE: by Wayan; 1992/8/17, a disgusting dreamtale. My family moves into a damp basement. My dad just sneers at the leaks. "I'll show you REAL leaking..."
	THE STAIRWELL TEST: by Wayan; 1980/9/7, a pedophilic defenestration dream. An underage girl comes on to me, and then asks me to... throw her down a stairwell?! CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!
	STEP THIRTEEN: by Wayan; 1997/7/8, a rebellious dreamtale. Two realities pester me like big spoiled babies to care for their mythic figures, till I go on shamanic strike...
	THE 1200-STEP PROGRAM: by Wayan; 1987/12/17, an illustrated dreamtale. I'm climbing a tower, as my dad, Apollo, drunk, throws bottles at me from the top, breaking bones... CAUTION: DENIAL ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
	UNCONTROLLED TIME TRAVEL: by Jo; 2007/7/13, a time-slipping dream. I’m a drug-addicted amateur dramatist. A fat balding businessman and I bring humanity back from extinction, but... CAUTION: TORTURE (brief), ADVOCACY OF WAR, HUMAN EXTINCTION (offstage)
	WHITE-KNUCKLE FAIRNESS: by Wayan; 1999/3/23, a dream of not being me. I'm a saurian forced to duel with a volatile friend. Wanting to fight fair, I don't just file down my spurs...
	ZERO SUM: by Wayan; 1996/5/29, a game-theory dream. I'm lecturing to a crowd: "Love's a win-win game, and abuse, lose-lose. But blame is zero-sum..."

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites