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CHTHONIC DREAMS

Chthonic means underground. Dreams of caves, mines, buried labyrinths, and mythic underworlds.... dreams of stone and earth. Ever since Jung, such dreams have been generally interpreted as exploration of the dreamer's own unconscious. It's worth noting, though, that Jung's own classic dream of finding deeper and older floors of his house going back to cave times, the dream that gave him the idea that the mind might be organized much like the brain itself, with recently evolved structures overlying deeper, more primitive ones... that dream has an alternate interpretation. Some years after his dream, during renovation, Jung's house turned out to have ancient ruins underneath it; the dream may have been literal and predictive. So at least consider the possibility, if you dream of some buried treasure (or problem), that it might just be real. You dig?

RELATED TOPICS: Jungian dreams - The other three classic elemental symbols: air - water - fire - for the opposite, try flying dreams, or space - 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.

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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
CANARY COAL, MOLE-OWNED SINCE 1873: by Wayan; 1984, ink/digital, a nondream summary of my life.
No more token canaries--the all-canary workforce, that's us. Let's see if these products are toxic...
CAUTION: ANTI-CAPITALIST
CLIMB FROM THE PIT: by Wayan, 1996/11/9, a dream parable.
I'm in the Mideast. No wonder it's a war zone--it's a vast pit BUILT for war! But a spiral stair leads slowly out, to...
A CONVERSATION WITH ANOREXIA: by Wayan; 1994/6/25; two wild shamanic dreams.
That day I read Hilde Bruch's "Conversations with Anorexics" and face the fact I am one.
That night, in the land where anorexic horses heal, I enter the Kiva of Shamanic Pamphlets, and...
COYOTE PAJAMAS: by Wayan; 1983/12/17, a Dantesque dream-epic.
I'm Coyote, keeping the Business Prophet from taking over Dante's Peak. But it turns too personal...
CAUTION: IDIOTIC VIOLENCE
DAWN'S DREAM: by Dawn Z and Wayan; 2.3MB (MP3 + lyrics), 1999/4/1, a rock song telling a dream
My friend Dawn dreamed she crawled into a dumpster to live, and at last felt at home, secure...
DEER-MAN DANCING: by "Cmmndrblu"; early 2006, a shamanic dream triggers a dream-within-a-dream at least six layers deep!
First I met a deer-man in the woods. Next week I go lucid, then wake up... only to find I'm still dreaming. And wake again. And wake, and wake...
DEYUPPIFIER: by Wayan; 1985/11/6 a gleeful dream fable.
I built a sex-maze to reprogram businesspeople, but I only grasp its meaning when I fuck City Hall...
CAUTION: SEX, LANGUAGE, POLITICS
DRIVER'S TEST: by Wayan; 1984/1/8, an illustrated Kafkan dreamtale.
It's not easy to get a California driver's license, ever since the Dept. of Motor Vehicles went Jungian...
THE EGG PROBLEM: by Wayan; 1990/3/2, digital painting of a magical dream.
I was a intellectual ballerina trying to stop zombie monsters from hatching out of the Earth...
THE EVEREST MARATHON: by Wayan; 1986/4/12, a wild dream epic, part 3 of Unicorn Tag.
During the great race up Everest, I become an e-snake, cross three eco-bubbles, beg a wary deer-taur to splice my spine for me, help Ariane (a childhood crush on the run from sentient tanks), and solve at last the Dream Equations... I learn climbing Everest doesn't take strength, but... trust?
GRIEF KIVA: by Wayan; 1980/2/16, a lucid psychic dream.
In a Hopi underworld, I find even lucid dreaming can't cure guilt and grief over losses yet to come...
GYRLFALCON: by Wayan; 1971/11/26, an early dream of love and battle.
I'm a Gyrlfalcon in a theater, fighting the Wolverine and his Morlocks with my lover the Green Lion...
HELPLESSLY LUCID: by Alder; 2007/6/23, a lucid dream in which I’m powerless!
I’m a homeless elf. We’re a persecuted minority group. I know I’m dreaming and try to change it but...
HER GESTURED ROUTE: by Wayan; 1984/6/16, a dream poem.
How's it feel to be an anima off the job? Is it lonely, when no one even believes you're a real person?
HIS MINE: by Wayan; 1985/12/2, a wild dream epic.
I'm a hobbit seeking Henry Fonda's haunted gold mine, who ends up in a showdown in a shaman's bar...

I AM THREE: by Wayan; 1957-60, my three earliest dreams.
My first memory is of being a wild horse and waking up to find I was suddenly a human child...
I GOT OUT: by Wayan; 1992/1/4, a psychic dream; 9-page comic, 500K (or open page by page: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9)
I flee our love triangle when Abe turns mean. He's telepathic, but I have a plan: the goldfish, the snakepit, the underworld...
CAUTION: THREESOME, SCARY BOYFRIEND, SNAKE HEADACHES, MOTORCYCLE FATALITY
THE ILL-FORMED TALE: by Wayan; 160K, 1981/4/7, a wild dream anti-epic .
To reach the Peak of Happiness on the Isle of Dreams, I must pass four Perils--but they're all backwards...
CAUTION: RELIGIOUS NUTS, KNIVES, NUDE ALIENS, BACKWARD PLOT...
IN THE ENEMY MINE: by Wayan; 1986/1/11, a psychic dream.
On Mars, a child-sacrificing cult of miners wants to kill me, but something strange happens....
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...
JAMIE THE SORCERESS: by Wayan; 1984/11/14, a characterological dream.
I get back from vacation to find the landlady's installed her daughter in our shared house...
THE LIMIT OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE: by Wayan; 1974/3/13, a dream of madness.
Deep in the caves, a Voice announces I've gone as far as the human mind can stand. But ahead, I see...
LIZARD HUSBAND: by Xanthe, 1990/8/30; a nightmare marriage.
I visit the underworld court of the Lizard King, but I can’t leave: he makes me Queen...
CAUTION: MARITAL RAPE (NON-GRAPHIC)
LURK: by Wayan; digital collage of a year's dreaming, 1995.
There's power in dark memories--creatures of the deep strata. But the flowers of now are just as real...
THE MAN-EATER: by Carl Jung, 1879; a precocious formative nightmare.
Jung (at age three and a half) sees a terrifying god deep underground, and is told “That is the man-eater!”...
IN THE MERMAID'S DRESSING ROOM: by Wayan; 100K, 1993/12/18; an evolutionary dream.
At Sea-Dragon State Park, I climbed down to the sea serpent's dressing room after the show, and found...
CAUTION: MERMAID BREASTS
MINE BACK DOOR: by Wayan; 1979/9/7, a dream on mining the unconscious.
Deep in a secret mine, I see stars. A door opening to the night sky! But this shortcut's guarded...
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...
NEST, EGGS AND LEGS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; l993/9/7, painting of a comic/transcendent dream
Two friends send energy through me, transforming me. Now that my legs are detachable, I can sit comfortably on my eggs...
THE PARABLE OF THE CAVE: by Wayan; 1993/9/18, an antisocial dream.
Plato never did say what shed the light that cast those shadows on his cave wall. I find out.
CAUTION: CUT-RATE APOCALYPSE
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 flow-state magic is harder to define...
CAUTION: SEX FANTASY GRANTED
PRINCESS OF PASSION: by Wayan; 1993/7/10, a chthonic dream.
Led by a rebel demon into the heart of a Chinese mountain, should I wake the Sleepers in the Cave?
QUAIL TV: by Wayan; 1980s, ink, shamanic cave drawing.
Quail, spelunking again, finds ancient cave paintings of the Cult of the Fossil TV...
RAZI AND THE HOLY WINO OF SHASTA: by Wayan; 270K, 16 illus., 1994/9/1, a redemptive dream
20,000 years from now, a deer-harpist named Razi finds the Holy Wino's not quite the ruin he seems...
CAUTION: BAD PENGUINS, DEER NUDITY, RUDE DRUNK
RED OCHRE, CLEAR LIGHT: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2003/5/1?; a painting that blends two red-rock dreams
Mt Everest is snowfree and red; and next I get to color sandstone caves red with ochre. That red feels full of energy...
THE SKULLS AND CORN: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1989/1/10, painting of an initiatory dream.
I'm shown corn plants growing from skulls, and it seems like I must plant some skull-corn myself...
SPOCK'S SPIRITS: by Wayan; 2000/3/12, a skewed Trek dream.
Lost in a dark maze of machine-shops, I follow Mr. Spock, who's drunk, and talks to tree-spirits...
CAUTION: ALCOHOL AS INSPIRATION?
TAROT: MINE CHILD: by Wayan; 31K. Tarot card, 3x5", 1978-1981.
Deep down in the strata inside you, gems lie waiting in the dark. Waiting for this child to dig them free...
THE TIGER'S THROAT: by Wayan; 1994/4/12, a psychic dreamtale.
I'm walking down a tiger's throat, but it's not what you think. Diagnosis! My friend suddenly couldn't roar...
TIME IS A CROC: by Wayan; 80K total, 1993/3/29, a dream on time.
Golfing in the basement! But the ball lands in another world, where the water hazards are hazards...
A TOUR OF YOUR BRAIN: by Wayan, 3.4MB (MP3 + lyrics), May 2004, a rock-jig.
A bouncy, lobe-by-lobe musical tour of your brain with Buddha as your tourguide...
UNCERTAIN ONEIROMANCY: by Denise Levertov; 1993? a dream poem
I led a blind man through a vast art museum underground. But focused on guiding him, I too was blind to the beauty...
A VALLEY NEAR HOPE: by Wayan; 155K, illustrated, 1984/10/17-19, an epic dream.
I'm lost in a valley where unicorns love cyborgs but fear giant ants, who adore unicorns but hate cyborgs, who think ants are cute, but dread unicorns! And while the Three Tribes love and hate, cave-monsters sculpt them all. I set up peace talks between these four vertices of my tetrahedral soul, but what if I get what I want? Peace, love... transformation? What if those aren't cute and New Age?
CAUTION: SWEARING, DRUNK LIONS, CYBORG SURGERY, AND GOGGLE-BARFING
WARM FUZZIES: by Wayan; 1990/2/20, an origin-myth dream.
I take a shortcut with the Warm Fuzzies through the center of the earth, and now I understand volcanoes...
THE WEB-BIRD LED ME: by Wayan; 115K, 1994. Digital sketch of a vision... of this dreamsite?.
Maybe the web like a shining dove will lead me out of my lonely cave into the light. The glaring light. Wait!
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
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 a girl from a...
WHILE THE MEN WERE HUNTING by Wayan, 1981; a crayon-ink-Xerox art-prayer.
In cave times, while the men were out hunting, it was the women who learned to paint the cave walls to summon...
WOLF AND BURROWING OWL: by Wayan; 1999/12/5, a scientific fairytale dream.
A burrowing owl invites her friend the wolf over for tea. It sounds very Beatrix Potter, but...
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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