THE WORLD DREAM BANK: TOPIC: ALTERED PHOTOS and PHOTOCOLLAGE

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Altered Photos and Collage

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A list of dreams illustrated by photos, altered photos and collage. I was surprised how short this is. Drawings, paintings, sculpture, even pure digital art from scratch--lots of those. But photos of real things or people, altered or not... no. Weird! Photoshop was built to tweak photos, after all. But 98% of the images in the World Dream Bank aren't even photo-based (unless you count photos of sculptures); even fewer look like photos.

It's true that dreams are hard to shoot. I mean, when you wake, the pictures don't turn out. Usually.

Even staging a dream with friends and photographing them, or assembling dream images from magazine clippings... it's not easy. Photos are so specific, so here... so emphatically not your dream!

Even the Surrealists, despite their reputation, mostly made collages and paintings that merely suggest a dreamlike state, especially the incoherent sleep stage researchers call hypnogogia. But they rarely portrayed real, specific dreams.

I regret that most of the photos altered or collaged here lack credits, though I've managed to trace and credit a few. I apologize if anyone's image or photographic work appears here without permission. Please remember these images illustrate dreams, so they aren't intended to portray you, even if they resemble you...

I find it surprising that I prefer the most altered, least photographic images. How about you?

RELATED TOPICS: dreams of photography - Other media: paintings - crayon - pencil and charcoal - pure digital art - ink - felt pen and colored inks - sculpture - watercolor and silk-dyeing - another form of collage: posters and picture-poems - sequential art: dream comics - 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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	ARCTIC CHANGELING: by Wayan; 1981/6/30, a dream of roots. I'm a shy woman in a truckstop town who learns why I don't fit in. But will I, among my real kin?...
	AT THE BISEXUAL BALL: by Wayan; 1997/6/21, a dreamtale. How I found out what I really wanted at the bisexual ball. Really, I'm not disappointed... CAUTION: OH COME ON, READ THE TITLE
	THE B SIDE OF THE PENIS: by Wayan; 1996/8/26, a sex dream about reprogramming . I erase my sexual tape, and start from scratch. Uh-oh, blank! Am I male, female, gay, straight? And... what SPECIES? CAUTION: MESSY SEXUAL BOOBOOS
	BACKACHE DIALOGUES: by Wayan; 1993/12/10, a set of bizarre diagnostic dreamlets. I asked my dreams why my back hurt. They told me: pregnancy, marsupial pouches, snapping turtles...
	BAKE HER PHOTO: by Wayan; 1993/10/24, a short, psychic dream. I dream I've carried a photo with me 17 years, but now... I BAKE it. The next day, I meet...
	CENTAUR BEACH: by Wayan; 1990. Two images from a set of recurring dreams. Me and my sisters at the beach. Strangers rarely think we're related, and you can see why...
	CUPOLA: by Wayan; 1994/7/28, a dream of an alternate life. I live in a cupola atop a Victorian house in the Haight-Ashbury, but that's not the City out my windows...
	CURSING ISABELLA: by Wayan; 1992/8/19, a thoughtful dream of sorcery. How I cursed Isabella the sofa sorceress, cursed her with a blueberry. And why that stinks... CAUTION: UNDER THE MAGIC, IDEAS
	DRAGON BANNERS: by Wayan; 125K, 1987/3/19, a dream on the hollow inside. A dragon's daughter seeking her inheritance defies a sneaky dragon-realtor out to own the world...
	FAIRY WIFE: by Wayan; 1985/1/17, an epic dream of love and choice. A fairy woman and a mortal man? Can't work! They're flighty, we're crude. Doomed, right? Well, some people are so sure of it they decide to help things along a bit. Or a lot...
	FAMILIAR WOOD: by Wayan; 1994/11/10, a dream of the borderzone. Downtown San Francisco hides a magic wood, full of talking tigers. I must enter it to live a while...
	FANFOX: by Wayan; 2001, self-portrait as a fox woman. This foxgirl had my own uneasy mixture of exhibitionism and wariness. Baring sex, but not my face... CAUTION: NUDITY
	FLUID DREAM CONNECTIONS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2003/11/8 and 2007/3/14; linked dreams of pods A pod of whales in the sky and a circle of children dressed like seed-pods both beg me to interpret them...
	FLYING UNICORNS' GIFTS: by Lily Michaud; 2007/9/5, an advice-dream inside a flying dream Flying unicorns hang out with me and my friends, sending us dreams full of useful advice--and more concrete gifts...
	FOUR-LEGGED MONK: by Centaurquad; June 1983; a sexy transformation dream My boyfriend's a student in an exotic monastery. But under his robe, he's gotten a bit exotic himself... CAUTION: SEXUAL DREAM
	FUTILITY: by Wayan; 1973/11/23, a time-machine dream. I'm Liza Doolittle on Mars. With Mr. Wells's Time Machine. Lost, in fact. Can I get home? Should I?
	GALILEO FALLS: by Wayan; 1979/11/7, a mysterious dream . I was a closet unicorn. SO closet, I didn't even know what a unicorn was, till I went to college and met...
	GHOST GATOR: by Wayan; 1984/10/9, a lip-reading dream. A child from another universe materializes--part way. Too bad we called in that expert from Stanford...
	GIRL WITH A PROBLEM: by Wayan; 1997/4/12, a surreal dream. I date a girl with a mysterious syndrome, but soon I become a monkeyfaced con-man. And SHE becomes...
	HALF-ELF: by Wayan; 1996/2/14, a predictive dream fable. A biracial girl doubts her own heritage; a human friend has to confirm the obvious. So what am I blind to?
	A HOBBIT IN L.A.: by Wayan; 1990/1/8, a dream on wishes. I'm a hobbit woman in Los Angeles, hiding a magic weapon from Sauron. No, not THAT weapon...
	THE ICE CREAM KISS: by Wayan; 1993/11/27, an uncomfortable dream. I'm Joe Leaphorn, in (of all places for a Navaho detective) a coven in San Francisco watching a creamy...
	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 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...
	THE ISLAND FURIES: by Wayan; summer 1975, a dream of self-control. When warring Greek isles kill a peacemaker, her three best friends start a vendetta! But she wanted peace... CAUTION: HATE NURSED TOO LONG
	LESBOY: by Wayan; 1996/5/20, a dream on one's identity and place. My Aunt Squid advises me to join a lesbian artists' co-op. But I'm a man! Not for long, though... CAUTION: NUDE SUNBATHING, GENDER BEWILDERMENT
	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
	THE MATING GAME: by Wayan; 1992/3/18, a dream of spillover. A TV crew invades the house, setting up for a special. I didn't expect to see a president on the work crew...
	MUSTARD VAMPIRE : by Wayan; 1984/3/1, a warning dream. I love a cute vampire. She's willing to go on a diet. Even so, do I have enough blood to spare?
	NORASINGH: by Wayan; 1987/1/15, a Tantric Frankenstein dream. I fall in love with my sculpture of a mythical Southeast Asian creature. Then a mad yogi breaks in... CAUTION: SEX, TANTRA, AND GENERAL WEIRDNESS
	ONCE A HERO: by Wayan; 185K total, 9 images, 1998/10/22, a raw dream-series. Sexy dreams of Chinese archeology, authorized by the fairies, make me face that my family abused me...
	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
	PUFF TIDE: by Wayan; 150K, 1993/5/1, a nightmare on indulging rage and tears; 8 illus. I'm swept off sea-rocks, as my scaly guardian watches calmly--letting me drown in the tears I shed... CAUTION: DROWNING
	RAVENNA: by Wayan; 83K total, 4 images, 1994/12/25, a psychic Jungian dream. In a church-tent, I find glowing pictures of mine I've never seen awake. One's half-done; I work on it. I wake, and read how Jung, in a Ravenna church, saw luminous images he later learned burned centuries ago! CAUTION: NUDE STAINED GLASS
	THE SAN DIEGO CENTAURS: by Wayan; 1985/1/9, a slice-of-life dream. In San Diego, I fly around disrupting the UFO games in the junkyard, till I reconnect with a centaur friend
	SATANIC LION'S WARNING: by Eldon B.; 2007/1/19, a nightmare with poltergeist activity I fled a demon into a shadowy construction zone where an even worse telepathic lion-devil lured me in with soothing flattery. I woke shaking--and then things in my room began to move... CAUTION: DEMONS, POLTERGEIST PHENOMENA
	SOCK PUPPETS OF THE GODS: by Dee and Wayan; 100K, 1994/4/14. Parallel shamanic dreams!. A dance classmate asks a bizarre question that haunts me. That night I dream I'm suicidal--nearly kill myself. Then I'm shown the flow of human development--the same pattern, from souls to civilizations! Eddies and knots recur, but each time, the challenges get more spiritual. I wake up stunned. Then I learn what a shaman I know just dreamed... and now I'm unsure whose dream this is.. CAUTION: IDEAS
	THE SOLE FISHER OF THE EIGHTH NODE: by Wayan; 1986/9/25, a prescriptive dream. The pier jutting into the sea of dreams has an 8th chakra at the end, where a lonely woman fishes for sole...
	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...
	TWISTED!: by Wayan; 510K, 2003/6/23, 18 images; a nondream experiment I twirled pinups into surreal not-quite-abstracts, to see just how twisted sex could get... CAUTION: NAKED PRETZELS
	THE VIDEOGRAPHER'S APPRENTICE: by Wayan; 165K, 1994/7/29, a predictive/warning dream. Blondie Wiggle builds a Video Igloo. But I'm allergic--TV kills me! A BAD omen for our video project... CAUTION: TV KILLS (BUT YOU KNEW THAT)
	WASTE: by Wayan; 100K, 1990/5/15, a desert singles poem, 11 images. A road trip through New Mexico mutates into a tour of my relationship disasters...
	"WHAT SHARKS?": by Wayan; 1990/4/22, a dream of multiple viewpoints. A cowgirl is driving us in circles round the dusty parking lot, fleeing the air-sharks... or is she?
	WHO ATE MY LETTUCE?: by Wayan; 1983/1/13, a short dreamfable. An invisible monster is eating my lettuce patch. It casts a huge blurry shadow, leaves footprints, but...
	WHO SHATTERS?: by Wayan; 1995/6/18, a cryptic culinary dream. When bent, some dried noodles shatter. The strands have auras like mine! Parts of me? Or are they...