THE WORLD DREAM BANK: TOPIC: FRACTALITY

The World Dream Bank:
Fractals and Compound Images

Fractal images (whose parts resemble the whole) and other compound images (pictures painted with brushes made of (other, smaller) images, words, or geometric shapes) intrigue me the way symmetry fascinated early European and Indian artists, or deliberate asymmetry fascinated Japanese artists...

I think I like fractals because dreams themselves seem fractal to me. Individual dreams often contain microcosmic echoes and predictions of the overall architecture of a life's dreaming. Jung pioneered this aspect of dreams by looking at really large samples of a person's dreaming over time--years, preferably--and it's one reason for his focus on mandalas, with their intricate repetitious detail and echoing motifs.

These are mostly more casual, unsymbolic experiments, creating images using smaller images or motifs as brushes or construction elements. Hardly original--M.C. Escher, for one, went far beyond me, and he explored the concept before the word fractal was even coined.

A few of these are art experiments by the dreaming mind--like THE AIR BURUNDI PAINTINGS, a dream showing me artworks utterly unlike mine and ordering me to paint them inside a painting of the dream--two clashing styles in one painting--while THE BUSINESSMAN IN ANGUISH was a dream of an artpiece whose brushstrokes were words--ideas! And when I woke and tried it, to my surprise, it worked.

RELATED TOPICS: art experiments - 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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	THE AIR BURUNDI PAINTINGS: by Wayan; 210K, 7 illus., 2007/1/20, a dream of art and courage Weird paintings cover a hill town in Africa, demanding I paint them when I wake. Paintings on courage, flight... and defying tradition.
	THE BUSINESSMAN IN ANGUISH: by Wayan; 1991/7/2. Digital dream painting. I dreamed this was in our civic museum: a painting of the central dynamo of our world finally erupting...
	EDGE: by Wayan; 1992?, digital painting of a nondream vision. A robed figure crowds a wild horse to a cliff-edge. One's my body, one's my soul. But which?...
	EGGHOPE: by Wayan; 1995. Digital painting of puzzling nondream vision Night thoughts. Are they eggs? Dreams? Worlds? Phases of the moon? CAUTION: NEGATIVE BREASTS
	FOX STORM: by Wayan; 103K, fractal painting of 1998 dream (exact date unknown). I might have been less cowed by the storm-face, if I'd seen it was made of little foxes just like me...
	FRACTAL: by Wayan; fractal painting, 1990? Early Euro and Indian art liked bilateral symmetry; old Japan liked careful asymmetry. I like self-similarity.
	(ON THE OLD) GENDER TRAIL: by Wayan; 161K, 1995, digital picture-poem with dream intrusions. For me, the path to love is difficult, elusive, convoluted...
	I'M ALL EARS, DR. ESTES: by Wayan; 1995/6/7, not a dream, a portrait of a radio-trance. Clarisa Pinkola Estes (who runs with the wolves) was on the radio, and this popped out of my mouse...
	INK MOUNTAIN: by Wayan; 1992/8/5, a tutelary dreamtale. A Himalayan peak boils with warring creatures, but a guru says "They're just your conflicts. Sit, watch..."
	ISLE OF THE BLEST: by Wayan; 1990, painting inspired by series of fox-dreams I'm a Japanese werefox, longing to reach the Isle of the Blest; but dare I swim for it?
	MICROGRAPH: by Wayan; 1991? Illuminated page on psychic dreaming A mad experiment one night in Micrography, with a midnight rant for scripture and my girlfriend for God... CAUTION: BLASPHEMY OF SOME KIND OR OTHER
	PET THE FOX: by Wayan; 1993; map of my olfactosphere. Sexual beauty scares me--how I'm affected--how vulnerable I am. An irresistable pheromone... CAUTION: SEXUAL THEME
	PINE FOG: by Wayan; 1995; digital collage of dreamfigures. A misty day in San Francisco's Presidio, where migrant pegasii graze on pine-tips and shadow witches nest...
	PONYBOY: by Wayan; 140K total, felt pen, acrylic, ink, illustrating a 1982/12/9 dream. The child who runs with wild horses finds the secret spy-room of dreams! But no one's watching...
	SAX: by Wayan; 300K total, 8 pp, 1991/5/31, a digital comic--a true story. Alone in my blue room, I heard sax music. Two sunbathers were jamming outside my window... CAUTION: SEX AND SAX
	SEA OF TIME: by Wayan; 100K, 1989/7/26. Digital sketch of astral dream. I dreamed I was drowning in the Sea of Time, where dragons asked me questions. PAINFUL questions...
	STARGIRL: by Wayan; 1993. Digital image of altered state I squabble with my body so much! But sometimes, at the moment of orgasm, we dissolve into stars, and become... CAUTION: SEX POETRY
	STRETCH NOW!: by Wayan; 1993? Digital reminder to stretch. Do it now! I'm doing it. I'm getting up from the keyboard and stretching. I am a cheetah...
	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
	MERRY WITCHMAS!: by Wayan; 1990. Digital dreamy image Just a witchmas card spreading love and paganism to all, and to all a good night...
	ZYGOTE: by Wayan; 1999, a comic astral vision. It's true: after death, angels advise you where to go next. But what if you get an over-eager travel agent?