THE WORLD DREAM BANK: TOPIC: INITIATIVE

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Initiative and Passivity

Or is its opposite... Procrastination?

Taking the initiative in your dreams (or life!) means active decision-making--choice--but often real initiative requires more than grasping opportunities presented--it means going off in an unexpected direction. Personally I find this as challenging as lucid dreaming--and as rewarding. Try it! Follow a whim or two. In dreams? Or awake, I don't care! In either world, its not easy to charge off in a new direction against others' expectations... let alone your own.

RELATED TOPICS: lucid dreams - opportunities grasped - opportunities lost - urges and hunches - play - free will - dares - life-paths - assertion - self-defense - guides - 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.
	AMBITION: by Wayan; 1994/5/25, an odd little dreamlike real-life experience. My intuition led me to a panel discussion of women artists, just to hear one single sentence...
	BALANCE?: by Wayan, 1984/10/10, a dream about dreams. Silky, my sentient starship, gives me a scolding about playing it safe...
	BAR BET: by Wayan; 150K, 6 images, 1982/4/2, a dream-quest. On a bar-bet, we seek God. We reach the Isles of the Blessed, but they're too complacent. We want the wild God, the real God, the Bad Taste God. Onward, pagan questers! Because we want to win our bet. CAUTION: LAZY-ASS ANGELS
	THE BLACK EGG: by Wayan; 1999/3/25, a psychic dreamtale. My crazy friend Wayne goes bowling for busses with a black egg. Wait! Crazy? Or... predictive? CAUTION: GEORGIA O'KEEFFE BEHAVES DISGRACEFULLY
	BLOW 'EM UP!' and POKER FACES: by Wayan; 1992/7/2; two dreams on denial and sabotage. Would the Revolutionaries in the Basement really blow up the Committee of Idealists upstairs? CAUTION: MAD BOMBERS, OR AT LEAST GRUMPY ONES
	BLUE SOUP, NO SPARK: by Wayan; 115K, 1985/6/1, a dream epic. A visit to a world where they fear blue soup ends in death and resurrection, so I'm pissed at my boss--God. CAUTION: DEATH, REBIRTH, SACRILEGE, JOB BURNOUT
	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
	BREAK THE SCRIPT: by Wayan; 1993/6/19, a sex dream about art. A sexy encounter with two robotic girls hopping a night train outside Portland... CAUTION: SEX TEXT
	THE BROADS: by Wayan; 1978/11/19, a dream on lowlife potential. Everyone wears a big cowboy beltbuckle. Twist it and your bodymass re-distributes! But mine... CAUTION: CRASS AND CRUDE
	THE BURBS: by Wayan; 1990/7/1, a true-story poem. A perfectionist gardener builds perfect planterboxes while his seedlings starve. And so I left the burbs...
	CASSANDRA AND OTTER: by Wayan; 1982/3/14, a reassuring nightmare. I take Cassandra's prophecies seriously, but she can't make sense of my future. So we go see an otter with a crystal ball. But he's put in this new security system...
	A COLONY IN THE HOLLOW HILLS: by Wayan; 1997/8/14, a dream of responsibility. Hong Kong's not devolving to China, but to Faerie. As governor, I have to defend human rights, so...
	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
	DIRECT ACTION SAVES THE SHIP: by Alder; 2006/11/5; a dream-fable with instant replay. A bomb's planted on our ship! But when a teen finds it, rather than fetch a responsible adult...
	DOME: by Wayan; 250K, 1999/1/31, a dream peeling off a lie. I'm actress Nicole Kidman, clinging to the dome of City Hall like King Kong, ripping it to shreds! Why? CAUTION: VANDALISM, REVERSE SEXISM, EXHIBITIONISM
	DRAGGED TO HER HEART'S DESIRE: by Wayan; 1997/9/16, a dream with a lesson. The friends of a touchy aviator have to kidnap her just to give her a present... and WHAT a present...
	THE DREAMSUIT: by Wayan; 1992/7/12, a dream on unconscious programming. An experimental helmet knocks me out. I'm groggy, miserable, till I learn what it did to others...
	EMISSARY: by Wayan; 2000/3/22, an astral dreamtale. I signed a prenatal agreement for weird, uneven luck to turn my life toward art and spirit. I want to broaden it, but I've lost the contract! So my spirit wife Silky sets out to find it...
	EVOLUTION'S DULL: by Wayan; 1997/7/22, a science rant. Evolution is like baseball--a game of inches, efficiency, constraints. Surely we can do better.... CAUTION: CONTAINS THOUGHT
	FACULTY WIFE: by Wayan; 1998/1/6, a sexy but disorienting dream. I'm a faculty wife bored out of my mind until two students have sex in my yard. I ignore HIM and jump HER... CAUTION: SEX
	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...
	FETAL PAUSE: by Wayan; 2008/8/31, a nightmare-poem, Dreamverse #17 As I write a sad sex dream, a madman curls up fetally in the road outside my window. I put off calling 911 too long, and...
	FIRST DATE: by Wayan; 1991/10/20, a true story. I have weird, bad luck around dating. Finally I go on a picnic with Page, and the Great Fire begins...
	FIRST DREAMFLIGHT: by Wayan; 1969/11/11, a formative dreamtale. I never flew in my dreams. I felt cheated. So one day I set out to CREATE dream-flight...
	FISHERGIRLS: by Wayan; 1.5M, 42 illus.; 1996/7/15; a sexy dream epic. I had a spectacular dream one night, that lasted many days in dream-time--a true other life. It wasn't Earth, and we weren't human. I was a teenage lemur, sailing with two friends into unknown waters--a rite of passage. I woke on deck deep in the night, my friends curled around me, and realized I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a grown woman, marry and have pups. I loved my girl friends. In a world lacking the very word, I was groping toward queerdom. Sailing into unknown waters! "Here be dragons," the old maps say. And they were right... If 1500K is too big to load, try it in parts: 1: HOME, 450K, 2: VOYAGE, 680K, 3: BACK 400K. CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
	FREE THE HICK? A Dream Left Hanging: by Wayan; 1999/9/15, a frustrating dream. Our team acquires unnoticeability, and sets out to free the Hick from the Submerged Court. But is that wise?
	GENNADIUS: by Gennadius, ca. 415 AD, apparently the first recorded lucid dream Gennadius re-dreams a previous dream, prompting him to notice he's dreaming. His guide points out the spiritual implications...
	GHOSTS PUSH TOWARD THE SUICIDE DOOR: by Wayan, 1997/8/7, a nightmare that wants a break. I live in a haunted house where ghosts push you to suicide. But they're as tired of it as I am...
	FROM GLIDING TO FLIGHT: by Wayan; 1993/11/15, an illustrated dream. Hypnotherapy is hopeless with these blind architects flopping all over the cafe, but my flying has improved...
	GRAMPA HAS SPOKEN: by Wayan; 1989/11/26, an oracular dream. In a worldwide junkyard full of warring spooks, I finally meet the one whose message I need to hear...
	HAENA TWILIT COVE: by Wayan; 1984/10/31, a predictive dream. Landing in Hawaii, I dream of a magical twilit cove I must swim across. The eve of leaving, there it is...
	HEADING FOR A FALL: by Wayan; 1993/11/2, a dream of drastic shortcuts. I crash my car on the way to therapy. I ask my dream why. And it tells me! Deliberate, but not suicidal...
	HER OWN WEAPON: by Wayan; 1983/8/31, a poltergeist-therapy dream. A woman says she's being stalked, but it's her own poltergeist! Her therapist makes her reach for it...
	IMPERSONAL ORGY: by Wayan; 1997/9/18, a temptation dream--or an un-temptation dream?. At the beach, my friends start a sleepy anonymous orgy... I'm single and frustrated, but is this what I want? CAUTION: SEX
	IN WOMEN'S PRISON: by Wayan; 1994/7/23, a dream of faith. A woman in prison loves her counselor, but she's a barely literate hooker--she knows he won't love her back...
	THE INVESTOR DREAMS A WOLF: by Wayan; 1983/10/30, a dream poem. My dream characters aged and tamed until they sit in a genteel Victorian flat. Then a wolf rappels in...
	JACKPOT: by Catshall; 2007/5/29. A dream on sex, art and change--a flood of change! How did my bondage dream turn into a slot-machine jackpot? And what kind of change is pouring out?... CAUTION: (CON)SENSUAL BONDAGE
	KICK HER: by Wayan; 1994/8/9, a gameshow nightmare. I'm a blonde gameshow bimbo. Each week, I'm beaten up. Ha ha ha! But my bruises are real. At last, I... CAUTION: GAMESHOW FROM HELL
	THE LEMON SEA: by Wayan; 1982/2/22, a dream warning. I wake up as someone else. I go through her working day, till Captain Kirk comes to take me to...
	LION-MEN: by Wayan; 1995/7/9, an eye-opening dreamlet. I'm a traveling Zen warrior talking to a circus girl in a barn. Four guys enter--and my life changes forever.
	THE M9: by David Parkinson, 1940; a dream-designed invention. Parkinson dreamed his new telephone device got added to an anti-aircraft gun. He told his dream; guns with M9 units turned out to be so accurate it gave the British hope against the Luftwaffe...
	MASSAGE: by Wayan; 1994/3/31, an advisory dreamlet. Sit on a bench and massage a total stranger. But soon it's not just a massage: a MESSAGE... CAUTION: SEX
	THE MERMAID TOW: by Wayan; 1994/2/17, a rescue-fantasy dream. I rescue some drowning kids by turning into a mermaid, but towing one girl has an unexpected effect...
	MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN: by Wayan; 1992/9/5-6, a diagnostic dream. I'm in a tribe of post-Crash kids with psychic powers, trying to keep nukes from rising again... CAUTION: VIOLENCE TOWARD CHILDREN
	A MISCARRIED LIFE: by Wayan; 1981/2/12, a short dreamfable. I'm Hattie, a pregnant girl on a Lewis and Clark expedition. I miscarry, and they tell me...
	MOOSE: by Wayan; 1984/3/12, a dream on the blessings of curses. How the Supreme Court gave my brother antlers, and where his soul went: where I'll go, now that I know...
	MY MUSLIM MOTHER-IN-LAW: by Wayan; 1995/3/25, a dream on repression. How exactly did I acquire a mother-in-law snooping on my phone calls, when I don't have a wife?
	NANCY AND KIT: by Wayan; 1994/1/3, a psychodramatic dream. I step between an ultra-femme girl and a butch boy, trapped in a psychodrama. But I'm bleeding...
	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
	ORIOLE GIRL: by Wayan; 100K, 7 illus., 1992/1/23, a poem telling a psychic dream. While conducting a census of fairies in Golden Gate Park, I fall in love with an abused oriole-angel, and we try to heal each other... CAUTION: AWKWARD SEX
	THE OTTER'S MOM: by Wayan, 171K, a dream-comic (or 12K text version). 1996/5/29; a dream of the future. A brilliant, orphaned ottercub meets the last Tasmanian Wolf, who makes a hard choice I couldn't. Or did I?
	OUR GOVERNOR: by Wayan; 1990/3/28, an anti-death-penalty dream. I force the governor's chief aide to tour the new prisons for us artists, fags, and niggers. He's appalled--but how many more noses must I rub in the governor's racism?
	PERISSA: by Wayan; 660K total (15 images); 1997/9/13, a sexy political dream. When Perissa, an exhibitionistic centaur, bares her body in a crowded Coliseum, she also bares a racist plot... CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM, SPECISM
	PERSONAL CHAOS THEORY: by Wayan; 1994/12/4, a spiritual math dream. My life is a mess, so I take a class on the four flavors of chaos, and find my Strange Attractors are shifting...
	PESCADERO MONET: by Wayan; 1983/11/4, a happy art-cult dream. Monet is over 100 now, living in an art colony. I visit him, but my parents come along. Bad idea...
	PET ME DARE!: by Wayan; 200K, 6 illus., 1996/2/7, a healing dream. After whining all day that I lost my anima, all I dream is I'm petting a cat. But she grows. Too much... CAUTION: PUSSY TROUBLE
	PISSING MEMORIES: by Wayan; 1999/5/20, a dreamtale on non-sabotage. I desperately need to pee, but my bladder's full of two kinds of emotional trauma, and each blocks the other! CAUTION: BATHROOM PSYCHOLOGY
	PREGNANT WITH KRYTHA: by Wayan; 1998/2/3, a monomaniacal dream My best friend and I are shapeshifters; I seduce him, just so my daughter Krytha can be born... CAUTION: MAMMALIAN NUDITY, PHEROMONAL SEDUCTION, RECKLESS PREGNANCY
	PRRL: by Wayan; 19971/17, a galactic dreamtale. I'm in the Magellanic Clouds, an ambassador to the energy-beings who rule them. Or am really their... pet?
	THE RED SPHERE: by Madeline; 2006/12/13, twin (diagnostic? psychic?) nightmares Calmly, I watch a girl trapped in a lab try to escape, and die; and watch a man lose his head to a hungry thing... CAUTION: GRUESOME
	REFLECTIONS IN THE POOL: by Wayan; 184K total, 2 panoramas; a 1994/7/2 dream. Night. A mirror-maze of contradictory preachings. But in the secret mermaid pool, I find love. Then... sphinx-angels war in the air! A war of riddles. Can I, a batwinged devil, make peace? CAUTION: SEX, NUDITY, MEAN ANGELS, AND ONE HAPPY DEVIL
	(IN THE) REHEARSAL ROOM: by Wayan; 360 x 600, 1982. A dream on shyness. I dreamed my fears faded like ghosts, as we made love in the rehearsal room. But invisible is not gone... CAUTION: SEX
	RIBBING: by Wayan; 1992/12/25, an assertive dreamtale. After seeing 150 years of family photos, I dream of being teased by time-traveling cheerleaders, and...
	THE ROSA PARKS EFFECT: by Wayan; 1997/7/21, a political dream. The mayor declares war on bikers, blames us for gridlock! I dream of Rosa Parks' influence and realize...
	SALIA AND CHUR: by Wayan; 1989/2/25, a psychic Star Trek dream. Our starship signs up a strange new woman whose quirks turn out to be the effects of slavery... CAUTION: SEX, ABUSE ISSUES
	THE SEMI-INTELLIGENT ANIMAL PROBLEM: by Wayan; 1986/4/6, a dream. The army breeds smart animals. Scientists fear they'll upset ecosystems. No one speaks for the creatures... CAUTION: DIRECT ACTION
	THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY: by Wayan; 1989/7/8, a psychic nightmare. My sisters get bored with the game of power, so I watch TV instead. But it melts, and a huge terrifying figure rises...
	SHARK SENSE: by Wayan; 1988/12/9, a diagnostic dreamtale. I'm a circus tiger, then a performing shark. One day, I block my human partner's high dive... Why?
	SHASTA OCCUPATION: by Wayan; 1996/11/1, a very California dream. I'm teaching in a wizard's college near Mt Shasta when one astral world decides to occupy another...
	SHASTA STANDARDS: by Wayan; 1998/9/19, a dream of social change. In a future where we gengineer ourselves instead of others, we no longer have to choose lesser evils...
	SHOOT ME, I'M LUCID!: by Wayan; 1997/10/17, a dreamtale. I distract a mad gunner in a crowd--I suspect I'm dreaming, but still... This may be noble, but is it healthy? CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS ON THE NEXT CRAZED KILLER YOU MEET
	SHRUNKEN MEN: by Wayan; 1992/2/21, a dream (and rant) on men. Robert Bly's books on men and mentors provoke a dream of co-opted Star Trek captains and rebellious midgets... CAUTION: IF YOU LIKE BLY...
	SLAVES DON'T DANCE: by Wayan; 400K (17 ill.), 1999/8/1, an epic Shakespearean dream. Stolen by the Fairy Queen, I'm made nurse to her great project: creating life! But her synthetic baby is...
	SLOW PARK FIX: by Wayan; 1996/9/24, a diagnostic dreamtale. Infected glass-cuts scar the vegan alligators in the park. As part of a cleanup, I'm told to EAT one...
	SOUL-SHARD: by Wayan; 2000/10/5, a rebellious dream I'm a wolf in an ashram studying astral travel with my spirit-wife. Our souls blend a bit, enraging our guru, a Hindu god, who sends demons to make us stop this spiritual "contamination"...
	SPIN-WITCH, or, THE MAGIC LIGHTER: by Wayan; 1985/8/10, a dream on defensiveness. Leona's a fighter--she rejects compromisers like her husband, her friends, that girl she's been sitting on...
	THEY USE ME TO MASTURBATE: by Wayan; 1980/9/18, a two-edged dream. My sisters and their best friends all use me for sex. Sick, but I discover it's better than I USED to be... CAUTION: JUST PLAIN EMBARRASSING
	THE TORTURER: by Wayan; 1997/7/13, a predictive nightmare A traveling torturer chooses me for his victim. He has the right. I bluster, but when at last I have to sleep... CAUTION: NO PAIN, BUT GORE
	TRESPASSERS IN MALANCHAI: by Hyal; 100K, Feb 1996?, an epic dream with a weird intrusion. A maneless lion-boy wins his people's respect. While training, he sees weird trespassers who seem to be from someone else's dream... and ten years later, he finds that dreamer.
	WING IT: by Wayan, 1995/12/23? 1 MB, a 9-page improv comic. An art experiment--the only rule is DRAW--no models, no ideas, no plans, not even dreams. Drawing from the void!
	WOLFWALL: by Wayan; 106K, 1995-1999. Digital image of daydream/trance Drew all night in a trance and only learned at dawn what this flirting otter and wolf were trying to tell me... CAUTION: NUDITY AND SEXUAL THEME
	WOLVES EVOLVE: by Wayan, 1983/11/11, a Darwinian dream. After seeing 'Rear Window', Grace Kelly and I are wolf children in a pack that's quickly evolving into... CAUTION: VIOLENCE, CHILD SEXUALITY, WOLF-SLANDER
	WOMBERS: by Wayan; 1997/8/23, a journal entry on peace-at-any-price personalities Nancy Friday describes a certain kind of guy disturbingly like me, and I realize chronic illness has made me...
	YELLOW SERENADE: by Wayan; 1979/2/22, an absurd dreamtale. Restrain yourself! Or you too may end up on a giraffe rollerskating down the freeway singing perverted popsongs...