For dreams about fatherhood in general, see dream dads.

This is a personal page about my father, Jerry--both the strange, ambivalent role he played in my dreams in life, and the dreams (and guilt) I felt around his equally strange death.

For a year before he died I had nightmares about paralysis and death, but didn't know why. Then one day he simply woke up from a nap paralyzed. A rare virus. He lived for months in a hospital, conscious but helpless. I barely visited him there, and when I did I just cried uncontrollably. But turning into a useless fountain wasn't the only reason I avoided the place: I have EI (severe allergies plus chemical sensitivities) and for me that hospital felt like a deathtrap. It sure was for my dad. They held out the hope he could recover; but he died of secondary infections caught from his caretakers.

His life was paradoxical too. An egalitarian leftist wary of the rich and powerful, my dad still trusted experts--like the doctors who killed him. He had a deep, sometimes dangerously uncritical faith--but in science, not God. A Stanford PhD, yet he worked as a simple English teacher, for he constantly protested school policies he found unjust, and never got promoted. He loved literature and was a fine writer, yet left no literary legacy but screamingly funny questions on his exams. He advocated feminism yet belittled my sister Miriel. He had psychic dreams, but interpreted them away in Freudian terms. All his kids inherited his strong ESP and vivid shamanic dreams, yet he dismissed parapsychology as superstition and fraud. Yet he encouraged my art and writing, including this website--whose basic premises about dreams he rejected!

--Chris Wayan-

RELATED TOPICS: dream dads - dream moms - dreams about Marcy, my real mom - parenting - families - 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 -

	AIDA'S TOILET BOAT: by Wayan; 1993/4/7, a psychic dreamtale. A sexy comedian and her troubles down the drain. A dream that turned out to be true...
	ALP VARK: by Wayan; 100K, 1983/11/24, an epic, intense, psychic dream. I'm kissed by the Holy Aardvark, but my bond with my dad is strained by ESP he can't accept...
	ALTHEA'S CHICKEN: by Wayan; 120K, 1990/3/27, an illustrated nightmare-farce. My sister Althea decides my house has demons, and hires an exorcist who botches things, so that...
	THE BAR PET: by Wayan; 1994/12/4, a disorienting dreamlet. I meet a sex-kitten in the Underground Cartoonists' Bar, but her body language makes no sense to me... CAUTION: UNDERAGE FLIRTATION... OR IS IT?
	BEAST BIRTHS: by Wayan; 1989/9/19, a dream of family secrets. My family has a hidden gene for incest--and griffins. When I bring the family skeleton from the closet... CAUTION: MENTIONS RAPE, INCEST
	CAT AND CRAB: by Wayan; 1981/3/12, a dream about teasing?. My cat keeps going into heat and sneaking out for sex with my godmother's pet crab, and... CAUTION: SEX, BAD PUNS, CRABBINESS
	COUNTERSUE GOD: by Wayan; 1995/8/5, a sacrilegious dream. God flames me for putting pagan stuff on the Net, and we end up suing each other. Then the riots begin... CAUTION: HITMEN AND HERESY
	CUBIST CHARLIE BROWN: by Wayan; 1977/4/1, a cubist nightmare. We're Cubist cartoon characters, trapped in a strip gone mad. But my dad stays calm! Too calm... CAUTION: SEAS OF BLOOD... OR IS IT RED INK?
	DAD ON THE BOARD: by Wayan; 1981/2/12, a dream of business as usual. How my dad got onto the board of directors and made the organization his own...
	DEAD, NOT STUPID: by Wayan; 2000/1/20, a (psychic?)dreamtale. My little sisters tell the detectives, "Daddy's ghost has a message for you" but they don't listen...
	DON'T WANT HIM TO SOAR: by Wayan; 1991/4/18, a dream of sabotage. In a parallel world, a visionary's building the first plane only now. I'm his assistant. But I don't WANT...
	THE GIVE-AWAY: by Wayan; 1982/6/7, a short nightmare. My parents pray for my success, and arrange a great learning opportunity for me. Really.
	GIVE TRAVIS ONE MORE CHANCE: by Wayan; 1980/10/13, a desperate dream. I'm detective Travis McGee's lover, so I know I'm doomed. My solution is drastic... CAUTION: HARD-BOILED HANDGUNS
	I FIGHT FOR BEAUTY: by Wayan; 125K, 6 illus, 1990/1/1, an incubated dream within a dream within a dream. From Hawaii to Wyoming, I fight for beauty, always waking to find I'm someone new...
	IT DOESN'T ADD UP: by Wayan; 1995/6/26, an arithmetical dream. Dream math often seems bad, but I think the discrepancies are a signal, not noise...
	JACUZZI JAIL: by Wayan; 1979/10/12, a dream of parental poison. My family has shackled my little sister in a hot tub full of carcinogenic bubble bath... CAUTION: INCEST ISSUES AND A SLIGHTLY DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY
	THE KING OF PERSIA: by Wayan; 1990/4/1, an annoying family dream. My dad has a time machine, so he generously invites the King of Persia over. And offers him MY room...
	THE LIMP: by Wayan; 1986/7/18, a dream on difference I was working for a London architect. His son thought people shunned him for his limp, but...
	MAFIA DENTIST: by Wayan, 2007/7/10; a predictive comic nightmare. My dentist (a Haitian Mafia leader) sends a message to my dad (also a Mafia don) by dental cruelty....
	THE MAN WHO MISTOOK...: by Wayan; 1995/9/19, an insane dream. I'm just an ordinary guy, who beats his son so he'll grow faster, and sees tits on drinking fountains...
	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...
	THE MIWOK RITE: by Wayan; 1999/11/20, a dream fable. A ritual in a future society makes me laugh. I tease a futurian, insist it's really a old Miwok rite...
	MOLLY'S PROSTHETIC: by Wayan, 1994/9/22, a dream of handy advice. My dad's new wife is a collie. Naturally, she wants a prosthetic arm. But she has no site to bind it to... CAUTION: BREAST-OBSESSED BUSINESSMAN, DOG WIFE
	THE MURDERS: by four Wayans! 50K, 1971/7/14; a family has simultaneous psychic nightmares. Nearly everyone in my family dreams of a mass murder as it happens nearby. But my dad's sure it's his own evil id, and my mom clams up, and my sister forgets. And me? I doubt the whole thing for ten years, until... CAUTION: NIGHTMARE VIOLENCE
	MY LIPS ARE SEALED: by Wayan, 1989/6/3, a moody, psychic, epic dream. A two-part dream: I'm a Romantic poet who defeats the curse of the fountain, to marry; but when our daughter's grown, a new curse strikes me mute, paralyzed. And I mistake it for old age! Then, in real life...
	OLD AND IN THE WAY: by Wayan; 1999/5/3, a veiled predictive dream. On a dead-end street, I meet a beautiful psychic and fight a tentacled monster that's stalked me for years...
	PHARAOH HOOKS: by Wayan; 1989/7/31, a deadpan joke of a dream. My sister and her friend the snake-woman tell me the facts of life: the golden hooks, the piglets... CAUTION: UNRELIABLE GYNECOLOGY
	PRODIGIES' ODDITIES: by Wayan; 1994/2/2, a confession. I suspect we child prodigies and geniuses are as unlike the gifted as normal people. So here's a checklist... CAUTION: BRAIN REQUIRED
	HIS RACIST SON: by Wayan; 1994/1/8, a dream on family hypocrisy. Suddenly I hate and fear black kids in school! The counselor says I'm clinically paranoid: I need drugs! My dad says "How strange, how sad." And goes home to light a candle at his shrine to the Confederacy... CAUTION: INDUCED RACISM
	THE SEA WOLF'S BRAIN: by Wayan; 1999/11/21, a psychic dream. For years the Sea-Wolf enslaved me. He said I had to fight him and win to be free. I'm ready at last...
	SNOW STALLION: by Wayan; 1994/6/4, a tangled political/spiritual dream. I'm a peace terrorist trapped in Squaw Valley, herded like a mare by a huge stallion made of snow... And then the dream shifts and I blurt out the truth behind our idiotic waking world! And wake believing it...
	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..."
	SPLINTER: by Wayan; 1981/3/14, a dream of love and nagging. I love Splinter, but her mom insists I got BOTH of them pregnant. Then I notice I'm pregnant too... CAUTION: SEX, NAGGING
	SWALLOWED!: by Wayan; 1990/7/30, a warning dream. An ancient pictograph inspires me to try a meditative technique: shrinking and letting myself be eaten... CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME
	THEA'S HOUSE: by Wayan; 1987/3/23, a life-changing dream. I dreamed the Earth Goddess invited me to live with her. She was lonely to be seen for who she was...
	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
	WARIA: by Wayan; 640 x 450, 1989, digital image based on a 1987/3/23 dream. My life was a sex disaster. I made myself ugly and sick. But then one night I dreamed I found a healer... WARNING: NUDITY

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