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Jack Kerouac: Book of Dreams

Here are a few dozen examples from Book of Dreams by Jack Kerouac, written 1952-58. A brief edition was published in 1961; a posthumous full edition with hundreds more entries, in 2001; nearly 450 total. A typical entry mashes together a whole night of dreams, in no particular order, preserving the process as Kerouac recalls them (or half-recalls, or doesn't). They're in his signature run-on style; separate dreams aren't marked or titled. But if you do parse out the individual dreams, there are well over 1000--the largest dream journal ever published in hardcopy that I know of. So these two dozen examples can't fully show his range.

Also listed: a few dreams about or featuring Kerouac, like Hot to Trot or The Kerouac Tree.

RELATED TOPICS: writers & writing - dreamwork - compare or his friend William S. Burroughs (warning: grim). Or to Kerouac's contemporary Nancy Price--more magical and shamanic. And, I think, better written. See also: the full LIST OF TOPICS currently indexed.

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AIRPLANE DISASTERS: by Jack Kerouac, early Aug? 1954, a helpless-witness nightmare
An indestructible camera relentlessly shows me what passengers feel on every crashing plane...
CAUTION: PAINFUL READING
AT A BIG 'SWENSON' PARTY: by Jack Kerouac, mid-Sept? 1953, a nightmare on need
A lovely pecan pie, but the guests are cutting pieces, dropping them, hands trembling
in growing hunger desperate the dark voracious guests fighting now to freeload...
CAUTION: NOT ABOUT PIE
AT A CALIFORNIA CAMP: by Jack Kerouac, spring 1955, a nuclear testing nightmare
My family and I are prisoners in a camp that will be H-bombed so our remains
can be studied. I write a Buddhist poem preparing for death...
CAUTION: GOVERNMENT ATROCITY
BIG FLAMING AIRPLANES TRYING TO LAND: by Jack Kerouac, late Oct. 1953, a double nightmare
Two DC-6s catch burn over New York. Me? I'm a naked child in a Babylonian temple in Jersey...
DEFENDING MYSELF BEFORE A JURY OF MEN: by Jack Kerouac, 1958?, a transcendent advisory dreamlet
I'm on trial. As I argue in my own defense, I float over the court! The jurors murmur
"Why does he even bother protesting? He's beyond this world"...
FINALLY I'M AN OLD WHORE: by Jack Kerouac, Jan/Feb 1953, a burnout dream... or his fears for the future
Finally I've turned into an old whore... a silly Jack Kerouac whore with that same old tired old gasafaycagoo...
THE FLYING HORSES OF MIEN MO: by Jack Kerouac, Nov/Dec? 1957, a persistent numinous image
I'm in Mexico. The mountain of the gods looms over Coyacan. Around it, silhouetted
on the rising moon, wheel terrifying griffinlike winged horses wearing capes...
FOR THE FIRST TIME: by Jack Kerouac, Nov? 1954, a lucid dream of escaping a rut
I've climbed a cliff and cower on the brink; but for for the first time I need not
fall or retrace my dangerous path down. I know I'm dreaming, and wake...
GABORS: by Jack Kerouac, late Jan. 1954, a dream of celebrity delusion
Starlets Zaza and Eva Gabor grow old shopping, smiling, covering their fears, until...
GIGANTIC SAND MOUNTAINS: by Jack Kerouac, early Sept. 1953, a dream on fun versus work
Perched on a huge sandpile by the train track, I wrote. Then met a narcissistic
hipster chasing happiness and sex. But this globe's austere and full of hurt...
HOT TO TROT or BRAIN TRAUMA or HUMPIN' THE HOG or SAD-EYED SWAN OF LOVE:
by Wayan; 1993/8/4, a bizarre, epic dream on finding your way
I'm a mare hot to trot (and get laid) in the Big City, but my gay Star Trek friend's brain trauma
makes her a clueless alien with a bo(a)ring sexlife--until a sad swan enfolds her in love...
CAUTION: ALIEN POSSESSION, CARTOON PIG SEX, SMOKING SWANS
I ALSO DREAMED...: by Jack Kerouac, Summer 1958? an early dream of the world as a simulation.
I also dreamed the world was a mathematical abstract, like, by subtracting 740 from 1000
you got 260 which meant 'Egg' more or less, so if you wanted an egg you had the egg...
I GUESS IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY PARTY: by Jack Kerouac, early Oct.1952, a transcendent nightmare?
My party's a slow disaster. Talk, booze, pot, sex--nothing works out.
What will Mom think? At last, trapped in an office, I get the Message...
I HAD A WHITE BANDAGE: by Jack Kerouac, July 1957, a dream of triumph despite adversity
Wounded, bandaged, chased by cops, I end up heading a huge children's parade,
marching to Mongolia. No secret what it's about--On The Road was just published...
I'M AT MY RAINY MORNING WORKDESK: by Jack Kerouac, late Aug? 1954, a lucid dream-prompt missed
I look down by the dock and see the Navy vessels anchored in the bay and the crowds of sailors walking on the water towards the land...
I WANTED TO STEAL: by Jack Kerouac, early Nov. 1952, a class-envy dream.
I wanted to steal this pink woolen sweater. I didn't need it;
what I really wanted to steal was middle-class security...
IN A STRANGE LIVINGROOM: by Jack Kerouac, late August 1952, an advisory dream.
June admired this forgotten philosopher Plipias or Snipias, who wrote 'Never go on strike against man'...
IN WATSONVILLE CALIFORNIA: by Jack Kerouac, early Nov. 1953, a dream warning of mooches
Green snakes fly over Elkhorn Marsh. My mom says "They're just cockroaches." She's not fooled by my... friends?
IRENE'S DREAM: parallel (linked?) dreams by "Irene May" and Jack Kerouac, c. Aug 9 1953
IRENE tries to mold Francesca like clay to bring her back to life, and does--for a moment...
JACK finds his brother Gerard dead, and all Jack's words can't revive him...
THE KEROUAC TREE: by Wayan; 2 ill., 1983/3/18, a dream of fame and time.
The true story of the very first tree-hugger. Not Kerouac! You'll never guess. In fact, you'll say it's impossible...
LIKE NOTRE DAME: by Jack Kerouac, early April? 1953, a bizarre dream
As the train pulled into the cathedral William Burroughs and I saw amid the pews
the Hound of the Baskervilles transform into a great black bird and fly...
LOUSY DREAM: by Jack Kerouac, early Dec? 1952, a rage-filled nightmare
In America the woman has the Police State Telephone in one hand and My Child swathed in
incredible bills in the other... Ah, Kafka, you never had it so good...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, MISOGYNY
MA HAS GONE TO FRISCO: by Jack Kerouac, late June? 1953, a back-in-school dream ending in revelation.
I walk the corridors smiling, realizing for the first time that I don't have to go to high school---because I'm a great writer...
MY DREAM NIGHTJOB: by Jack Kerouac, late 1956 or early '57, an outa-the-mouths-of-babes dream.
I commute to my dreamjob on a four-story bus; then my baby brother
(who I wouldn't let eat any chocolate pudding) utters a new poem by William Blake...
THAT GORGEOUS BLONDE DANCING BARE-BREASTED: by Jack Kerouac, mid-October 1952
A sex-fantasy dream that shifts backstage and gets real
In Charlotte they want to lynch her just for dancing. I protest. As she leaves town, she tells me...
THEN I REVISIT SELMA CALIFORNIA: by Jack Kerouac, late Oct. 1952, a predictive dream
I dream of strange wide brown houses on the tracks... A knock wakes me--our train's moving out.
As we pass through San Mateo, I see them on the rails, ready to roll--the first prefabricated homes...
THEY'RE HANGING THE POLITICAL TRAITOR: by Jack Kerouac, late Sept. 1953, a sad dad dream
They're hanging the political traitor in my closet. I stand horrified.
The old man's resigned--no complaint. It's my father, I now realize...
TO GET DOWN FROM OUR APARTMENT: by Jack Kerouac, ca. Halloween 1957, a telepathic nightmare?
My mom had to climb a ladder down the side of the Empire State Building; I'm told she fell and died...
TREMENDOUS FAMILY SAGA: by Jack Kerouac, mid-September 1952, a tender violent dream.
I try to protect the kitten from being strangled and girl geniuses from the depth charges; ...
VAGUELY IN A SICK DREAM: by Jack Kerouac, late Nov. 1953, a dream of cooperative sacrifice
Us guys take turns getting pounded by this fist of cloud that must never hit
the world. It hammers my skull and retreats; we laugh and switch positions...
VULTURE PEOPLE: by Jack Kerouac, 1962, a gross-out nightmare--and a warning?
The vulture people are fucking in the city dump. I end up their guest, given putrid food
in their cold stinking house of rancid grease. I'll become a vulture too...
CAUTION: UGH!
WILDERNESS OF VIRGINIA: by Jack Kerouac; around Oct. 1, 1953; a capitalist nightmare
I feel horrified--how publishers will batten on the sufferings of junkey musicians... unbearable...


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