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LONGEVITY

Dreams of long life, extreme old age, and immortality. But also, the occasional dream of the flip side: ephemerality. A good example of this is the film version of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which has close parallels to Meteor or Star? or Am I Immortal? below. What happens when you just don't know, when you have no predictable lifespan--no way to plan? Of course, death's unpredictable for all, but most folks have a general sense of where they are on the arc of their life. Not me: I have a rare mutation, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, that usually shortens lifespan a lot, but not always. I'm already in overtime. Months left, years, decades?

RELATED TOPICS: dreams of health advice - kids and childhood - death dreams - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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AM I EPHEMERAL?: by Wayan; 2006/7/6, a puzzling dream of alienation
I live in a colony of long-lived observers of humanity. But am I one? Or a short-lived human pet?
ASK NOT WHAT YOUR CUNT CAN DO FOR YOU: by Wayan; 1989/10/24. A mad nondream digital poster.
JFK and Marilyn as our gender archetypes point out the real gender gap: lifespan, not votes!
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, BUT I GUESS IT'S TOO LATE NOW
BEETLE TIME: by Wayan; 2018/8/18; a dream-poem on time-slip
A beetle helps me on a fairytale quest, then founds a great house;
but only a year later, he's an ancient patriarch, and I'm still young...
CARDANO'S DREAMS: by Girolamo Cardano, 1521 & 1547/8/15, two confusing oracular dreams
1521: I ask a talking ape how long I'll live. "Four years" he says. "No longer?" "No."
26 years later, I'm still hoping to get truth from dream-figures--two dead guys tell me...
CAUTION: JUNGIANS BEHAVING BADLY
CARTWRIGHT'S HARLEQUIN: by Rosalind Cartwright, 1927? to 2020/12/5? Lifelong recurring dream
All her life, Cartwright dreamed of a figure disguised in a harlequin costume; she never saw his face.
He always drove her to self-sabotage. But near her death, she dreamt she gave a lecture, and he...
THE CONDEMNATION: by Georges Perec; Feb. 1972, a dream of cults, persecution, and timeslip. Dream #105
I'm on vacation, but cultists lick my feet--then turn on me, casting stones. But they miss.
So I wander the steppe for centuries, until I come to the City of Texas...
CREATURE BECOMES CREATOR: by Wayan; 2015/2/5, three linked advisory dreams on world trends
A weird little forest god bred me from an ordinary deer into a creature who can
almost pass for human. But World War 2 killed my god, and now I'm growing into...
CAUTION: NUDITY, CROSSBREEDING
DANCING REDWOODS: by Gayle Delaney, 1973 or 74, an incubated dream
My fiancé and I got along impossibly well. I asked my dreams "Can this last?"
I dreamed we were two redwoods, happy next to one another for centuries...
FLOATING HORSES: by Wayan, 1972/8/10, a flying/transformation dream advising patience
That day, I did bad art. That night, my friend & I get turned into levitating horses--
though some of our fellow fliers, like the mummified Inuit, are kinda creepy...
FLOYD FREUD: by Wayan; 1983/4/18, a short dream of longevity.
After trying "the Interpretation of Dreams," I meet Floyd Freud, who's attracted to the neo-Nazis...
CAUTION: INSULTS THE MEMORY OF A GREAT GUY
THE FUR SIDE, or, GESTELLA: by Wayan; 2013/7/2; a dream-critique of a feminist fable
After reading a fable about a murdered werewolf, I dream a tough old woman
with golden wolf eyes joins our school lunch table, where the furry minority sits...
CAUTION: CRITIQUES SUSAN PALWICK
JASHA EXPLAINS DEATH: by Wayan; ca. 1974/10/1; a 10-page painted comic with recurrent dream figures
Deep Duck's interview with Jasha the Krelkin goes rogue, as she urges tossing out human habits like... death?
CAUTION: REDWOOD-SPRITE SEX, PEEING ON TREES, DRUNK DUCK
KRELKIN: by Wayan; 1974/10/9, on nonhuman figures recurring in dreams
My psychology professor insists that nature spirits faded away as science rose.
But I still dream of krelkins! Jasha is the one I know best...
THE LONGEVITY INSTITUTE: by Wayan, 2019/5/7; a dream on a family mutation
On the show Finding Your Roots, it turns out my dad's a genetic experiment born in...
1880?! The experiment worked; my sisters and I are slow-maturing, long-lived mutants...
LONGEVITY PLANS!: by Wayan; 1998/8/22, a nondream speculation.
Lifespans are growing, but do we incorporate that into our life-planning? Oh, hell, do I plan at ALL?
LONGEVITY ROAD: by J.S., c.1898, a predictive life-arc dream
I walked along a hilly road with ropes and boxes. My wife vanished in a hollow. But
my path went on until the hills were blue in the distance. An old man interpreted...
METEOR OR STAR?: by Wayan; 2007/9/17, a dream of uncertainty
I'm an anima. But we rarely walk the day-world for long. When will I fade? Ignorance isn't bliss, it's paralysis...
MY MOTHER & I: by J.S. & his mother, c.1910?, shared/parallel dreams
MY DREAM: I was walking along a hilly road, my uncle ahead, my stepdad behind; trying to keep them in sight. My mom appeared and I woke.
MY MOTHER'S DREAM: the same. She told hers to me before I told her mine. She thought it meant my uncle would die first, then me, then...
CAUTION: APPARENT TELEPATHY, BUT MISINTERPRETED MEANING
NOT A CAT: by Wayan; 2022/11/27, a dream of being a sort-of-ghost
I wander New York City, a homeless ageless child, unnoticed--unless I climb stairs. Then people panic--see a huge cat!
But today I meet a crew lugging big paintings, who seem blind to cat or child. I think they're art thieves, mid-heist...
CAUTION: SHAMANIC INTERPRETATION
NUCLEUS: by Wayan, 1979/3/18, a surreal dream of character-insight, set inside an atom
I dream my theatre friends are particles dancing inside an atomic nucleus--
particles that reveal their character, motivations and power. And I'm one too...
OLD ADAM: by Robert Southey; 1804/12/7, a comic dreamlet.
I meet the original Adam. He complains Eve neglects him, but he hopes to meet one of his cleverer descendants...
OLYMPUS UNMASKED: by Wayan; 2022/8/10, a far-future dream
On terraformed Mars, we set out to climb Mt Olympus without
oxygen masks. The first miles are OK, but the air thins until...
CAUTION: ANTICIPATED DEATH?
PICARDIAN ANGELS: by Wayan; 1993/1/7, a dream of time and wishes.
I walk on Martinique with Captain Picard of the starship Enterprise. He's here to see a dreamy boy...
PICARD'S ANGELS: by Wayan; 1993/1/7, a poem; alternate treatment of the dream PICARDIAN ANGELS
As a boy on Martinique, Jean-Luc Picard wished for so much so hard, his angels have to work overtime...
SHE LIVES TO 140: by Wayan; 2017/7/13, a dreamlet urging crankiness
I meet a 140-year-old hermit in her black chadoor,
skateboarding down a hill near her sacred dream-spring...
SOLOMON'S CHOICE: by King Solomon, c. 970 BCE; a god's dream-bargain
As his reign begins, King Solomon worries he's inadequate. He dreams
God offers him one gift, of his choice--but what would help the most?
SOUL RESTORED: by Wayan; 2016/12/4, two dreams on deep change
MY SOUL RESTORED: To hide me as I grew up, someone transplanted a shard of redwood-soul
into me, and part of my soul into the tree! But now I'm grown...
RED ROBE OF INITIATION: I came to play music, but I'm dragged to the magic-school portal & draped in...
CAUTION: MYSTICISM
TAROT: THE MOON (Ebb Tide: Memory): by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1979.
Time, tide, cycles... At ebb, the hourglass drains, the tide recedes, life hides in the cracks...
TOLD IN A DREAM: by Kathleen Raine, between 1965 & '71; a mystical dream poem
A voice tells me I have 100 months to live. I vow it'll be enough to finish my work here...
CAUTION: THAT VOICE WAS WRONG
WHITE LOON: by White Loon, 1870s?, an initiation-negotiation dream
At ten, I fasted a long tedious time. I dreamed a bird offered me showy gifts, but I kept to my grandmother's advice: never take the
first offer. At last a big, strange bird from the north, a white loon, offered me long life and health; that I accepted! So now I'm called...
WILLPOWER (HAPPINESS): by Wayan; 1991/1/17, a didactic dream.
At age 90, the first female high-rise steelworker tells me
why she did it--and why she regrets it now...


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