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Cleaning, Maintenance, Repair

Take a bath. Recycle. Go to the dentist. Or the dump. Hose down the underworld. Give away that junk. Clear those files. Take apart that broken thing and fix it.

This list was late in coming. When I started the World Dream Bank it was biased toward psychology and shamanism. Lots of mythical creatures and archetypes and emotions, but not not the daily acts of maintenance that support all the drama.

RELATED TOPICS: food - healthcare - therapy - house & home - construction - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.


ALTHEA'S CHICKEN: by Wayan; 1990/3/27, a nightmare-farce.
My sister Althea decides my house has demons, and hires an exorcist who botches things, so that...
BELLE OF THE BALL: by Bonnie; 2006/5/2, a sexy ghost dream
I'll win a house if I can survive a night in the Haunted Pavilion! But I've been here before--before I was born...
CAUTION: GHOST ORGY
THE BLACK CURRENT: by Wayan; 1985/6/16, a slice-of-life dreamtale.
A dream-voyage round the world on the Black Current, only to wake up back in my animal village...
CAUTION: GORILLA MARRIAGE
BOAT PEOPLE IN THE TUB: by Carl Linkhart, 1998 or before; dream poem/painting
I'm trying to bathe, but there are Boat People in the tub!
And my inner Grandma's spying on me, behind her fan...
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
BROKEN GLASS by Nancy Price; 1948, a dream of working to death.
Helping out talking animals until I'm exhausted, I suffer a fatal accident. What am I being warned of?
BUTTERFLY HABITAT: by Wayan; 2000/3/3, a dream on the price of memory.
'You always hurt the one you love', but this girl seems unaware she's proving it's true for ecology too...
CAPITOL REEF: by Wayan; 1996/1/27. Drawn daydream of a mid-air orgy (or is it mid-water?)
News of a new national park and a science show on cleaner-fish spur a daydream of dolphins, cats and...
CAUTION: FISH ORGY; MOCKS THE ANGEL MORONI, TOO
CHANGE THE CORE PROGRAM: by Wayan; 1995/6/28, a dream of sudden progress.
I meet a tragic heroine--great heart, rotten luck. But I open her magic sword and find a bad chip...
CHEAPSHIP!: by Wayan; 1996/8/6, a nightmare on trained stinginess.
Why did I sign on as a crewman on the Cheapship, a freighter
that's falling apart? And yes, I do mean that literally...
CLEO'S REVENGE: by Wayan, 2017/1/7, a sculpture of a dream warning "Don't hide sexual attraction"
I meet Cleo from Monster High. I like her. Why, that's pedophilia! (Huh? She's AGES old.)
Once I hide my Cleophilia, ALL sexual feelings vanish! "I'm sickly & sexless." Oh. The Mummy's Curse!
CAUTION: SEX-DENIAL; NUDE CENTAUR
CORPSE-BUG: by Wayan; 1994/12/1, an allegorical sex nightmare.
I'm a hippie girl in San Francisco, in hard times. To escape the Four Horsemen, I lie down with Death...
CAUTION: GANGS, CREEPY SEX
THE COST OF ECO-REGULATIONS: by Wayan; 1997/2/14, a dream edict.
I dream an economist admits not only that eco-regs pay off, but that economic theory is faulty. Dream on!
CUTE-STUPIDS: by Wayan; 1974/1/15, nightmare-poem about a Tragedy of the Commons
Happy beer drinkers from the Now invade the Tower of the Future.
Eggheads find idiots as lovable as kittens, and just can't eject them...
CAUTION: ELITIST; DISSES TRUMPISM
DISSECTING PESSIMISM: by Wayan; 1997/4/14, a stubbornly educational nightmare .
A serial killer stalks our office, and our bosses deny it. When we defend ourselves, things turn weird...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
DOME: by Wayan; 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
(THEIR) DREAM HOUSE: by Wayan; 1986/1/1, a New Year's nightmare.
A house with a fire-ghost infestation. Worse than termites!
And the ghosts tell me it's all my fault....
EAT THE MOON: by Wayan; 2013/9/4; a weird shamanic dream-poem
Lights on the moon! Future cities shine. Gotta fix that time-slip. But in
shaman-space, the moon's a deerskull up a tree! I take it down, pocket its
jewel-city-eyes and try to stew the moon. I'm Coyote, so my cookery goes wrong...
ELBERETH PAUSES: by Wayan; 1989/6/26, a dream on postwar ethics.
After the Lord of the Rings falls, Elbereth herself is sent to heal the land. But she has a troubling neighbor...
ENGINE GENIUS: by Wayan; 2005/2/4, a health-warning dream.
At my mechanic's garage, a child prodigy rebuilds a car engine. Gawking, I nearly plow into the crowd...
ERMINE, or, GOTHMOG'S GHOST: by Wayan, 1984/2/11, a gender-bent & species-bent warning dream
I'm a delicate little ermine-chinchilla whose best friends are all sewer rats.
They push their food and drink on me, and I nibble to be polite...
THE EUCALYPTUS WARNING: by Wayan; 1993/8/6, a punning health-advice dream.
Bad puns link an ecological dream of a forest being murdered by inches, and a dental exam...
EYEBOLT: by Wayan; 2005/10/1, a squeamish advisory dream
I'm on a British train, sitting across from an attractive, stylish woman
with a massive databolt stuck in her eye--and I have to unscrew it...
FISHERGIRLS: by Wayan; 2.6M, 42 illus.; 1996/7/15; a sexy dream epic.
I had an epic dream lasting subjective weeks--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. One night,
my friends curled round me, I saw I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a 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...
2600K loads slowly? Try it in parts: 1: HOME, 650K, 2: VOYAGE, 1200K, 3: BACK 750K.
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
FOOD CAME BETWEEN US: by Wayan, 1993/4/25, an incubated epic diagnostic dream.
The terror of Navy breakfast, the joy of filterfeeding,
how to marry pudding, and a sniper lunch with kisses...
FOUR PERCEPTUAL SCREENS: by Wayan; 2018/1/24, a dream urging me to drop some armor--but not all
I dream my Doors of Perception have four layered screens to keep out mosquitoes, when one is plenty...
FOUR TABOOS: by Wayan, 2016/3/15, four dreams on inhibitions I hoped I was over.
Climbing out of Childhood Abyss, I literally get a leg up from a girl seeking the Ledge of Teens.
A shy girl has to hide she's a were-creature. Gay men make out in the witch-registry to rattle its
homophobic guardians. My sister stripteases while scolding me for a mess I didn't make...
CAUTION: DUH, SEX TABOOS! KIDS, FURS, GAYS, SIBLINGS
GRAVE: by Wayan; 1999, a poem of everyday life, if this is your everyday life.
So I looked out my window and saw this guy burying a tiny robed woman in a trench in the street...
GUIDE IN THE RUINS: by Wayan; 1996/11/20, a hopeful dream of ruin.
Through vast Soviet ruins to the modest rooms where the new Russia lives. As I fall in love with my guide...
HALF'S HARD: by Wayan; 2014/11/24, a frustration dream hiding a diagnosis and prescription
Night. Broken metal sculptures, a welder too horny to weld safely, and a steel panther longing to be whole and loved...
CAUTION: KINKY SCULPTUROPHILIA
THE HAUNTED CODE: by Wayan; 2017/6/16, a warning dream about denying history
A mail-order warehouse in Kansas sends ghost-infected software out, causing mayhem.
But less than when Kansas exported the killer flu 100 years ago...
CAUTION: DISSES KANSAS & CAPITALISM, FOR GOOD HISTORICAL REASONS
THE HEAD FACTORY: by Wayan; 2014/8/24, a dream-poem on changing your mind
I toured the factory where they make the spare heads you put on and
take off to change your mind. Nothing creepy about it, nothing at all...
HEALING THE RING: by Wayan; 1984/8/22, a nightmare on... anger?
I bear a Ring of Power meant to corrupt me. I cleansed it, at a cost, but can't wield it till I've read its spell...
HUBRIS EGGS: by Wayan; 1981/6/11, a short defiant psychic dream.
I'm wrapping my heavy-metal eggs too slowly, so the Judges sink my car! I set out to get revenge...
I BLUSH TO REPORT: by Wayan; 1986/12/11, two stupid dreams.
Two embarrassing dreams the same night: I learn why I don't have cancer and can't buy giant panties...
CAUTION: STUPID
IT STINKS: by Aleksanteri Nevalainen; 2011/8/19, an accidental dream-incubation
Can dreams have taste and smell, I wonder? That night my dreams set out to show me...
"IT WAS MY BABY": by Janie Legge; 1927/1/15, a nightmare after the flu?
I admire a baby, and talk the tired mother into washing it. I go get some
clean baby clothes and return to find she's roasting her baby in the oven...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, DENIAL
JACUZZI JAIL: by Wayan; 1979/10/12, a dream of parental poison.
My family has shackled my little sister in the dungeon
in the hot tub full of carcinogenic bubble bath...
CAUTION: INCEST FEELINGS, TOXIC PARENTING
JUMBLE by Nancy Price; 1948, a comically exaggerated predictive dream
A bewildering dream of a boy's borrowed bath, absconding renters' furniture and fly-eating turns real a few weeks later...
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 LADY BATHES IN GRIEF: by Wayan; 1983/5/31, a long-haul psychic dream.
Why'd a spirit-woman come to our reservation to mourn a drowned guy? Her mirrors & candles tell us...
LET GO THE SAFE: by Wayan; 2014/2/6; poem of a lucid flying dream
I'm pushing a safe off a roof in Berkeley so it won't be pushed off the roof
(yep, you read that right) but it pulls me with it! Either die, or go lucid and fly...
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....
MAJOR F.'S EXPERIMENT: by Major F., Nov/Dec 1920, dream experiment urged by J.W. Dunne
DREAM 1: On green grass, a red & blue boat with a net draped atop. Predictive.
DREAM 2: Climbing a ladder with square rungs in a space w/o walls. Predictive.
DREAM 3: A small boy with a toy boat. A sail's laid out flat for washing. Predictive...
MESOPOTAMIAN ARMORY: by Wayan, 2008/8/6, a shape-poem based on a dream
An ancient Mesopotamian city learned to make catapult-bombs of powdered
manure. But excessive stockpiles & bad housekeeping led to Armageddung...
CAUTION: BABEL-MYTH DEBASED
MICMAC TOWERS: by Wayan; 2010/6/12, a quietly predictive surreal dream
I dream squatters build surreal towers in a city of junk. I wake, go to a movie, and see...
MOON-STRIPED TIGER PROWLING: by Sylvia Rosen, 1975/6/29; dream poem
The foul old fossil woman had carved and burnt her own flesh in the name of art;
we washed her till she was reborn young. It was my turn next to enter the water...
MUSIC HEALS SMOG: by Wayan; 1994/4/28, a career-advice dream
The smog of Portland is so bad it hides the dream-towers! Only one thing will heal it: making music...
NO "I": by Wayan; 2003/10/22, a dream of identity loss.
I'm in San Francisco trying to throw Sauron's Ring into the Cracks of San Andreas.
But a sexy sorcerer steals my sense of I! How can you act without a self?
ODE TO SPAM: by Wayan; 2007/10/11, a poem about the wonders of email
Softly snows the spam upon my lonely brain, quilting me in flounderdrifts. Shovel it again...
PERFORATED PAPERFEED BACKWARD: by Wayan; 1984/8/27, a predictive dreamlet.
DREAM: a weird music player that you feed "tapes" made of Z-folded, perforated paper... backward.
NEXT DAY: my boss tries to fix a balky printer by feeding it Z-folded, perforated paper... backward.
PINKIE CLEANS THE WINDOWS OF PERCEPTION:
by Wayan; 2017/2/5, an advisory dream fusing Aldous Huxley & My Little Pony.
My new housemate Pinkie is a party animal, but she's really nice. She climbs a high ladder to help wash my
Windows of Perception. Then our unicorn friend Rarity walks in. She warns me to pace this renovation project...
CAUTION: PONIES
POISONED!: by Wayan; 1994/6/20, three linked diagnostic dreams.
Poison takes many forms, from attitudes to environmental by-products to actions done deliberately...
POLE OF THE EMPIRE STATE: by Wayan; 2002/3/26, a 9/11 nightmare about... suspension?
I find myself clinging to a pole as tall as the Empire State Building. Can I slide down
without falling? Or burning from friction? And... what's down there?
THE POWER OF ART: by Wayan; 2016/8/29, a dream-poem about the longtern effect of dreamwork?
At a museum, a weird art project shows me how observing and documenting life
in art can improve that life--just from being taken seriously...
THE RINGMAN'S SQUIRREL: by Wayan; 1982/9/17, a dream of a time after us.
One day, in the ruins of an American city whose name was lost, I met a Ringman under an oak...
CAUTION: GROSS WORK, IF YOU CAN GET IT
ROBOT AND UNICORN: by Wayan, 2022/11/23, a dream of building a rebellion
After too much TV, I dream I'm plotting against a regime of suave, treacherous magical beings. But
a unicorn sorceress suggests I enlist the robots. She's right--they find plutocratic thaumocracy ugly...
CAUTION: ANTI-CAPITALIST
RUBBISH: by Naguib Mahfouz; dreamed 2001? A dream of advice from the dead.
My dead friend lost patience with the local dump, so I beat the trash--and out came shining people...
SILKY CLEANS THE UNDERWORLD: by Wayan; 2023/5/26, a heartening surreal dream
I'm lost in the underworld again. Happens a lot lately. But I run into my anima Silky,
in yellow boots and a safety vest, blasting clean the walls of the land of the dead...
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...
SMOKING REX: by Wayan; 1989/3/29, a dream of unlikely alliance.
A cigar-smoking tyrannosaur moves into our neighborhood,
upsetting us bluebirds and vampire bats. So we...
SPEWING WINE: by Wayan; 1992/8/17, a Freudian-slip dream baring family dysfunction
My family moves into a damp, leaking basement. My dad just sneers at us for fussing
about the cold, the damp, the mildew, the leaks. "I'll show you REAL leaking..."
THE SPHINX WANTS CLEANING: by Thutmoses IV, c.1400 or 1405 BCE; a god's dream-bargain
Thutmoses napped in the shade under the Great Sphinx--then buried to the neck in sand.
The resident sun-god complained of the sand; "the throne is yours if you'll clear it off..."
SPIDER CRONE: by Wayan; 2019/12/20, a nightmare of helpful advice
Lost in the rainforest of Olympic National Park, I stumble into the wrong cabin:
the hut of Time herself. Or is she? She asks me to clean up, but spare her web...
SPORECOUNT: by Wayan; 1990/1/5, a dreamtale on patience through change.
I'm a hot archeology student till I open the wrong tomb. A plague
turns us into green moldy monsters--at first...
CAUTION: DISEASE, DEATH, GRIEF, SHAME
SQUIRREL GIRL: by Wayan; 1973/10/19, a dream poem of love & rockets
Squirrel Girl and I try to find a private room, but Hal the mad computer in 2001
spies on us and our spaceship captain orders us to clean the ion tubes...
CAUTION: SQUIRREL NUDITY
SQUISH!: by Farelle-Moon; early 2006, drawn 2006/4/6, a comic furry sex dream
I went to bed with a stuffed wolf, and found myself in a hot tub with a
cute wolf guy, only now I seemed to be the plush one...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY
STATUES ON ICE: by Wayan; 2021/3/12, a dream of blue politics
Weird blue snow covers a dump of unwanted historical statues, but they seem
less political than... strange. Is that a griffin? What's really getting covered here?
SULFUR GROTTO: by Wayan; dreamed 1988/8/30, a psychic genderbent rescue-dream
I'm a teenage girl diving for treasure. In an eerie coral grotto reeking of sulfur,
I spot a diver in trouble... and wake to find the grotto is real..
SUN AND MOON: by Katherine Mansfield; 1918/2/9, a dream-story
I dreamed a short story--even its title. Not that I read it. No, I lived it, through the eyes of a 5-year-old...
SUSHI CIRCUS: by Wayan; 1982/2/17, an illustrated psychic dream.
To avoid being stabbed, I flee the Psychodrama Circus. Wisely--the place explodes!
But it's the filling of the sushi roll that really upsets me...
CAUTION: CANNIBAL MAKI
TAMALPAIS: by Anna Halprin, 1979, a dream inspiring annual healing ceremonies
A murderer was stalking Mt Tam. I dreamed I met the murderous spirit; only
by allying with small dancers from inside the mountain could we defeat it...
CAUTION: NEW AGE
TAROT: DIRTY DISHES: by Wayan; Tarot card, 3x5", summer 1978.
It's time to tackle that unpleasant task. But so what? You know how. And you have gloves...
TEN THOUSAND MAD GHOSTS: by Wayan; 1996/9/3, a psychic nightmare.
A toxic site in Silicon Valley isn't a chemical spill, but angry ghosts, killed in a camp and forgotten...
CAUTION: THE CAMP TURNS OUT TO BE REAL
THINGS WASH OFF: by Wayan; 2009/4/22, a dream fingering the cause of a breakup; Dreamverse #49
Those Hollywood lovers in the tub seem perfect together, until... oh, read the title!
CAUTION: RACE- AND GENDER-BENDING
TIBETAN DISASSEMBLY: by Wayan; 2007/7/5, a dream of a desperate ploy
A woman in Tibet disassembles herself! A local god hires her spirit,
but she uses the office equipment to backup her memories and...
CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME
TIME PIRATES: by Wayan; 1979/6/6, a genderbent pirate dream about... healthcare?
I'm a modern girl facing pirates from the 17th Century Caribbean. Outgunned, but I
have something intimidating to bluff with: perfect teeth...
TIMEDOORS OF THE GODS: by Wayan; 1998/2/17, a mysterious initiatory dream.
I'm mortal, yet I'm offered a residency in the Commune of the Gods,
along with Xena the Amazon Warrior and... Little Red Riding Hood?
TRAIL OF POGS: by Wayan; 2004/9/6, my dreams' response to the first Burning Man dream-workshop
A trail toward Freedom has extra markers, for it's three trails, superimposed! Not all the cues are for us...
THE TRAIN ON TIME CAFE: by Wayan, 1981/12/20, an epic political dream.
Silicon Valley goes enthusiastically fascist. I hide in a berry patch. They build a shining world, and then...
THE UNCLEAN HAND: by Wayan; 1995/5/24, a dreamtale.
An Arabic traveler to China is shocked by toilet paper, which explains the origins of dualism. Really.
UNICORN TIMEFORKS: by Wayan; dreamed 2019/5/25, a shamanic warning dream
A man enslaves a unicorn and makes her split time, for his profit! But the timeforks
don't heal as he expected. So the unicorn takes unilateral action (sorry).
Those time-forks look like our current political war. Prepare for sharp kicks...
UNSWEPT HOUSE: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/4/1, a flying-searching-unreadiness spiritual dream
Swedenborg flies on horseback through a house seeking someone. One room's clean, lit, full of people, but
most are empty and dirty. Longing to meet God is not enough! He's only cleaned up one aspect of his life...
THE VACUUM CLEANER QUARTET: by Wayan; 1981, four bizarre poems.
All I know about humans, I learned in psychodrama. I gawked as caterpillars grew wings. Except me...
VACUUM DOG: by Laura A. Dale, 1942/12/19; a surreal nightmare labeling itself psychic
DAY: I'm an experimental subject given a drug in hopes it'll induce ESP. I just babble stupidly. Humiliation!
DREAM: my vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack my terrier & me. I flee, but there's an explosion...
TWO DAYS LATER: at the movies, a cartoon: a vacuum cleaner comes alive to attack a terrier. Then, BOOM...
CAUTION: WILL REALLY BOTHER E.S.P. SKEPTICS
THE VAT MESSIAH: by Wayan; 1985/2/27, an epic dream of magic, flight, and sex
In our cult, we lie in vats of goo till we grow wings. But we're feared more than we knew...
CAUTION: SPECIST LYNCH MOB, NUDE IN SCHOOL, LESBIAN FEELINGS, OBSCENE CARROT
THE VERIZON EXPERIMENT: by Wayan; 2014/3/31, three linked dreamlets, the last self-flagging as predictive
1: A nature spirit's physics experiment proves that time forks. But how much? How dense is the multiverse?
2: I sculpt a model of this multiverse. A physicist likes it; the nature spirit likes it more. So she swipes it...
3: A 'friend' offers refugees my bedroom, crowding me and my work into a corner. I wake. The phone rings...
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!
WATERCATS: by Wayan; 1987/9/10; an epic, clear predictive dream
I dream I find a few 'extinct' watercats--in a slum! They talk. They say I'm one of them,
brainwashed to think I'm human. I wake, go to a dinner, and hear a tale of... watercats!
WAYMO BALLOONISTS: by Wayan; 2021/7/16, a surreal predictive dream
Huge balloons labeled "Waymo" in bad Chinese are taking over San Francisco.
But the sexy balloonists seem to be more into masturbation than conquest...
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM OR OBJECTIFICATION?
WERE-COMPOSER: by Wayan; 1995/2/15, a trashy dream.
I help a brilliant, starving composer turn his family curse into a profitable business...
WITWEET WAYAN: by Wayan, 1979/1/10, a dream of butch and femme.
Six generations in the future, I find a poodle who can defuse the bomb my snotty friends can't...
CAUTION: MAD SCIENTIST, EXHIBITIONIST GIRLFRIEND, POODLE MOCKERY
THE WIZARD'S HORSE: by Wayan; 2018/9/3, a magical dream about... toxic waste?
I'm a wizard's horse, trying to warn him about a toxic spell on a roadside corpse...
Wake into a second dream, but try to return to being a dream-mare and warn my rider...
And then wake to realize my Nightmare was warning about a home-renovation project!


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