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Size Matters

Big and little in dreams--giants and dwarves, ogres and hobbits, trolls and lilliputians, basketball players and talkative microbes, hulks and pixies, argumentative stars and quantum-spooks, T. Rex and Toulouse-Lautrec... Sorry. I'm just listing to cover up that I have no CLUE what such dreams mean. No, more than that. I firmly believe they have no single meaning, and all those dream-dictionaries that claim big and little characters symbolize childhood, growth, inferiority or maturity are just empty theorizing. Context is all. Some of the characters below couldn't do what they do if they were normal-sized, while others are blocked by their size; and to others, it's irrelevant. Size often matters; but not always in the same way.

RELATED TOPICS: dreams of architecture and structure - whales - fairies - dinosaurs - mice - elephants - bugs - bullies and threats - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ACORN AND PELT: by Wayan; 1983/7/19, a simple sex dream growing to a mystical extravaganza
I fall in love, defying dwarf-tossers and Toulouse-Lautrec, till I become a time-traveling bunny...
CAUTION: SEX, SIZE DISCRIMINATION AND SLANDER
AICORN'S BANANA: by Wayan; 2016/6/13, a dream-parable on owning your tastes
An artificial intelligence acquires fans and has orgies with her groupies. Her creators
don't care as long as the advertisers get product placement. But she has this size fetish...
CAUTION: VIBRATORS
AIRACUDA: by Wayan; 2008/9/9, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #25
The jeweled fish over San Francisco grew and grew
until it landed and the crew told me the secret code...
ALAN'S OFFICE: by Wayan, 1992/4/28; , a dream advising a different therapist
I had a chronic illness doctors said was psychosomatic. So I called Alan, a therapist...
I dream I'm in his office. It's a nook in a basement. No windows, no door, no privacy.
I was so desperate I went to him for six months, while he ignored everything I said...
APOLOGETIC OGRE: by Wayan; 1990/3/1, a nightmare.
I hop on a bus in mythical Greece, and this woman's guardian angel acts racist. OK, I'm an ogre. So?
CAUTION: ANOTHER HANDGUN TRAGEDY
ARAGORN'S LIVER: by Wayan; 1983/1/29, a health-warning nightmare.
I'm a hobbit in Silicon Valley, stalking Ring-wraiths down El Camino. But one of them's stalking me...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, HYPNOTIC GASLIGHTING
BEET: Five Dreams One Night: by Wayan; 2013/10/30, Halloween dreams as minipoems
Parasites, Rambo, huge fetus-beets, an exhibitionist and a living statue advise me on my love life...
CAUTION: NUDITY
THE BIOSPHERE VARIATIONS: by Wayan; 2004-, sculpture-photo-drawing-travelog-webtours:
Tour bizarre worlds most exobiologists would dismiss as hopeless for life--and meet the natives...
CAUTION: SEXY ALIENS, WEIRD CUSTOMS, EVOLUTION
THE BIRD MARATHON: by Wayan; 1982/7/10, a comic nightmare with serious overtones.
A bizarre marathon, and the Princess is the prize. But she doesn't WANT to be, so she sets out...
CAUTION: BLOODY BIRD
BREAK THE SCRIPT: by Wayan; 1993/6/19-20, two advisory dreams
A sexy encounter with two robotic girls hopping a night train outside Portland...
CAUTION: THREESOME
BUDDHA'S FIVE DREAMS: by Siddartha, soon to be called the Buddha, c.540 BCE?
I'm gigantic, stretching from Ceylon to Tibet. Grass grows from my navel to heaven.
Worms crawl on me. Birds flock to me and change color. I climb a mountain of dung...
CAUTION: PIOUS MISINTERPRETATIONS
CAT SLASH: by Wayan, 1991/12/29, a predictive, advisory dream
I dream of four cats, small to huge, who teach me to assert my boundaries.
Next day, three inches from my nose, a tiny cat swipes at a giant dog...
CAUTION: APPARENTLY PREDICTIVE
CHINA AND AMERICA: by Alder and Wayan; 1997/9/23, telepathic dreams.
Two giants wrestle in the Chinese mountains. Who'll win, Red or Yellow? But when I wake...
CIRCUS GIRL: by Wayan; 1993/1/10, a dream of love and trouble.
I fall for a circus girl. Her brother is jealous, so all the dwarves show up with guns...
CAUTION: INCEST ISSUES
COWBOY, HORSE, CAT: by Rick Veitch, Nov 1973, an initiatory dream
A graduation parade has a papier-maché cowboy (hollow ego?), a giant
rampaging stallion (unconscious), and a mama cat who calms him (anima)...
CROCODILE KING: by Christina Rossetti; 1855/3/9, a weird dream-poem she may have faked.
On the Euphrates, a monstrous crocodile eats all his kin. But when a winged ship appears, he feigns remorse...
DESERT EYES: by Wayan; 1984/3/4, a dream of portals.
We desert-hobbits break through to a world of jungle giants who
see differently from us. Will they believe us about the UFOs?
DOCTOR OR LOVER? by Norma, as told to Gayle Delaney, 1994 or before; a therapist-inadequacy dream?
SITUATION: I was attracted to my prospective therapist. I asked my dreams what to do...
DREAM: His wife vanishes. We get in bed. I feel such love I ignore how tiny his penis is...
AFTER: In the morning, I decide I'd be wise to work with a different therapist...
CAUTION: SEX
DRAGONFLY BUS: by Wayan, 2023/3/28; four dreams on halting runaway feelings
A girl writes a whole movie to get a shy boy to hold her; I stupidly summon a monster dragonfly-bus;
a devil-suited jerk hogs a musical's stage TWICE; leeches crawl from the treasure-box I opened...
CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY, SEXUAL FEAR/GUILT
DREAM, 1927: by Marc Chagall, 1927 I guess! A flying dream
A woman rides draped over a giant rabbit
who somersaults through the night sky...
DREAM OR REALITY?: by Ben Torter, 1994?, a (subliminal? psychic?) lifesaving nightmare
I'm in a small pond. A monster goldfish stalks me. I seem trapped in place, and
wake in panic, sheets drenched--to find my pet goldfish gasping on the floor...
DREAM SHORTAGE: by Wayan; 1985/12/1, an appropriately short dream.
I meet two women in dream-prison. One's a giant, one a miniature. A fairy? She says, 'No, I'm..."
DREAMKU, SEPTEMBER 2006: by Roswila; thirty dream-haiku with various dates from 1960-2006
One dream-poem in haiku style each day for a month!
Ghosts, snow, penguins, yoga babies, elves who leave their tree...
DRUGGED, SHRUNK AND DAUBED: by Wayan; 2008/11/1, a dream-poem (Dreamverse #38)
I'm worried an alien charity is brainwashing an ex-prostitute. When I wake, she's still there--at 2/5 scale!...
EAT THE WORLD: by Ralph Waldo Emerson, between Jan 1838 & Nov 1839; a dream of surreal advice
I was floating in the Ether, not far from this world, which seemed small as an apple.
An angel took it in his hand and brought it to me and said, 'This must thou eat'...
EGGSHELL SKATEBOARDER: by John S. Dykes, Dec. 1981; a surreal dream-sketch
A monstrous empty eggshell, cracked open and roughly
propped up, makes an excellent skateboard park
ELEPHANT MAN: by "Bizekidz7"; 2011/1/11, a weird dream image.
An amicably divorcing man suddenly turns into an elephant to chase a little red demon! What's going on here?
EMBARKATION, or, THIS PORTAL COIL: by Wayan; 2013/8/28, a magical dream on dreams
A spiral pillow-path leads to an astral portal. But creatures arriving and departing
jam the same path! Squeeze by, hop over, apologize... flirt
Wait, isn't this a dream-image of death & letting go? Then why's it look so fun?
ERODE THE MUTING CURSE: by Wayan, 2014/8/23, a dream of... health advice?
The Fairy Queen curses me, taking away my language. Recovery often takes years,
but I practice hard, and speak full sentences--the next day. The Queen is slipping...
FAIRY URGES A WORKTABLE: by Wayan; 2009/7/15, an advice-dream wiser than it seemed
I find a long, narrow table. I have a table, but a fairy friend
perches on this one and urges "Take it home! You'll do better art!"
FALL AT THE RIGHT SIZE: by Wayan; 2018/7/14, a dream shape-poem on a lifesaving indecision.
I fall off a tower, but I can change size. Tiny things fall slower, but they also tempt the local falcons!
Be big & hit hard, or tiny & be eaten? There's a third choice, but I sorta fell into it...
FEVER DREAM ON THE EVE OF ILLNESS: by Joyce Carol Oates, 1979/12/24? a nightmare of self as skyscraper
My body is a residential tower sheltering centipedes, basilisks, dragonflies, bagworms,
skeletal cranes; without my blood's heat and the moist caverns of my soul they would die...
FISH INTO SNAKE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1994/11/4; a dream painting
I'm talking to a friend while waiting in line, when a huge fish appears. It turns into an equally huge snake...
FLY & ULTRASOUND: by Wayan, 1987/9/4, a surreal dream on chucking out experts
THAT DAY: I test my hearing range; it turns out to be more dog than human...
DREAM: To banish a teacher & her giant fly, I summon a musical goddess...
FLYING, FIGHTING, LOVE: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/4/23, a dream of... oh, guess!
Swedenborg fights a flying woman over a lake, then is in bed with another. After some
language and privacy problems, all goes so well he thinks they've made a child...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, SEX
FOUR-EYED BABY: by Xanthe; 1989?, a Jungian dream
I met some little hunchbacks in the woods who showed me a newborn baby growing from the moss...
GERMAN AT THE DOOR: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2009/7/19; painting in the Box of Dreams
A hulking, intimidating young man is at my door, with two scary dogs. Wait, is that Carl Jung?...
THE GIANT: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a dreamlet on rage about... what?
At a beach, a man attacks the genitals, buttocks and thighs of a giant who sits half in the surf, ignoring him...
CAUTION: NUDITY, MUTILATION ATTEMPTS
GIANT'S HANDS: by Wayan; dreamed 1981/12/23, a split-consciousness nightmare
I was a giant carefully & guiltlessly flattening San Francisco--just following orders
to recycle it! Killing how many? While my mind inside the giant's mind was appalled...
THE GIANTESS OF THVERA: by Viga-Glum Eijolfsson; early 940s?, a very public clairvoyant dream.
Viga-Glum dreamt a giantess came to visit. "She is the spirit-guide of my grandfather in Norway. He is dead...
GODEVILLE: by Wayan; 2013/9/1, a nightmare of that Old-Time Religion
I'm at a vaudeville for gods. Cthulhu the squid-god nearly tramples me--and then gets horny...
CAUTION: GROSS GOD, GROSS GOO
GRIMOIRE AND PACT: by Wayan, 2013/8/4, twin dreams of infestations of... health? illness? sex? magic?
Two sisters want to lick me all over, but they lick everything; weird gut-fauna make them immune to toxins...
Fairy eggs infest my home--become worms, then tiny horses, then mothwinged hobbits, then adult fairies....
CAUTION: NUDE EQUINES & FAE; PARASITES (OR SYMBIOTES?)
GROTTO OF BREASTS: by Gary Snyder, 1965/7/3, a bizarre High Sierra dream
In Europe, I enter a cave-shrine. Rock walls with... breasts! I suck one. It gives milk. A plaque says...
CAUTION: WEIRD
GYRLFALCON: by Wayan; 1971/11/26, a genderbent, speciesbent & predictive dream
I'm a Gyrlfalcon in a theater, fighting the Wolverine and his Morlocks with my lover the Green Lion...
A HANDELIAN CONCERT by Samuel Butler, 1890s?; an orchestral blowout dream
Glaciers feed a mountain lake; dust blows over a pass. Then I realize the ice is the robes
of a great choir; the dust, thousands of musicians filling the cirque, singing, playing...
HANDSHAKE: by John S. Dykes, before 1986; a surreal dream-sketch
People ride inside two levitating arms that shake hands
above a desert. Do the insiders know what the deal is?
HARRY AND THE HORCRUX: by J.K. Rowling; mid-December 2006, a dream of creative ferment
People have asked me if I ever dream that I am 'in' Harry's world. The answer was 'no' until a few nights ago...
HAWKING COUNTRY: by Wayan; 1994/2/3, a quantum-level dream.
I read Stephen Hawking, and dream I'm in the Quantum Desert, full of bridges, holes & loops--
like the microstructure of spacetime. But it's not counter-intuitive at all--it's HOME!
HIS MINE: by Wayan; 1985/12/2, an epic Wild West dream
I'm a hobbit seeking Henry Fonda's haunted gold mine. And find it. Or is that chocolate?
But then I'm caught in a shamanic showdown in a bar where they serve real spirits...
HOBBIT ERUPTIONS: by Wayan, 1990/12/31, a counterfictional dream poem
I contemplate Bilbo taunting Smaug, then Frodo, Sam and Gollum triggering Mt Doom to erupt,
but next I "remember" other fiery catastrophes and "realize" hobbits are always causing...
A HOBBIT IN L.A.: by Wayan; 1990/1/8, a dream on wishes.
I'm a hobbit woman in Los Angeles, hiding a magic weapon
from Sauron. No, not THAT weapon. The wishing-bucket...
HOBBIT SNIPER: by Wayan; 1998/10/13, a dream on strategy.
I'm a sniper in a desert battle of men against hobbits. Guilty for not fighting openly, but that'd be suicidal...
CAUTION: MATH AND WAR
THE HOMONKEYLUS: by Wayan; 1992/6/15, a looping dream about blinders.
A smiling beauty queen on a float gives birth to a monkey with blinders, then re-absorbs the baby, then...
CAUTION: NUDITY AND ODDITY
HOOD: by Wayan; 1993/5/11 & 5/15, a recurring dream of a... woman? dinosaur? cape? spirit?
An alien-heron-dino-woman left us her cape--or is it a cast-off skin? I put it on, for I was told I need
the hood to ward off some evil. My human head won't fit the narrow hood. But the owner's manual
says I don't need a shield, I'm immune! So skip the hood; wear the cape as a minidress...
A HUNDRED-FOOT BEAGLE: by Wayan; 2002/3/22, an identity- and gender-bent dreamlet
I'm my friend Dawn, at a convention for my job. But I get insulted. I walk
out. Lost in endless parking lots, by a dumpster, I make a bizarre wish...
CAUTION: APPARENT TELEPATHY
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
I DREAM OF... ME: by Linda Medley; 1990 or 91, a dream-comic, the seed of Castle Waiting
I wake in a hobbit-hole. My love looks worried. What's wrong with me? A badger
takes me to see wizard Sean Connery, who gives me feathers to eat, and I become...
IGNORABLE DRAGON: by Wayan; 2019/4/13; a dream of brain-unwashing
Out my window, a dog is fighting a snake. A dog with bat wings. A dog big as a horse.
A griffin! Big as a bus now. A dragon! What spell made me mistake THAT for a dog?...
IMPOSSIBLE SHIPS: by Wayan; winter 1966?, a child's lucid-prompting dream; & longterm prediction
The fog parts. A huge ship's on San Francisco Bay. Impossible--half a mile long! I must be dreaming.
But half a century later...
IN THE STAR; 1988/9/12 by Wayan; an epic, out-of-body, intrastellar quest-dream
I tour the heart of a red supergiant, where dreaming souls explore
their fears and heart's desires, unconstrained by solid matter...
CAUTION: SWEDENBORGIAN VISION, UNICORN NUDITY
JELLY REBELLION: by Wayan; 2008/8/19, a poem of a diagnostic dream, Dreamverse #9
I interview my own metabolism. Trouble in Cellville! I've got strikers and usurpers. But at least no invaders...
JESUS HEADS: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, punning dreamlets of giant... mugs
In a museum I see huge Jesus heads with inset saints and figures in pain;
then, in our old back yard, huge coffee cups half-sunk in the grass...
KING KONG CRAB: by Wayan; 2008/9/20, a dream poem; Dreamverse #29
One wizardry-classmate summons strange beings; another's learned how not to.
Because some things need to be dealt with alone, where they can't harm......
KITTY WANTS TO DIE: by Wayan; 1981/11/9, a nightmare baring a side of me ready to DIE to avoid stuff
Kitty, exhausted, stops fighting what's inside her, and lets herself die.
Crystalline alien worms burst out, growing till they loom over the spaceport...
CAUTION: ADDICTION ROOTED IN AVOIDANCE
LAPUTANS LECTURE BROBDINGNAG: by Wayan; 2014/10/1; a dream defying the patronizing 'conscious'
We ride on a flying saucer made of stone. Atop the great cliffs, we meet a giant and
warn him not to slip. He doesn't appreciate advice from little alien tourist twerps...
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...
LIZARD OR WIZARD? Or, ARACHNOLYPSE by Wayan, 2021/2/10; a cynical magical dream
An idiot wizard lures car-sized spiders into town. I find a spellbook that repels them, but have to hide it
so my community college professors, Gandalf & Saruman, don't take it. For I'm no wizard, just a lizard...
CAUTION: HUGE SPIDERS, HUGE SELLOUTS
LOVE IS REAL, REAL IS LOVE, BUT...: by Wayan; 1993/5/30, a musical mystery dream.
Singing a Lennon love song on a planet of giant women provokes first wonder, then disbelief. Why?
LURK: by Wayan; digital collage of a year's dreaming, 1995/3/5.
There's power in dark memories--creatures of the deep strata. But the flowers of now are just as real...
MAGICAL LIGHT: by Wayan; 1985/10/8, a dream on micromania
Linda Evans of Dynasty survives a shapeshifters' war, though her mansion's wrecked.
She meets a caped superhero--and superdog, and supercat, squirrel, hamster, mouse!
These micro-heroes make me see I too have been minimizing my own bravery...
MARRY MY SHADOW: by Ann Faraday, c.1972, recurrent nightmares ending in a wedding
In nightmares I was stalked by a big ugly bruiser. At last, I faced him, asking "What do you want?"
He asked for my hand. His animal energy attracted me, and despite my doubts I said yes...
MCKILLIP'S NEW BOOK: by Wayan; 2010/7/23, an epic literary dream
I'm inside a magical novel by Patricia McKillip, amid tricksters, cosplayers, spooks, sex changes, levitation and (sigh) cops...
CAUTION: COYOTE SEX
MEGALITHIC BREAKOUT: by Wayan, 2019/8/29; a half-lucid dream that needed to be
I'm a kid imprisoned in an empty stone castle. Squeeze through a stone slit, and prepare to drop ten feet
down the face of a great stone gate. But I go lucid, and my dream and waking body-senses conflict...
MIRYAM'S THEFT: by Wayan; 1996/9/24, a psychic dream on being used
I'm a ghost dwarf in love with a Lady trapped in a magic Arabian castle. But our love is being used...
CAUTION: SEX, BETRAYAL, SACRILEGE
MONSTERS FROM MY SOUP: by Cyberwebspace; 2010/9/30, a stubborn nightmare
How'd that spider, dragon and T. rex get in my soup? I skip lunch.
Dig in the garden, but scaly heads pop out to nip at me. Persistent!
MOSQUITO: by Kelly McCracken, 1994?, a dream of... bloodsuckers?
At first it's Michael J. Fox flirting with me, and I'm not excited, he's kind of a loser. Then it all changes,
and he's a monster mosquito humping me, and I hear someone saying "Do me, do me." Him? Or me?
CAUTION: SUBTITLED "THE UNSEXIEST SEX DREAM EVER"
MOTH GIRL SIPS EARTHFLOWER: by Wayan; 1982, sketch of a daydream.
The bud she sits on is the moon...
MOTH TRAPS: by Wayan; 1980/1/11, a dream on getting stuck
The Agile Beasts build traps to catch Moth Monsters, but Moths may build traps for Beasts...
I wake & wonder--could the theater group where I feel subtly unwelcome be the trap?
MOUNTING PROBLEMS: by Wayan, 2021/5/22; an anti-Freudian punning math dream.
I'm a giant wolf with a human girlfriend. A formula says I must shrink until my paws are 128 times
the volume of her feet. But I'll still be way too big for sex! Eight seems more like the right volume...
CAUTION: HORNY WOLF, MATH, CLIMACTIC PUN
THE MOUSE BANNER: by Wayan; 1986/9/4, a dream fable.
I'm a mouse with a protest banner saying "FREEDOM!", having a slight argument with a cat...
THE MUSICAL AMOEBA, by Hermester Barrington, spring 1979, a predictive musical dream
I'm hiking through the Catskills when a gigantic amoeba comes slipping over the hills...
NIGHTMARE QUARTET: by Hans Rickheit; before May 1991, four Dada nightmares
Ow! My body parts grow & shrink... A mad orchestra leader pulverizes me for nonconformity...
The Brady Bunch crams siblings into a waterpipe one by one. I'm next! My bones crunch...
I'm blindfolded, perched on a miles-high needle piercing my big toe. Blood drips down...
CAUTION: GLEEFULLY GROSS
NUCLEAR NIGHTMARES: by Erica DeMane, Michael, Joanne and Scott; c.1984, four creepy dreams
Erica dreams that during a protest she's caught in a radioactive flood...
Michael dreams a nuclear forcefield makes his fingertips explode and congeal into weird knobs...
Joanne dreams she meets nuclear mutants with curling black nails great for peeling potatoes...
Scott dreams the world goes silent and white, bleaching out. His hands dissolve...
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...
ODESSA STEPS: by Wayan; 2022/3/18, a predictive dream? I hope!
A man's stalking me and my friends. We try to escape but a circus is in the way.
My friends shrink to babies, so I pop them in a stroller and flee over steep hills,
bouncing down stone stairs! "OW!" the babies howl! Hey... why do I feel deja vu?
CAUTION: INTERPRETATION INSULTS BOTH RUSSIA AND NATO
ORACULAR RAVENS: by Wayan; 2023/1/24, a genderbent, predictive/synchronistic dream
DAY: I see Avatar: the Way of Water. Two films in one: Blue Lagoon alternates with Mad Max...
DREAM: As an oracle, I have to go topless so the magic mini-ravens can perch on my nipples...
CAUTION: BRR, OW!, BREASTS, and SNIPING AT JAMES CAMERON
AN OUTGROWN BED: by Wayan; 1990/10/14, a dream of growth and time.
I'm a girl in a Catholic school. But a magazine and my too-small bed combine to change my life...
CAUTION: MASTURBATION, QUEER-POSITIVE, CHRISTIAN-NEGATIVE
THE PAINT KIDS: by Wayan; 1996/11/23, an apparent predictive dream.
Two child artists mail themselves to me in their paint kit, and
start a painting orgy that gets messy in more ways than one...
CAUTION: PEDOPHILIA, OR MAYBE PEDOPHOBIA
PALAIS IDÉAL: by Ferdinand Cheval; dreamed 1864, built 1879-1912, a life-defining dream
I dreamed I built a palace, but for fifteen years I kept silent, ashamed. Then
I tripped over a beautiful stone. I took it home. Next day I collected more...
THE PEN: by Elector Frederick of Saxony; 1517/10/30, a predictive political dream.
Frederick dreams a monk writes words on the door of Wittenburg’s church
with a pen so big it pokes the Pope. The next day...
I DREAMED MY PILLS WERE TAKING ME: by Wayan; 2004/3/13, a dirty lie.
A dream that'd explain why I quit taking Western medicines--
(and why haven't you?) Only I didn't dream it. Just lived it.
PIXY CONCUSSION: by Wayan; 2006/3/11, a diagnostic sex-dream comic, 9 p. (or illus. text)
Janet's obsessed with a creepy guy till her pixy friend Kay decides to "knock some sense into her cunt"--literally...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, NASTY LOVE SPELL, PIXIE NUDITY
THE PLANTER OF SEEDS: by Victoria Goro-Rapoport, 2011, print based on recurring dreams
I often dream I'm lost in a strange city, wandering the unfamiliar streets
in search of something unknown, and possibly unknowable...
PRINCESS LILY: by Dou Xun, as told by Pu Songling; before 1679: recurring psychic dreams, or fiction?
Dou dreams he marries Lily; when a monstrous snake attacks her huge family, he reluctantly hosts
them all... when he wakes, they turn out to be bees driven from their hive by a (very real) snake...
QUADRUPLE WEDDING: by Wayan; 1995/5/15, a unifying dream.
Day: Why did I get sick from figure-sketching? Guilt?
Dream: I'm at a group wedding; shall I wed a dwarf, a feral boy or a horse?
QUEEN KONG: by Wayan; 1986/3/17, a surreal dream of nerd defiance
A giantess strides across the desert. The Great White Hunter fires his elephant gun,
but the books she's made of stop his bullets. I think I'll join the Queen Kong Library...
RADIATE SORROW: by Wayan; 1980s, a daydream poem.
The rest of us heavenly bodies have each other, but from the Sun's viewpoint, we're just rubble. Alone...
THE RAINBOW SLEEPER: by Wayan; 2000/9/20, sculpture of a dream about a mega-sculpture
In Rainbow Food Co-op, a huge statue of a sleeping woman emerged from the floor, shedding shoppers...
RAVEN'S MIRROR: by Wayan, 2022/8/15, a surreal shamanic dreamlet
A raven summons a levitating mirror that shows her face as a human, and
tries out moods & expressions based on Tarot cards plucked from a tree...
RETARDED STARS, by Wayan, 2009/2/28; a dream-poem, Dreamverse #42
A horde of demented dwarves invades Market Street, jumping up & down, shaking the skyscrapers...
ROBINSON JEFFERS AS A SHAMAN: by Wayan; 1996/7/28, a life-review, with 2016/10/22 followup
Jeffers, that harsh, visionary, ecological poet, seems drunk on Darwinism,
blind to kindness--or is he just reporting Big Sur's true, mean spirit(s)?
CAUTION: LITERARY AND MYSTICAL
RORAIMA JUMP: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/9/18, a surreal dream of deadly outrage
I'm a Brazilian in the Olympic waterfall-jumping finals. The Russian & American cheat--threaten my family.
I snap! Fight recklessly, knocking them off their ropes. We all tumble down the cliff...
CAUTION: BULLYING, VIOLENT REVENGE
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 fallout from slavery...
CAUTION: SEX, ABUSE ISSUES
SCATTERED TROVE: by Wayan; 2008/5/15; an esthetic-advisory dreamlet
I find little cards all over town, each with a check for $512. A fragmented treasure!
I wake and see the 512 implies a digital treasure-trove, and search my computer...
SCULPTING WITH NEIL GAIMAN: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a complex predictive dream
I take my friend Neil Gaiman to a park where we sculpt a giant horned head. Months later
we collaborate on a graphic novel. The course of the project's full of echoes from the dream...
THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY: by Wayan; 1989/7/8, a comic nightmare, possibly telepathic.
My sisters get bored with the game of power, so I watch TV--
until it melts, and a terrifying giant rises to chases me...
SHARK, SHARK, SHARK!: by Thomas Madden; 2017/12/3, a non-nightmare about fear
I'm in a crowd as a man lectures about sharks. He points at me and asks "Shall I throw him in with...?"
THE SHRINKING POPE: by Sorcha; 2005/4/1, a Jane Bond dream
I’m the only one who can stop the plot to kill the Pope--but if he keeps shrinking like that, will it matter?
CAUTION: RECOVERING CATHOLIC
SHROPSHIRE: by Wayan; 1985/1/6, a predictive warning dream
DREAM: chased by a sniper, I trick him into blowing himself up. Then, in the Watchtower,
I know every name & address in Shropshire, but must hide them till all the snipers are caught...
NEXT DAY: at work I run across a book with every name and address in 17th-century Shropshire...
CAUTION: FATAL EXPLOSION
SLEIPNIR: by Wayan; 1987/3/31, a dumb physics dream.
I'm at a physics conference. A new force has been discovered that may just
allow travel faster than light. Strange, how'd the Vikings know?...
THE SPHINX APPROVES: by Wayan; 1991/5/2, a dreamtale on growth.
A great war shrinks to wrestling, then hopping from page to page! Once they were worlds to me, but now...
STORM OF HUGE RAINDROPS: by Albrecht Dürer; 1525/5/30, watercolor of a size-nightmare
The first drop struck about four miles away, with terrific force and thunder, breaking and drowning the land...
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..
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
TELEPATH COUNTRY: by Wayan, 2010/5/25; a weird dream image heralding drastic change
I'm on the border of human territory. Beyond is the land of the unnerving
Telepaths, each one different but every one creepy...
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...
THIEU, I'M SORRY: by Wayan, 1997/11/1, a troubling dreamtale.
Visiting Time City, I witness the "suicide" of a woman named Thieu but suspect it was really assassination...
CAUTION: SUICIDE? MURDER?
THE THING ABOUT DREAMS: by Julia Wertz, a dream autobiography, 1980-2010
As a kid, my nightmares were of Sesame Street characters. In my teens I graduated to
slasher nightmares and recurring lucid dreams. Alcohol trashed my dreams for years, but
now they're not nightmares--just surreal. Hitler wrecks my sex life! What a spoilsport...
CAUTION: (MOSTLY FRUSTRATED) SEX
THREE DREAMS & A COINCIDENCE: by Rick Veitch, c.1996, predictive shamanic dreams
Three dreams set on Abenaki holy ground, of weird shamans--one ashen, one pumpkin-headed, the
third goofy-faced--lead me to visit the site. Where I find the river's washed up that third shaman's face...
CAUTION: WILL BOTHER E.S.P. SKEPTICS
TIE MARK UP: by Wayan, 2019/2/1, three dreams warning lifelong habits demand serious change
1: Crystal-skulled wizards, dino & lionfolk parade by. 2: I curl up with three skittish beasts. Patience!
3: My friend Mark tries to rape me. I tie him up, seek a restraining order. Will the cops believe me?
CAUTION: RAPE ATTEMPT
TOADFISH TOWERS: by Wayan; 1992/8/6, a psychic little dreamtale.
I'm in Houston, gawking at giant starfishy towers looming through the smog. Their shapes are familiar...
TSUNAMI: by Wayan; 2011/12/31, a feverdream, maybe predictive, definitely prescriptive
I cling alone to the cliffs of Lands End, so when the tsunami hits,
I survive. Had I been in the low, crowded Sunset district I'd be dead...
UNCERTAIN HORIZON: by Cécile Brun; 2014/11/20, a dream-comic of a sea serpent
My partner and I were hunting for spirits with a camera designed to photograph them. Warned
away from the Niigata waterfront, we try to catch a bus out. But what comes isn't the bus...
AN UNDERCOVER TROLL: by Wayan; 1994/7/6, a dream of personal growth taken too far...
Disguised as a literary troll, I spy on the Neo-Nazis, but my disguise
can't last much longer: I ate a magical herb, and I'm growing...
A VISION: by Denise Levertov, 1965 or '66, a poem from hypnogogic vision? daydream?
Two archangels meet; one red and gold winged, one blue and green. In heaven, form reveals
worldview. Yet these two souls in dispute are great; rather than fight they appreciate...
VOR: by Wayan; 1984/3/27, an indescribable dream
Am I King Kong? No, it's a city of midgets! I leave and find I'm gay. Gay bugs come out of the closet too,
storming the fundamentalist flies of Heaven. And then Vor, the purple alien, does something peculiar...
CAUTION: LOOKS DOWN ON HOMOPHOBIC MIDGETS
WALDROP'S SUMMONED: by Wayan; 1994/2/2, a dream on spiritual callings.
I'm in Middle Earth, interviewing dwarves and hobbits
who've experienced a phenomenon called Summoning...
WELLS'S QUEST: by Wayan; 1992/7/14, a benevolent dream.
I'm on a world inhabited by hobbits when H.G. Wells shows up, looking for a Ring of Power...
WERTZ!: by Wayan; 2023/10/14, a night of cartoonist-inspired dreams
After seeing Julia Wertz's cartoon history of her entire dreamlife (on one big page!) I dream
Wertz style all night! I don't mind the nightmares--what gets me down is comics' black & white...
CAUTION: NIGHTMARES, SEX
WHAT LIES BENEATH: by Susan Vasiljevic; undated, 2012? 13?, a feminist nightmare-painting
A male real estate agent knocked on the door. The house was full of sleeping crocodiles.
She fled through the house, trying not to rouse the attention of either sort of predator...
THE WHITE SNAKE: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1998/4/1, a dream painting
DAY: we're preparing for a trip to Malta to see ancient sites.
DREAM: Hiking, I discover a gigantic white snake. It feels like a good omen...
WIDE FACE: by Wayan; 1992/8/13, digital sketch of hypnogogic image.
A portrait of Snow White's eighth dwarf, the one Disney had to leave out...
WINTER SNAIL: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1994/1/22, twin dreams of renewal fuse in a painting
At the beach, a barrel of huge snails somehow heal my legs.
In the next dream, back on the beach, I give birth to our son...
WOLF DROOL: by Wayan; 2011/12/16, a seeming sex dream that's really health advice!
Miniaturized, smuggled over a border inside a she-wolf's mouth, I long
for where I got briefly hidden--her labia. But healing first, sex later!
CAUTION: FURRY SMUT; WEIRD SCIENCE (BUT REAL!)
WORLDSTONES: dreamed fall 1895 & Aug 1898 by Mark Twain, & 2002/6/27 by Robert Moss
Mark Twain dreams we're cells inside God, and writes of Huck Finn among the microbes.
A century later, unaware of Twain's dreams, Robert Moss...
YELLOW CRANE: by Na Liu; spring 1976, a recurrent childhood flying dream.
Each spring my mom took us up to Yellow Crane Tower.
One night I dreamed I rode the crane over the city of Wuhan...
YOU REALLY AREN'T LUNCH; 2012/6/11 by Maia Spencer; a cledonic dream of facing fears
Hiding in the woods I meet a Cyclops. But I'm not me, I'm the editor of the World Dream Bank...
YOUR TURN: by Julian Green; 1933/10/18, a surreal but fair-minded dream.
I was nineteen again, riding my horse down a bad road in Virginia. After three hours, my horse spoke up...


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