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Surrealism

Surreal dream imagery--eruptions of strangeness into a known world: discrepancies of scale, or time, or context. The surrealist movement accorded such dreams a place of great importance, but rather than learn dream's own language, they were more interested in the mystery and strangeness for its own sake--and for its power to jar middle-class minds. To me, their taste for dreams looks a bit like the Romantics' taste for Gothic madness, wilderness and ruins, when (or because!) their bourgeois contemporaries extolled good sense and geometric gardens.

The surrealists' favorite technique, collage, with its weird juxtapositions, sometimes poetic, sometimes creepy, often bewildering, resembles two types of dream: hynogogic images (the vivid, plotless jumbles many people see when falling asleep or waking), and also the disjunctive, bizarre, unsettling REM dreams I call surf-dreams, for they resemble a chaotic surf-zone between our world and the dream-sea. That may sound to many readers like a description of all dreams, but it isn't; experienced dreamworkers often have coherent dreams of other lives, other worlds--as if they've swum out to the sea beyond the surf zone, and found stable islands in that sea: other phenomenal worlds as real as ours. In my own dreamwork (and this site) I focused more on those stabler shamanic dreams than on hypnogogic or surf-dreams. Still, I admit that seething borderzone where worlds collide does have power, especially in opening rigid minds... and now and then, there's splendor in the clash.

RELATED TOPICS: hypnogogic images - dreamwork in general - lucid dreams - transformations - I'm Just Not Myself Today! - weird dream beings - other worlds - 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.


AFTER A LONG ILLNESS: by Nicholas Christopher; summer 1990?, a dream poem
After I flew from New York to Hawaii, a surreal dream of a floating man reeled in like a kite...
AFTER THE FLOOD & THE PIG-EARED BABY ALLIGATOR: by Skiznot; c.1995, an oracular dream
My hometown floods. I swim after some strange fish and find
a scientific community where a scaled baby tells me who I am...
THE AIR BURUNDI PAINTINGS: by Wayan; 7 illus., 2007/1/20, a dream of art & courage
Weird paintings cover a hill town in Africa, demanding I paint them when I wake.
Paintings on courage, flight... and defying tradition.
ANIMANGEL: by Wayan, 1983/10/1-2010/7/22! An ink portrait-poem of my clashing guardian angels
My loud, spiky, tailed angel of change and potential, and
my calm, skeptical devil of gradualism--a star-nosed mole...
BABY, I'LL BLOW YOUR MIND: by Wayan; 1995/3/21, a surreal nightmare
Allied submarines attack the giant Nazi toddler who's hunting us with sonar, occupying my playroom...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE AND GUILT
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
BILLIE: by Billie's Mom; 1945/1/20, a psychic warning dream
My son Billie, his Navy uniform soaking wet, cried "Oh, Mom--it's so terrible!"
and shrank into a baby again as I held him...
CAUTION: EXPLOSION
BIRTH STAMPS: by Anonymous #50; late 1993? a feminist dreamlet
Someone is giving birth, and we're panicky. Fortunately, the Postal Service has
issued stamps with helpful advice like "Stay Calm" and "Boil Water"...
THE BLACK STREAM: by A.W. Fyson Calder; before Aug. 1928, 1931/12/28, & 1938: 3 predictive dreams
I looked into a narrow stream that was quite clear yet inky black. It made no sense at the time...
BLUE HOLES: Wayan; 1958 or early 59. Visionary sculpture by 4-year-old.
This was my first sculpture. I was around four. The rest of the preschool class made bunnies and snowmen.
But I'd been peeking at Isamu Noguchi and Henry Moore in my mom's art books, so...
BOBCAT: by Anonymous #44; 1996?; a surreal diving dream
Scuba diving, we find Atlantis. Beautiful Greek statues. But some kid painted a baseball in
Aphrodite's hand. And the bobcat diving with us has been holding its breath for an hour...
BOSCHTON BEINGS: by Wayan; 11x14" ink drawing, 1983/6/26, surreal nondream tribute to Bosch
This picture does not actually contain any authentic boston beans, just Hieronymus Boschton b...
BRIDGE, MOON, PROFESSOR, SHOES: by Dorothea Tanning; 2003? Poem of a flying dream
The moon invites me to go flying, but I get tired of magic and just want to go shopping...
BUGS AND ROOSEVELT: by Wayan; 1982/5/2, a wild predictive dream illustrated as an epic poem
I'm Bugs Bunny. I torment Daffy Duck till I learn that in many time-branches the New
Deal happened late... or never. I decide to prod a reluctant Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
CAUTION: FIRESIDE PETTING, DUCK TORTURE, BAD POLITICS
BUT, THEN LIFE BITES: by Wayan; 1983/2/13, a surreal (but nondream) feltpen sketch
After seeing Picasso's massive cubist women running on a beach, I found myself drawing
a lighter version--except she (I) waved this bitter banner. But then I was ill at the time...
CAKE HORSE: by Colleen D. McManus, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a surreal warning dream?
The cake horse resented my taking one slice out of him; but he let me.
No second slice, though! He just laughed at me--through his bad teeth...
CAPRICES: by Wayan; 2006-, a trio of nondream variant Earths:
Land is sea, sea is land: that's a lotta land!
Seas siphoned off by alien chefs. A lotta different land!
High is low, low is high, abysses are land. Surprisingly sparing land...
CELLO CASE: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, an odd dream image
I was going to music camp, but I didn't know how to play my cello.
A teenager and her mother slept like vampires in her giant cello case...
CHE FANNO GLI INGLESI?: by William Archer; 1917/7/30, a senseless dream.
To help the King of Italy, I become a baker in Baluchistan--
learning Norwegian, levitating, meeting quaggas, riding landslides...
CLOWN: by Naguib Mahfouz; early 1995?, a surreal dream.
My town transforms into a circus--trapeze artists, elephants, clowns. At first I loved it, but when I went home...
COCKEREL: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1846, a comic transformation dream
I meet King Louis-Philippe, but as I recall his symbol, the cockerel, he transforms to suit.
Now he cannot read the letter presented to him, so it becomes a basket of bird-seed...
CORNER TORSO: by Wayan; 1996/9/18 to 1998/7/21; a surreal nondream sculpture.
A surreal statue of a naked body spilling out of the wall as if someone's caught between dimensions...
CAUTION: NUDITY
COUNTERPOINT: by Susan Vasiljevic; 2011, a surreal dream painting
I find myself in a church-like setting. Above me, couples in 18th century dress dance joyfully.
It provides a wonderful, ‘curious’ moment to pause and reflect... before my journey must continue.
CRAG: by Wayan; 1999/12/9; 12" sculpture of a daydream.
Who sculpts landscape? So I tried a crag with a pool in a hollow on its knee, windows like red eyes...
CRAZY EGG: by a Colorado convalescent; pre-1961, a small predictive dream dismissed as absurd or symbolic
My grandma came in from gathering eggs and showed me one was triple-sized and very long...
A CREATURE: by Albert Grass, 1938? Or Zoe Beloff, c.2008? An early Freudian dream-comic--or a hoax!
Dream: wild animals race across Paris, but in my hotel lobby, a small creature on my shoulder murmurs "Je t'aime."
Awake, I know those racers from the themepark where I work. But the creature takes me way back--to Paris, 1918...
CAUTION: ONE-NIGHT STAND
CUTTLEBONE: by Wayan; 1999, sculpture, 7", plaster/acrylic; a nondream improv.
If you can't tell what it is from the thumbnail, cheer up. It's indescribable full-size, too.
DALI CENTAUR: by Wayan; 1981/12/12; a surrealist nightmare.
I dreamed I saw what looked like an ink sketch by Dali of a horse--but I was dead wrong...
CAUTION: YUCK
DAPHNE THINKS: by Wayan, 2007/6/10, a dream warning of (two?) unacknowledged needs
My co-worker Daphne is snappish and stressed. She meditates, seeking the cause,
and becomes a half-newt-half-koi in a giant fishbowl. Up shambles a curious AI...
THE DAYS WHEN WOMEN WERE BEING HURT: by Anonymous #40, 1996?, a surreal dream
I was big as the world, so whole cars fit in my vagina. But men were selling women
to supermarkets, to be cooked & resold. So I crossed the Atlantic sea-floor on foot...
CAUTION: CAR SEX. NO, NOT SEX IN CARS...
DEAD OR ALIVE? by Nancy Price; 1948, a surreal, poetic dream from the borderzone
Troutmet the moon-pigeon, Burtra the blackbird, a talking acacia,
my dead father and my dead gardener all give me afterlife-advice...
DOCTOR WHO AND DEATH: by Wayan; 1984/6/30, a hopeful dream of betrayal.
Dr Who, that lovable BBC alien, grows a sappy flower-face and
allies with Death. An alarming turn-around! What's he up to?
CAUTION: GOOD DOCTOR GOES BAD?
DOG IN A CASSOCK: by Wayan, 1972/2/3, a comically surreal dream-poem
A master criminal is tracked down by a hound in a monk's robe
who's introduced to me as... the President of the United States?
DOPP: by Wayan; 1988/11/5, a predictive dream
DREAM: On a farm, I meet two sexy shapeshifting sisters. But mushroom clouds rise on the horizon...
NEXT DAY: at SF-MOMA, Susan Marie Dopp's paintings: shapeshifting sisters, mushroom clouds...
CAUTION: NUDITY; ESP
THE DOUBLE: by Julie Doucet; Nov. 1992, a lucid alter-ego sex dream.
Looking in a mirror, Julie goes lucid. She changes herself into a man
and pulls her mirror-image through the glass...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
DREAM OF ABYSSES: by Marie-Claude Girondé, spring 2007, a dream-drawing.
Girondé dreams she's floating through the oceanic abyss...
DREAMSIGNS: by Joseph Kemeny, 2011?, painting of lucidity prompts
This dreamer is starting to notice certain subtle signs that all
is not normal and this may be a dream. Well, not that subtle...
DRINK THE DOVE: by Myoe Shonin; c.1202/9/11, a pre-Surrealist surreal dream
The sparrow died in the ashes, but the dove in my hands became a blue cloud.
I drank it, thinking "This will benefit us all"...
EARLY MORNING DREAM: by Brian Cronwall, c.1986, a surreal dreamlet turned poem
Night. Heads shaved, in loose-fitting gray robes, the young men swing from eave to eave. Two lose their grips.
Hard fall. Blood. Assistants call ambulances. Others swing on, house to house, before dawn...
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
THE ELEVATOR PROPOSAL: by Wayan, 2004/10/15, a dream baring a subtle lifelong pattern
I'm in an elevator with a giant guy with a hotel cart bearing a silver platter.
On it, an erect penis. The guy tries to enlist me in his program to... what?
CAUTION: CARTOON PENIS
ENLIGHTENMENT: by Brenda Ferrimani; 1999/3/9, painting of a non-apocalyptic dream
A crowd watches from shore as a great glowing meteor descends into the sea. I fear a tsunami, but...
EVASION: by Marie-Claude Girondé, summer 2008?, a dream painting.
One pays for soaring high with solitude of the soul...
FACE CROSSING: by Wayan; 1990-91. Nondream but surreal digital painting..
Slightly altered to remove the familiarity, but this is quite real...
FATHER-IN-LAW THE WHIP: by Wayan; 2019/10/13, a Jungian dream inspired by anime?
I wander a weird palace full of books, seeking my father-in-law, but find
only a blindly-flailing whip anchored in the floor, creating a dome of pain...
FIGURE DRAWING: NOW HOLD THAT POSE: by Wayan; 1989/11/14 digital sketch of model clowning.
Shasé liked absurd, impossible poses, and she held them heroically...
CAUTION: SILLY NUDITY
FILM STARS by Nancy Price; 1948, a surreal predictive/diagnostic dream
I'm a film actress, but the producer isn’t happy with my legs, so make-up takes them away to be redone...
FLUID DREAM CONNECTIONS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2003/11/8 and 2007/3/14; linked dreams of pods
A pod of whales in the sky and a circle of children dressed like seed-pods both beg me to interpret them...
FLY WITH ME?: by Wayan; 2024/1/7; a flying dream of course! But an odd one.
DAY: I research a weird Salvador Dalí dream-painting mingling, flight, tigers and sex.
DREAM: I flirt with a talking cat. Want her to fly with me. But she wants something earthier...
FOUR OF TEN: by Wayan; 2021/4/3, four examples from ten dreams in one night
Books are clothes, and always were. A potato makes me lie, and everyone gets it but me.
Sex in a crowd disarms the Mom Squad! And a Mystic Autistic's soul explores my room...
CAUTION: PUBLIC SEX? PROBABLY.
FREAKY DREAM, or, HEART IN MY STOMACH: by Ratiries Steelclaw; c. 2004/3/30, a dream comic
I felt like my heart was in my stomach. My friend Lyx opened me up & said "It is." She scolded me for eating it...
CAUTION: URP
FREEDOM THROUGH BOXES: by Wayan; an experiment in art & pain, Jan 2005
I've always loved curves, color, dreams, sex, texture... and planning, too.
So one day I drew 100 black boxes in ink--no color, no curves, no erasure! And then I began to seek...
FROGWOMAN MARCH: by Wayan; 2000/11/26, poem of a surreal but almost plausible dream.
Two protesters, under the weight of full scuba gear and flippers, waddle toward City
Hall--the first steps of a transcontinental march. Or at least transcontinental waddle...
FUNERAL FOODFIGHT: by Dan Schmidt, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a revenant dream
As they lower me into my grave, mourners don't throw dirt but--cottage cheese? I toss it
back, starting a huge foodfight. I climb out to join the fun. Only the poor pastor looks lost...
FURRY TRINITY: by Wayan; 2021/3/1, a dream painting three facets of... me? Or of dreaming?
Three furry people show off their collected art & pets. But then they dissolve into their art & pets!
The room itself dissolves into a river-raft. A unicorn girl in a gauze ritual robe studies a map...
CAUTION: MILD FURRY NUDITY
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
GINSBERG UNMASKED: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a diagnostic dream
Comics character Doctor Blasphemy, on stilts, bares his secret identity:
poet Allen Ginsberg! But who chopped off his missing fingers?
CAUTION: BLOODY FINGERS
GIRL IN THE WATER: by Wayan, 2000/10/7, twin dreams on... dreamwork?
In a California with no Gold Rush, wild deer carry a girl over the San Fernando hills to a secret dream-pool...
Then in a Japantown hotel lobby, that girl floats meditating in a huge aquarium, as local gossips lie about her...
GIRL WITH A PROBLEM: by Wayan; 1997/4/12, a surreal dream.
I date a girl with a mysterious syndrome, but soon I become a monkeyfaced con-man. And SHE becomes...
GOD SELLS CIGARETTES: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a sad dream vignette
I dreamed God was naked, selling cigarettes in a nightclub...
CAUTION: MONOTHEISTIC FALL
THE GRALA: by Eugene Jolas, c. 1934, a nightmare written as a surreal prose-poem
I was having dinner with friends when I saw on the wall a huge skullbone
spider. But I lost the word for spider, and my friends seemed not to see it...
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...
GROTESQUE: by William S. Burroughs, c.1986; a primal dream on emotional abuse
Genteel gay guests first humiliate then torture their hosts--the rich but sick wife, then the weak, gay, parasitic husband...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE, MISOGYNY, CRUELTY, SHIT
GUNNHILDR’S BIRTH DREAM: by Gunnhildr; c. 1150, a surreal predictive dream.
I dreamt I gave birth to a white-hot stone shedding sparks. Most folk would find my son strange...
GUNTRAM'S SNAKE by King Guntram, c.560 or '70 CE; a profitable out-of-body dream
On a hunt, Guntram took a nap. His courtier saw a snake emerge from his mouth; it tried to cross a creek. The
courtier lay his sword out like a bridge, and the snake crossed, climbed a hill, and went in a hole. It returned
and crawled in Guntram's mouth. He woke and said "I was crossing a river on a great iron bridge..."
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?
HATCHET JOB: by Ann Faraday, 1972 or 3; a lucid shamanic predictive dream
DREAM: I'm in the Arctic facing a hostile mob. I insist "I'm dreaming; you can't hurt me." They try!
I look down at my body, stuck full of hatchets, and say "See?" They slink off, looking sheepish...
TWO DAYS LATER: I'm in northern England. A reporter snaps "Dreams won't help the miners..."
HAV TOWERS: by Wayan; 2022/1/3, a predictive dreamlet
I find my city has changed during Covid; a huge Chinese gate or folly near Fort Mason
and a monstrous tower in the central hills, made of Space Needles, umbrellas & balloons...
Next day I read Jan Morris's Hav... and there are my towers.
HE SAW: by Jeffery Beam; c.1983, a nightmare with three selves
I, sleeping me, watch dream-me find a third me who saw too much
in the kitchen. Unconscious or dead? I just don't know...
HEADLESS NAG: by Jules Engel; 1975/5/25, nightmare of a corpse that won't quit
Every good party leaves a corpse or two. Cleaning up, I behead this one and drag it across the street to the
empty lot where we leave them. But its throat forms a toothless mouth and starts biting--well, gumming me...
HEADSHRINKER: by William S. Burroughs, c. 1990? A dream of rage against liars
A CIA man trying to infiltrate a revolutionary group flunks a lie-detector test, so the Headshrinker...
CAUTION: REAL HEADSHRINKER
HER DEAD BROTHER: by a Bereaved Lady, as told by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1850s?
Saint-Denys pushes a strange theory of dream-incompetence, using as an example
a woman's dream of grief over her brother, killed in a war. But her case suggests
a second explanation a 19th-century scholar isn't equipped to see ...
HER FIRST INCARNATION: by Wayan; 1983/11/10, a dream of a surreal shamanic duel
Forced into a duel, I let my spirit fight for me using Boomerang Blades. But my
enemy becomes giant floating sticky lips! My spirit finds incarnation confusing...
HER HAND ON THE MANTEL: by Frederick Greenwood; before 1894; a disowned predictive dream
Greenwood dreams he finds a severed hand on a mantelpiece. The next day
it happens! But he sees no moral, so he dismisses it...
HIGHER LEVEL: by Wayan; 2011/12/13, an absurd transcendent dream
I paddle through the grim streets of Karachi on my belly, on a skateboard,
with my flipper-hands, until at last I reach the border to a Higher Realm...
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...
HOCKEY: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a flirtatious dream-scene
I'm a hockey player. A woman strips to a bikini, wondering if she's attractive. My erection says she is...
CAUTION: BRRR!
HOLY ZEN MONK: by Wayan; 1978/4/24, a dream of suicide as political protest
I'm a Zen monk riddled with holes from a weird disease the government denies
is real. So as a protest, I stand naked atop a wall and let the air-sharks take me...
CAUTION: SURREAL SUICIDE
HOPE: by Elsie Sechrist's student; c.1973, the ultimate punning dream.
A student of Elsie Sechrist reports a dream in which Bob Hope came jumping
down the street on a pogo stick, expressing the dreamer's feeling that...
HUGE OVOID SHAPE: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 1999/8/13 Magrittesque surreal sci-fi dream
A huge white ovoid like a tethered cloud hangs over a city street. We enter it and search for the crew...
I NEVER SAW JUNG DIE: by Larry Vigon; 2003/11/28; a quasi-Jungian dream
My nonexistent brother is a bank robber about to be arrested; he says
"I never saw Jung die." Meaning not that Jung's alive, but just...
ICE: by Doug Montgomery; c. 1958, a surreal childhood dream
Drops fall outside. But it's not rain! It's dripping from a
gray-purple block of ice floating fifty feet above me...
IF ONLY I COULD: by Rick Veitch, c.1995, an eerie underground dream
Soil turns to air for me; I float in the dark between tree roots
and stones, thinking "If only I could remember my name"...
IGUANA: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, two surreal dreamlets on water damage
In a flooded room, an indignant iguana scolds me, while
my wife Marnie checks her computer implant for water damage...
IN THE COURSE OF WORK: by Marie-Claude Girondé, spring 2007?, a dream sculpture
Is that a madwoman riding a horse, or a cougar pouncing on a deer,
or are these dream-creatures wildly making love?
INUIT MEDITATION: by Wayan; 1989/11/16, a comically surreal dream.
I'm the first tuna to get a scholarship to Stanford.
Naturally I sign up for a course in Inuit Meditation...
IRONFALL: by William Henry Hudson; 1859, the first dream of an extinction event?
I saw a dark object like a cloud at a vast height, but coming swiftly down toward the earth.
It resolved itself into iron bars--tens of thousands, millions? I said: this is the end of everything...
THE IRON WINDOW: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, a grotesque dreamlet
Bearded professors call through an iron-barred window shaped like
a woman's torso, hoping to lure a nude model to fill it so they can grope...
CAUTION: CREEPY
IT'S TOO LATE!: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a surreal apocalyptic dream
I'm in World War II, asking a reporter to keep quiet about our secret weapon.
But it's already gone off, melting and distorting the whole cartoon world. It's...
JAPAN, 4:34 A.M.: by Laura Atkinson, 2011/3/11, a dream warning of the Fukushima disaster
My Japanese friend Kotaro looks at me sternly and shoves his phone inside my chest. In my dreams, a phone
can mean ESP, so when I wake I check the news. A huge quake and tsunami have devastated Japan...
JEAN ARP'S OCTOPUS: by Wayan; 2001/2/26; a surreal dream of my surreal reaction to a surrealist and his... lunch
A library shows me surrealist Jean Arp's sketchbook. One Eschery sketch with repeated focal points is hypnotic.
But they also show me his lunch, and I try to eat it! I fail. Head & gut disagree. Stuck Arp-way...
CAUTION: NEVER EAT 12-YEAR-OLD SUSHI
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...
JOSÉPHINE'S DREAM: by Josephine?, painted by Angelique Benicio, 2008-'23, a flying-dream painting
At the beach, facing down a wave taller than you,
the only thing to do is levitate discreetly...
KICK THE PRESIDENT: by Wayan; 1999/6/1, a dream on consequences.
I win a free game of Kick the President. But what if everyone can see your kick-ass Prez but you?
CAUTION: THIS DREAM IS MONITORED BY THE SECRET SERVICE
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
KNEADING DOUGH: by Madellyne Waugh; 2009, a punning dream on money-shame
I'm in the kitchen making a mess--kneading pasta dough on the bookcase. If my mom comes in and sees...
KNIGHTLY: by Wayan, 2019/2/12, a dream-poem on a wide time-vista
Huge gold construction cranes loom over medieval castles. Not rebuilding, but
hoisting knights to the heights. I get a ride up, and see a wide timescape...
LADDERS: by John S. Dykes, 1984; a surreal dream-sketch
Tiny people ride a herd of levitating ladders--badly.
One seems to have gotten bucked loose...
LANDSCAPE FROM A DREAM: by Paul Nash; recurrent dreams 1895-9, painted summer 1937
As a child, Paul Nash dreamt he flew over rural southern England.
As an adult surrealist painter...
THE LAUGHING GIRL: by Gordon Wagner, c.1977; a strong anima helps heal a trauma
I was one of just three to survive a roller coaster crash. I dreamed of a playful, laughing girl who drove off a cliff.
Dead, she lay on a bier in a surreal cemetery. But she woke and looked at photos of her old self with curiosity...
LAURIE ANDERSON SHENANIGANS: by Larissa King, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a surreal dream
I'm watching MTV. Laurie Anderson gets inside my remote control. I try to change channels
and she turns my head into an apple. I grope for a potato peeler, and carve a new mouth...
LEARNING TO SING AND DANCE: by Marilyn Barrett; 1988 or before, a dream of heritage
I'm a kid again, waltzing with my dad, though he's long dead. He hands me the trumpet inside his chest. When
I wake, I feel it still. My mom just died; I've reclaimed a playful part of him she condemned all her long life...
LEATHER BOYS: by Sunshine; 2015/3/17, a Lovecraftian dream
Leather boys flap down from the sky, feeding from giant mustard pots. We fight them with honey & boomerangs.
LIBERTÉ: by Marie-Claude Girondé, c. 2005?, a dream painting.
"Freedom is a gift you give yourself." But it doesn't always involve seahorses or babycarriages covered in quills...
LIFE FORCE: by Patagia; 2006/8/9 & 8/31, three career-advice dreamlets
Out of a Campbell's soup can poured life force: someone's last breath...
LOLLIGAGGING: by Angelique Benicio, betw. 2008 & 2023, a reverse-gravity dream
Embodying that upsetting feeling
when you're crawling on the ceiling...
LOOKING FOR LIBRIUM: by Jim Shaw; Jan. 1995?, a mutant Biblical dream
After fighting off an electrified Orson Welles, I meet the twelve
vulture-pine-politicians climbing Mt Sinai, looking for librium...
THE MAD UNVEILERS: by Marie-Claude Girondé, early 2009, a dream painting.
The dancers, in a frenzy, stripped themselves. Not just their clothes; themselves...
MARIANNE'S DREAM: by Marianne Hunt c.1817, as told by Percy Shelley; a dream-poem.
A black anchor floats in the sky to the east. Impossible cities rise on mountaintops, only to erupt in flame.
The sea rises to drown them. On a plank, I ride the flood. In the ruins, I find angelic statues--who wake...
MARINE GEOLOGY'S NOT IT: by Wayan; 1984/6/2, a dream farce.
After finding marine geologists in my chocolate pudding, I'd rather be a Frenchman and insult my wife...
CAUTION: DECADENCE
MEOPHAM AIR DISASTER: by G.H.M. Holms; 1930/7/18, a surreal predictive dream
Suddenly, out of the clouds, a man came shooting down, head first, at a terrific pace. He landed on his head with a sickening...
CAUTION: GRISLY
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...
MIDORI'S DREAM: by Midori Yamane, as told and drawn by her friend Igort, 2015.
I see a shop in Kyoto in the early 1900s. The old woman running it is calm,
with precise movements and sure hands. A voice says "That lady is Igort"...
THE MÖBIUS STRIP OF GRIEF: by Ruth Stone, 2004-2008; a dream poem
You say you're leaving me. I go to grab an ice pick to stab you, but my hand
freezes to the ice block on the stair--I dare not even dream of murder. Since...
CAUTION: RESPONSE TO SPOUSAL SUICIDE
MOOD ELEVATOR: by Wayan; dreamed 1982/5/12, a surreal/comic dream opposing mood enhancers
Dinner with the Lightbulb Heads. When we leave, the Mood Elevators welcome us...
but won't let us out! And in the struggle to escape, heads will roll--and shatter...
CAUTION: HARSH WORDS ON WESTERN MEDICINE
MUPPET WITNESS: by Bill Tjaden, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; an absurd dream
I work in a witness protection program. We hide the Muppet on the bottom
of an empty swimming pool, hand him a long straw, and fill it with...
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
NIP OFF HIS NOSE: by Wayan, 2020/2/20, four surreal dreamlets about Covid? or... overwork?
1: I sketch two deer-girls making videos. 2: I pull a man's nose off, and milk the scene for drama before...
3: My old boss is convicted of murder! 4: I wake and two friends interpret #3 as "Overwork is killing you..."
I wake again. My dream-notebook's blank. No friends here; their interpretation was a dream too....
CAUTION: NUDE DEER
NO ROOM ON THE MOON!: by Wayan; 2014/7/7; poem of a frustrating surreal dream
I want to catch a crescent moon home--our transit system's been buying up
old moons and running them across town--but tourists reserved all the seats...
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...
OLD HAT: by Wayan; 1988/1/5, a "normal" (i.e. incoherent) dream.
The Goddess gave birth in my workplace. Her fever-dreams become real around us...
CAUTION: BIRTH SCENE, LIBRARIANS' ORGY
ON THE NIGHT RIDE HOME: by Wayan; 1971/11/8, a dream-poem on pushing past prejudice
As I bike home at night, strange doings--a rat is sacrificed; gemstones delivered;
an astronaut shows glowing alien objects; a second rat becomes a... firefighter?
ORANGE: by Jim Shaw; c.1994; a wordplay dream?
A coy, giggling giant orange bounces onto a man's bed, trying to seduce him, and...
OVERKILL: by Wayan; 1991/11/22. Nondream digital picture-poem-poster.
Now the Evil Empire's dead. We're all safe, safe at last. And all the bombs are gone... right?
OWLOVERS: by Wayan; 1992, digital painting of vivid daydream.
My dreams mix sex with warmth, grief, even silliness, but what's with the owls? Bewildering...
CAUTION: WEIRD ORGY
PAPER BAG: by Pete Peterson, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a comic dreamlet
God issued me a paper bag to go over my head & protect my eyes
when facing him--at first. But as I advanced spiritually, I tore...
PASSIONVILLE: by Wayan; 1982/7/10; a surreal dream written as a poem
We're stuck in an empty town whose streetnames are all emotions. And they change.
Rage becomes Giggle. Tedium, Terror! Devious town...
PEAK PORTAL: by Wayan; 2014/8/27, a dream-poem on half-conscious shamanic possession
At a strange gate between worlds with high and low sea levels,
a meddling spirit prods me to clear a path for a salt torrent...
PENIS IN A BREADBASKET: by Beverly, 1994 or earlier, as told by Gayle Delaney; a marriage-advice dream
Beverly dreamt her party guests all wore masks. What were they hiding? Next she dreamt they passed around a
breadbasket. In it was her husband's penis! She woke, asked around, and found he'd had affairs with half their guests...
CAUTION: GENITAL SYMBOLISM
PIANIST: by Wayan; 1985, a nondream ink caprice.
Love that hair, girl. A very seventies bar-monster...
PIPES AND TIME: by Wayan; 2017/12/21, a dream of the far future that came true next day
A timetraveler shows me a hotspring shrunk to a quarter of its old flow.
Valves? Pipes? Or drought, from climate change? This IS the future.
A day later, a local main breaks, and our water flow shrinks to a quarter of normal...
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...
THE PLAY: by Georges Perec; February 1972, a dream with the attention span of a gnat. Dream #108
I'm in a play. Fear, then joyful sex, then ranching, then silly hats, as a man drones on about
class struggle. Weird chairs, pingpong, coffee, impossible double utterances. At last
I tell friends my dream--backwards. Then I write the dream down on slices of cheese...
CAUTION: SEX ONSTAGE
PLUM CRAZY: by Wayan; fall 1973, an early surreal but nondream poem
Plums float through the autumn air, sending us airmail kisses. If we'll accept delivery...
POLTERGEIST: by Wayan; 1983/11/17, a comic surreal dream.
A living camera edits us all: the dappled hawk-man, the slutty candidate, the blue businessmen
who give such bad advice when you pull the thorns from their feet. And my sweet sad hell-hound...
POLYGON DREAMS: by Wayan; 2007/4/23, a 32-page comic on the effects of shapes
What if comics panels and layouts weren't so square? I try triangles,
pentagons, hexagons, circles, spirals--and some serious stuff pops out...
CAUTION: IDEAS, OCCASIONAL NUDITY, MENTIONS ABUSE
PULL THE PLUG ON THIS WAR: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a surreal dream
I'm a Confederate officer. The only way to save my men is to end the war by
pulling the plug at the bottom of the lake! I dive in, fighting a Yankee, who...
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...
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...
THE RICH WRECK THE WELL: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, a dream of Heaven
A movie version of heaven. Souls line up for rejuvenation from a great
fountain. But fat old rich guys crash the line, demanding to be first...
CAUTION: UGLY NUDITY, UGLY BEHAVIOR, POLITICALLY PREDICTIVE
RUNAWAY MOONS: by Wayan; 2011/4/6, an absurd nightmare poem
New moons appear. I try to mash them into a spare Earth, but botch the orbits.
So now, runaway moons rumble down a steep San Francisco hill...
CAUTION: ALWAYS SET PARKING BRAKE
SATURN BEACH: by Wayan; 1990/4/18, a playful advisory dream
Sunbathing on Saturn's rings with a girl who's preparing for reincarnation--like me.
She's cute, but she chucks litter in the Bay of Rebirth. Maybe not Ms. Right, then...
SCIENCE IS A BUILDING THAT COMES ONLY HALFWAY TO THE GROUND:
by SAO (Shawn Allen O'Neal); March 2001, a painting of a dream-scene.
In the golden light of a primal Eden, my friends and I flock naked
through emerald glades like wild deer, until the tower approaches...
SEX FLOWER: by Wayan; 1996/11/8, clay & acrylic sculpture, 9" tall.
Robe or petals? Head or lilybud? Face or tongue or clit or slit? An eerie hybrid of person and flower...
CAUTION: SOMETHIN' HAPPENIN' HERE, BUT WHAT IT IS AIN'T EXACTLY CLEAR
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
SILKY'S INVERSION: by Wayan; dreamed 2014/4/24, a surrealist dream
My anima, a black mare, is upside down, hanging on the ceiling! Rears downward.
And she's changed sex! Not a mare today, a stallion! A gay, humanophilic stallion...
CAUTION: VERY QUEER FLIRTATION
SIX DREAMS: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a very busy night!
1: A flooded bathroom becomes 2: a glass water-piano; 3: my friend strips in a restaurant, so
4: they serve me gutted dog. 5: Dolls teach prostitution, as 6: a rhino rubs up to an elephant-bear...
SKUNK SEEKS THAILAND: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, a dreamlet of shamanic kindness
One night I meet a giant talking skunk and its pup, who asks how to walk to Thailand...
SKY-THAW; 2012/6/8 by Wayan; a comic, surreal, political dream-poem
While watching two rooftop actors (one a chicken) I noticed the icebergs in the sky were melting at last...
SLIDES: by Wayan; 2018/1/28, a surreal playful flirtation dream
I cross San Francisco on public transit--a network of children's slides. One leads into...
A wormhole full of aliens, where a goofy-haired reporter interviews a hacker...
O SONHO VIVIDO: by Angelique Benicio, betw. 2008-'23, a lunatic dream-painting
The red string tying that creepy puppet to
the child sitting on the moon has broken...
STALLION, NOT MARE: by Wayan; 2018/2/12, a road-rage weirdo provokes an even weirder dream
DAY: a stranger screams "BITCH! Plant a TREE!" Thinks I'm female and wants to fight over an old bumper sticker?
DREAM: I'm a horse detective. In shades, lipstick, & high heels I try to pass as a mare. Absurd! A stallion in drag...
CAUTION: HORSE NUDITY. OH WAIT, THAT'S NORMAL.
STEAMROLLER: by Richard Wilbur, late 20th Century; an embarrassing dream.
As the steamroller flattened me I became quite a lovely stained-glass window...
STEREO TREE-BRIDGE: by Wayan; 2023/1/27, a surreal predictive dreamlet
DREAM: a weird footbridge of twisting tree-branches; with steps made of wood-cased stereo equipment!
NEXT EVE: a birthday potluck with a twisting papier-maché trees. Steps lead up to a treehouse full of...
SWAB'S DOG: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/4/8, a warning dream
Swedenborg cuddles a talking dog who asks after its old master, Swab, and then kisses
Swedenborg, grossing him out. But he wakes knowing just what his doggy pest represents...
SWALLOWING NUMBERS: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995; a surreal eating dreamlet
I was late for something, so I opened my pocket watch and swallowed a bunch of numbers...
THE SWORDSMEN: by T.A. Williams; late 1930s, a surreal dream.
Dusk. A plain. A troop of swordsmen approach me, draw their weapons...
and toss their spinning, shining swords up to the stars...
TANGUY: by Wayan; 1963-4, childhood surrealist drawing.
No, not a guy with a tan. Yves Tanguy was a sailor who became a Surrealist.
When I was nine or ten, his work inspired me to try my first landscape drawings...
TARTAN ACID SPIDER TORPEDO: by "Thomas Mountain"; 2008/1/31, a cliffhanger dream.
I get speared by Irish warriors, slipped an LSD dose, chased by giant spiders, torpedoed--hey, I'm not bored!
TEN CLARKS AND LOISES: by Jim Shaw; c.1994, an epic dream on... poseurs?
Hand-puppets, a devil and a witch, have sex, and implant a lunar ghost embryo
into Lois Lane; now Lois & Clarkes, ten clones each, pretend to be puppets...
CAUTION: PUPPET SEX; EVERYONE A FAKE
THEY FEED THEY LION: by Philip Levine; summer 1968; a poem from two dreams
A workmate said "They feed they lion"; two dreams later, the poem emerged as you see it...
CAUTION: POLITICAL RAGE, SURREALISM
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
THREE SEVENS: by George Antheil; summer 1932; a psychic dream in a dreamlike time
I dream I play 7 and win three times at Monte Carlo. I wake and head for the casino with witnesses...
THROATS and SLOT MACHINE: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, two odd dreamlets
THROATS: Men put babies into giant throats inset in a funhouse wall;
SLOT MACHINE: I see a slot machine generating random art-speak phrases...
TOASTING FORK: by Charles Dickens, August 1843, a surreal tragicomic dream.
A gentleman clad but in a sheet notified me that an old friend had died of a terrible disease. What disease? Well...
TORRENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS: by Anonymous #41, 1996?, a surreal word-association dream
Asparagus, wings, an unhinged hand, a boxed ghost, butter, sister incest, tomato-pincushions,
secret volcanoes, one-eyed integers, chickenleg dresses, mirrors and bananapeel beds...
TRANSLUCENCY AS AN ADAPTATION IN ARBOREAL CRUSTACEANS: by Anonymous #46, early 1994?, an epic dream
Arboreal marsupials with megaphones narrate a Polynesian documentary, while
the rare translucent lobster sings its death song, sacrificing itself for lunch
CAUTION: WILL CAUSE VEGETARIANISM
TRIBUTE TO JOAN MIRO: by Wayan; 1984/2000. Erasable crayon, 14 x 17", nondream
Nearly abstract but not quite. The snake, the quill pen, the secretary bird, and the rose.
TROUT BECK by Nancy Price; summer 1933, an aerial comic dream-epic
I'm carried off by a crane to meet birdfish, singing sheep, fell-spirits, mad shopkeepers and devil-bulls...
TURKEY: by Erin Wagner, fall 1994?, recurring nightmares
I get painful menstrual cramps, and with them come nightmares of birth. Not always child birth;
once it was five kittens. Most recently the baby was human but encased in a Butterball turkey...
TWENTY OF ME: by Robert MacNish; before 1830. A dream of multiplicity.
I possessed ubiquity: twenty of me, and each possessed by my same soul, so I could not say who I inhabited...
TWISTED!: by Wayan; 2003/6/23, 18 images; a nondream experiment
I twirled pinups into surreal not-quite-abstracts, to see just how twisted sex could get...
CAUTION: NAKED PRETZELS
URBAN ARTHUR: by Anonymous #47, early 1994?, an alarming dreamlet
You're in a subway station. You put coins in a coffee machine.
Down drops the Holy Grail. And begins to fill with blood...
THE VEGETABLES OF SHADOW: by Wayan; 1999/10/4. Nondream surrealist art technique.
Make silhouettes of your beloved vegetables; then listen to the spaces between...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUASH
WINGVOW: by Wayan; 1994. Digital improv-collage of dream figures
Here's an incantation to induce flying dreams. "Bring me wings NOW, or forever hold your peace..."
WALL TO WALL WATER: by Larry Vigon; 2003/3/18; a surreal, beautiful dreamlet
The home we were to stay in was on fire. The next had a living room
that was shallow water, wall to wall, where turquoise fish swam...
WATER BOOKS: by Marilyn Stablein; 1968, a dream while visiting Nepal... for six years
In a Tibetan monastery on an ancient lakebed, I swim through a vast sunken library.
Books open like sea anemones, letters float to the surface like kelp...
WATERMELON MINE: by Wayan; 2023/6/18, a surreal dream with long-term advice
I'm the new manager of the watermelon mine. And to free the trapped minors--
oops, miners!--I have to plan. So I cover the floor with My Little Pony post-its...
CAUTION: CARTOON NUDITY
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...
WHERE THE WILD THINGS PLAY: by Anonymous #45, 1996?
In a jungle river, I fish for giant kite-bass, then relax and have a drink. A lot of very drunk
porpoises dance on the bar. I worry their skin will dry out. Alcohol is so dehydrating!
THE WORLD NEWS: by Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1843; a dream-job (and career advice?)
I dreamt the world itself hired me, at a generous salary, to report its great affairs exactly as they happen...
THE WRECK: by Denise Levertov 1980 or before; a surreal dream-dilemma
We go swimming in a sea full of wrecked tankers. We explore one derelict, but ebb tide pries it off the bank,
out to sea. Do we swim for shore, or wait, hoping high tide will wash it in again? Guess wrong and we die...
WRITE A LITTLE DREAM WITH ME: by Patagia, 2015/10/16, a comic poem on dreamwork
Sharks unicorns and moonbeams / Lost loves and karma chocolate I-beams
Raw telepathic bundles of beans / Write a little dream with me...
YOU CANNOT STAY FOREVER: by Ursula Le Guin; c.1970, creepy hypnogogic verses
You cannot stay forever / on this side of the river
with darkness coming over / and salt has lost its savor...
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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