THE WORLD DREAM BANK: TOPIC: SYMBOLS AND ICONS

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SYMBOLS AND ICONS

This is a new, experimental list--not of dreams with symbolism (every dream in the world'd be here!)... I mean something more blatant: icons such as the yin-yang, the cross, the infinity sign, the swastika; or the stylized cartoon atom, or crescent moon, or star. Images like the mushroom cloud, objects like wedding rings, phrases like the cosmic egg. These symbols carry not just meaning, like Chinese characters (though some of the more primal, pictorial ones ARE iconic the way I mean), but carry emotional and even spiritual impact. Archetypes of ideas and things rather than of human roles, but archetypes with icons, logos, clear brand names.

RELATED TOPICS: visual and verbal dream puns - spells - language - dream math and logic - genital symbolism (Freudian phallic symbols, but also clitoral and vaginal symbolism) - Jung - Freud - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

The World Dream Bank has 1500 dreams and dream images plus 500 other pages on dreamwork and shamanism, creativity, genius, art, surrealism and fantasy. Unless otherwise noted, all material copyright Chris Wayan, 2001-2006.

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	BELL CURVE IN THE DARK: by Wayan; 1982/8/17, a dream fable. A human pinball game played in the dark, with bells for stoppers, sorting people into a Gaussian bell-curve...
	BORN IN A CAVE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2007/4/20 to 2007/8/9, a painted series of rite-of-passage dreams. I keep dreaming of awkward but successful transitions into new life, and paint them all in one landscape...
	BUCKLEY'S BLOATED BOMB: by Wayan; 1983/11/20, a political nightmare. I meet William F. Buckley and his beloved pet pig. Only the hog's a live H-Bomb, and the leash is a trigger... CAUTION: REPULSIVE GUY, REPULSIVE PET, REPULSIVE ISSUE
	CELEBRATE BOTH: by Henry Sultan, 2005/6/26, a painting that blends two dreams At a snake-weaving party I flirt with my anima, who tells me how the cake fell off the roof. I think “At last we’re really connecting!”...
	CLIMB DOWN THE PINNACLES: by Jenny Badger Sultan, l995/12/24, a surreal dream and painting Decision by decision, we made our way down immense rock crags. Below, I had to put out a deadly fire, a fire as solid as wood or stone, with a white staff. What am I really trying to calm?
	COSMIC EGG AND ENERGY BIRD: by Wayan; 1971/12/4, an early mystical dream. A mystical vision of the Cosmic Egg gets messy when it hatches and the Bird escapes...
	GOD'S THREE DIALS: by Wayan; 1992/11/20, a heavenly dream. God built 3 dials to check: body, soul, and time. But the Holy Spirit's lazy, only checks one! It's up to us...
	THE GOD-STAFF: by Wayan; 1995/4/9, a warm-globe dream. In our steamy future, after the cities drown, I'm hiking through Rainbow Tunnel, when I meet a holy man...
	THE GOLDEN KEY: by Wayan; 200K, 1996/7/9, a subtle dream lesson . I was so lonely the potheads on Haight looked good. I dreamed I had the Golden Key, but under a cheap sodium streetlamp, ALL my keys looked gold! Then I met true gold: a woman meditating until she shone... CAUTION: NUDITY, HAIGHT ST DECADENCE AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE
	LEONINE TRINITY: by Wayan; 1991/2000. Digital "woodcut" of recurring dream figures. A goddess in a dream once told me to seek 3 and only 3 qualities in a mate... CAUTION: NUDITY
	LIFECYCLE: by Wayan; 1980s. Pencil sketch of daydream The life-loop. A woman bears a child who grows up to become herself, who bears a child who... CAUTION: SKETCHY NUDITY
	THE MAGIC WORDS: by Wayan; 1974/5/29, an early dream on word-magic. Humanity in the future desperately needs the magic words from the past to free them. But... "pickle?"
	MANDALA DURING A TIME OF WAR AND DISINTEGRATION: by Jenny Badger Sultan; Jan-Feb 2003, painting of a dream-series My dreams were troubled by war. So I painted them in concentric rings--lotus, fire, children, animals, and nightmares...
	MANDALA OF THE EIGHT DREAMERS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2007/9/16, painting of a group's dreams Our dream-group's dreams had a lot of imagery in common: circles, groups, meditation. I fused them into this piece...
	THE MERMAID TOW: by Wayan; 1994/2/17, a rescue-fantasy dream. I rescue some drowning kids by turning into a mermaid, but towing one girl has an unexpected effect...
	MY CUBIST CONSCIENCE: by Wayan; 1983. Sketch of a cubist dream. I dreamed I was trapped in the maze of my pacifist vegetarian feminist anarchist eco-conscience...
	OCTOPIA: by Wayan; 1996/3/21, a spiritual dream on play. I'm a stratospheric bat who catches a flying swastika. Is it creeping fascism, a Hindu blessing, or...?
	OUR LADY OF THE YOYO: by Wayan; 400 x 670, 1983, digital over acrylic over crayon. Our Lady of the Yoyo plays with our yin-yang world, trying to keep the spin going on each bounce...
	PAW AT THE BALL: by Wayan; 58K total, 1980s, two waking Goddess images. A grassy hill in a picture suddenly looked like Big Hair, so I tried to grow a body that fit that 'do...
	THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY: by Wayan; 1989/7/8, a psychic nightmare. My sisters get bored with the game of power, so I watch TV instead. But it melts, and a huge terrifying figure rises...
	SHIELDS FROM THE GODDESS: by Wayan; 38K total, 1996/8/3, a dream that's a slap in the face. A Goddess-worshiping general gets a visit from her twin daughters who bring a puzzling message...
	SILKY'S WEDDING: by Wayan; 1988/1/6, a dreamtale. Silky, my often-animal anima, leads me into a strange pagan church where we get married at last...
	SWAN: by Wayan; 225K (5 images), 1995/4/8, a stubborn dreamtale. I wake amnesic in a cabin in Alaska, in a dress printed with self-putdowns. I track down who cursed me...
	TITANIA: by Wayan; 1983/1/7 and subsequent nights; an epic dream of love Clarence the sappy angel from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and Milton's Lucifer, noblest Devil of them all, land on Earth, offering treaties. Who to sign with? Clarence thinks we're perfect, and the Devil's a tinkerer, learning from failures. Failures like me, and my girlfriend Titania, the first android with a full range of feelings. Too bad one is the feeling she's fake...
	THE WELL OF WOMEN'S WISDOM: by Wayan; 1991/3/25, a dream on gradualism. I find the well of women's wisdom. Lucky I had a sex change! A girl sneers "this wisdom's narrow." Is it?