CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, and a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

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A Turkish Delight of musings on languages, deflations of metaphysics, vauntings of arcana, and great visual humor.
Strange Dreams

June 30, 2010 (permalink)

I dreamed I was being tested on Shakespeare's "Withdrawn," but I couldn't remember if it was a comedy, tragedy, or history.


Myrlin Hermes writes:

Strangely enough, you turned up in my dream last night, emerging from a TARDIS. Perhaps a subconscious reaction to your habit of blogging from the future? At any rate, I'm tickled by the image, which seems somehow fitting, given the way you have quite suddenly and wonderfully dropped into my consciousness.
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December 9, 2009 (permalink)

"In dreams, I use my hands to propel myself through the dense atmosphere. I am heavy; I am unable to move quickly in the viscosity of the place. I pull myself forward with my fingertips, but not along the ground. A tapestry of woven strands lies below me and stretches out in front. This is how I move.

"In dreams, I negotiate a labyrinth. My mazes are open fields and dark interior spaces. They are inhabited, but no one is like me. They are obstacles and distractions, and I move past them on my way to freedom.

"In dreams, I don't remember the dull slumber of my waking hours."

—Jeff, Omegaword
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April 8, 2009 (permalink)

Dreams that argue
with you
are the best kind,
Glacier or Iceberg.

—William Keckler, The Guidebook for Broken Coursers
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March 28, 2009 (permalink)


"Many Moons More," a painting in oil and epoxy resin by Erin Parish, 2005.
Christine shares:

I had a dream recently where I looked out of the window, and saw there were six moons, each at different phases of the moon's cycle. As I gaze up at the night sky, I see the stars stretching across it, and then bursts of colour, like celestial fireworks. I wonder how I've never seen this before, and feel filled with wonder at the world.

Christine's dream reminds us of our strange dream recounted here, and of our semicolon's dream of a double moon.

---

Samar shares:

This reminded me of the dream that I had probably last week or so.  I saw that I was on the highest building in the world and I didn't know what the time was ... evening or early morning ... it was still dark with tinge of blue ... and I saw the world round ... clouds enveloped the whole world ... and suddenly the moon in the sky fell down ... it was something that scared me a lot.
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March 12, 2009 (permalink)



Photo by krisatomic.
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February 9, 2009 (permalink)

"The function of dreams, they tell us, is to unlearn or purge the brain of unneeded connections—according to this view what goes through the mind in a dream is merely the result of a sort of neural housecleaning.  They also suggest that it may be damaging to recall dreams, because doing so might strengthen mental connections that should be discarded.  'We dream in order to forget,' they write." —William Burroughs, The Western Lands
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January 15, 2009 (permalink)

"From mirror to mirror—this is what I happen to dream of—the totality of things, the whole, the entire universe, divine wisdom could concentrate their luminous rays into a single mirror." —Italo Calvino, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler


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November 19, 2008 (permalink)

From the psyche of Jeff:

I dreamed I was a cold fish in a warm solar wind.  Inhabiting four states of matter, I swam in blue northern water below winter's trees, quiescent in the frosty atmosphere where Aurora lives.


Jeff writes:

Very nice! In fact, I'd say it looks better here than it did on my blog. Now I'm getting a little bit sad. In fact, I'm crying. Bitter tears are pooling on the floor, and splashing on my keyboard. My computer is ruined. Now I'm getting a little bit enraged. My forehead is marred with the impressions of the keys on my damaged keyboard. I'm hideous! Why? Why? Why?
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November 8, 2008 (permalink)

Jeff shares a fun bit of leapfrog inspiration:

It certainly isn't the first time I've been inspired by Craig Conley's unparalleled handiwork, but I don't recall ever having been inspired in such parallel fashion. Imaginary saints are one thing; strange dreams make it two.

Last night I dreamt about Saint Egolatría, patron of poorly planned head trips.  In my dream, she held the map I had so carelessly left on my dresser while she chided me for being self-absorbed, and arrogant.  She said my deeply flawed personality was at the root of many fiascos, and hoped I might get lost in a bad neighborhood, after dark, with an empty gas tank and no cell phone.

The night before, a series of dreams culminated in a pastiche of patrons, each wearing a color-coded robe to indicate his or her mood.  Saint Añoranza seemed petulant at first, but this later turned out to be due to a wardrobe malfunction.  For their grand finale, all the patron saints locked arms for a rousing rendition of Hey Bulldog.

Three encores later, a bikini-clad penguin brought the curtain down.
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November 7, 2008 (permalink)



 
 
Inspired by the writing of J. Karl Bogartte.

---

Jeff writes:

A strange series of dreams culminating in a pastiche of patrons, each wearing a color-coded robe to indicate his or her mood.
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October 3, 2008 (permalink)

"We don't form our dreams out of just our own souls.  We dream anonymously and communally, though each in his own way.  The great soul, of which we are just a little piece, dreams through us so to speak, dreams in our many different ways its own eternal, secret dream—about its youth, its hope, its joy, its peace, and its bloody feast."
—Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
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August 9, 2008 (permalink)

Alex shares this strange dream:

My dream began at a pet store that resembled a big warehouse.  I was in search of a pet octopus.  I was assisted by a young man who placed a maroon-colored octopus in my arms.  I walked around with it in my arms for a while and decided to set it down for a while.  It started running around, and I chased after it.  Not long into the chase I became frightened and ran from it; here the octopus started chasing me.  The young man who had given me the octopus caught it and again placed it in my arms.  I began walking again and decided to buy the octopus some food, so I asked the octopus what it liked to eat.  The octopus couldn't talk, but we could communicate.  I stopped suddenly in front of a row or clear refrigirators and asked the octopus if it could shock me.  The octopus responded by placing one of his tentacles in my mouth.  I fell to the floor where I lay for a minute; when I arose, the octopus was again placed in my arms.  We headed to the reptile section.  I stopped in front of an aquarium where snakes had tried to escape through the bottom but had suddenly died.  Half of their bodies had managed to taste freedom.  I blinked and suddenly I was in a stranger's driveway.  His garage was open so I walked inside.  His pets were dying, among them a dog, already covered in maggots.  I walked inside and was greated by a young male.  I asked him if I could use his bathroom he said yes and showed me the way.  The inside was covered in blue carpet and there were three steps that led down to the toilet.  I closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them I found myself in a classroom.  The classroom resembled the classrooms in the movie Matilda.  There were only girls inside the classroom, all no older than 13.  They were all waiting in line holding AM/PM cups.  I too was holding one and was told to urinate in it.  There was a table on the right side of the classroom where all the cups were being placed.  I did what I was told and I gave it to my instructor.  She looked inside and said that it was the right color; I didn't understand.  At the end of my dream I realized that the world was ending and the color of my urine was the only way to save the world.  (I am not sure why this was the solution.)  I also realized that the only reason why my urine was the right color was because the octopus had shocked me.
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August 5, 2008 (permalink)

"I am a closet stuffed bunny.  But I am also a penny-farthing bicycle."
fafnir


Image via etsy, via ffffound.
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May 21, 2008 (permalink)



Read about J. Karl Bogartte's avant-garde writings here.
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April 28, 2008 (permalink)

"Eventually, the night will be my only companion."
Geof Huth


Photo from The Life of M.
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February 10, 2008 (permalink)


"All The Navigators In The Night" (full size here) by J. Karl Bogartte.
I sometimes dream of reading a book.  It's a poetic, insightful, vastly important work.  As I continue reading, I begin to become lucid.  At first, I think myself capable of remembering this dreambook upon waking.  I vow to memorize the words and transcribe them.  Then, as consciousness slowly refracts the light of the dreamtime, my comprehension of the text begins to slip away.  Sentences that made perfect sense moments ago now seem cryptic or utterly indecipherable.  Finally, I realize I've lost all grasp of this vital dreambook's meaning, and I reluctantly open my eyes.  Elusive though it may be, I've never given up on one day remembering the dreambook or, perhaps more extraordinarily, stumbling upon it in waking life.  I'm gratified (though admittedly astonished) to report that, in a roundabout fashion too complex to detail here, I have finally located a physical copy of the dreambook.  It will come as no surprise that the author is an avant-garde artist and a literary savant who possesses a direct line to the unconscious mind.  J. Karl Bogartte's prose is so imbued with dream logic that the conscious mind is initially mystified, then simply enchanted and drawn into a vision.  The reason the physical copy is decipherable by the conscious eye is simple: physical pages don't tend to display the volatile calligraphy of dreambooks.  In the physical copy, we can read the same sentence twice and nothing will have changed (save our appreciation of the text's resonance).  If you've ever regretted forgetting what you're certain was a marvelous dream, it may be time to (re)discover the work of J. Karl Bogartte.
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February 7, 2008 (permalink)

Since the other sign said Walk, running appeared to be the only remaining option.
—Eileen Birin, Chalkboard Dust
The direction you don't go is the direction that the sign says DON'T WALK.
—Tom Spanbauer, In the City of Shy Hunters
The moon goes up
like a pregnant lady
leaning backwards
to walk.
—Betsy Sholl, Changing Faces


Artwork via Vvork.
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January 25, 2008 (permalink)

"First came the buzzing, and then the Hive mind came online." --Neal L. Asher, The Skinner


The philosopher Hegel as depicted by Emmanuel Polanco.
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January 24, 2008 (permalink)

"It is as if she had shredded time into gossamer threads and rewoven them into a pattern of her own."
—Orville Prescott, In My Opinion


"Chrono_Shredder" is a hybrid between calendar, clock and waste producing automaton. By Susanna Hertrich.
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December 10, 2007 (permalink)

A friend dreamed:

I was walking down a sidewalk and came upon a statue of Jesus. It came alive, and asked me if I would kiss his feet. I wasn't that thrilled at the idea, but since they looked clean, I decided I'd be willing to try it, in case it resulted in some wonderful spiritual benefit. As I approached him, he started changing shapes that had nothing remotely like feet. While watching him, I was somehow transported to a room where there was a man in a booth. He had stacks of posters that the viewer was supposed to choose from for what would be experienced. I found some posters I liked, but I just wanted the posters, and not deal with the activities represented by them. This response seemed to confuse the man, as if this hadn't happened before, but he didn't refuse when I asked if I could have the posters I liked. But as I walked away, a dangerous looking man came up to me and pushed me in a way that knocked me down. I somehow knew that he would continue pushing me till I was unconscious, so I just lay there, pretending that I was already unconscious. Then some people came and picked me up and strapped me onto a cart (like used in hospitals). I was then put onto a conveyer belt where various sweet tasting substances were forced at me. The first was like cream filling in donuts. I tasted a little, and decided I didn't really want any, so I just closed my eyes and mouth till it was gone. It soon was, and I was amazed that none seemed to be sticking to my face. This was followed by lots of other sweet substances like caramel, coconut, ice cream, etc. I wasn't interested in tasting any of them, but there was a bowl of chopped nuts by the ice cream, and I tried to take a few of those, but they were in a glass case that I couldn't open. So I soon gave up. I figured that they were only available if I ate ice cream too. Then various kinds of chocolate substances were forced at me. I knew that the people running this procedure didn't know I can't eat chocolate, so I tried to shout out "no chocolate", but the substances kept getting in the way. Finally the sweet substances stopped coming, and I was unstrapped and let go. The guy who had been taking notes on my reactions said I "scored a 4", in a voice that indicated that this was a ridiculously low number, so I figured that it was on a scale of 100. I walked out of the place wondering why I'd been given this "test", since the sweet substances were meant to cause people to uncontrollably indulge in them. I knew there surely were other tests which could easily break down my resistance, so I found it strange that they'd choose one that was so inappropriate for me.
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