Website: www.DreamNetwork.net/Baylis.html

In 1959 a fellow teacher had major surgery.  We set up a car pool where I picked her up in a strip mall parking lot and drove most of the 30 miles to our school.  One morning Mabel phoned and asked me to meet her around the corner on the residential street.  She said she didn't like taking up space in the store lot all day.  I said okay.

As Mabel was getting into my car that morning, we heard an enormous CRASH!  A small airplane had landed upside down in the corner of the parking lot where we would have been.  Then she told me she had dreamed it the night before.  That launched me on a life-long, self-directed and academic study of dreams. 

From the first, the practical side of dreaming has been my focus.  The Edgar Cayce dream material was the first I found to study.  He also emphasized the practical aspects--health, finances, job, creativity, and interpersonal, as well as the self-therapeutic and spiritual aspects.

With my BA degree in Education and a MA degree in Psychology, I got a credential/license to teach dream-study at the community college level.  I taught 36 hour, semester, night classes and weekend workshops.  My students urged me to write a book, so I wrote Sleep On It! The Practical Side of Dreaming in 1997.  In my teaching I found many dreams use overt sexual imagery and that people were confused by the symbolism of sexual images.  I made this a secondary focus of my dream work.

At the same time I kept researching how dream-mind was choosing the images it was using.  In 1992 I presented my findings, "The Logic of Dream Language," at the ASD Conference in Leiden.  Rita Dwyer suggested that I write another book about "this fascinating stuff."  In 1995 it was finished and I had a publishing contract for it to be published in September 1996.  In June 1996, that publishing company filed bankruptcy. 

 So, in 1997 I self-published. The book, Sex, Symbols, and Dreams, has several features.

     1. "Baylis takes us a step beyond to how dream images are devised," says Dr. Robert Van DeCastle, past president of ASD.
     2. "New, fresh perspectives especially in decoding sexual symbolism in dreams," states Roberta Osanna, Editor of Dream Network Journal.
     3. "Text is enhanced with comic strips (from Adam to Ziggy) to demonstrate the associative language in the dreaming and waking mind." says Audrey Welch, past president, California Art Educators Association
     4. 40+ dream authorities provide examples of the dream-mind's modus operandi, explains Sex, Symbols and Dreams

Since publishing Sex, Symbols and Dreams, I discovered the parallel between the Symbol Substitution Systems and their subsets which the book demonstrates, and the new science of Chaos or Complexity Theory.  The connection is made by aligning the two slightly different terminologies.  "The article, 'Chaos Theory Applied to Dreams as Related to Sex, Symbols, and Dreams' is indeed a brilliant work of genius.  It will surely stand the test of time," said Dr. David F. DeLoera, Asclepiads A.H.O.A.

My next project, if I can connect to the right people to help, will be an MRI or PET brain scan demonstration of the associative process and how it relates to dreaming.  The research study is already designed.  I need someone to do and read/evaluate ten hours of MRI or PET brain scanning and funding for the research.  Any suggestions?

Favorite dream ever?  There are so many practical dream examples, but the Egyptian Pharaoh's synecdoche (part to symbolize whole) dream of the cattle and corn to represent Egypt's food production was really great.  That dream with Joseph's interpretation saved an entire nation from starvation.  That's pretty practical.  I love it.

Baylis, Janice.  "Blood Sweat and Cheers A Column About Relationship Dreams".  Dream Network Journal, Vol 17 #3 to present Quarterly, ongoing.

__________. Sleep On It! The Practical Side of Dreaming. Sun, Man Moon, Inc., 1977.

__________. Sex, Symbols, and Dreams.  Sun, Man, Moon, Inc., 1997.

__________. Dream Dynamics and Decoding: An Interpretation Manual, 1997.  Only available online at www.NetBook.com

__________.  "Chaos Theory Applied to Dreaming."  http://www.DreamNetwork.net/Baylis.html

__________. "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious." Dream Network Journal. Volume 16, #3, 17-18.

__________. "Excerpts from the Book Sex, Symbols and Dreams". Dream Time, Volume 14 #1, 1-2, 28-29.

Gregory, Jill.  "Translator of Dream Slanguage: An Interview with Janice Baylis." Dream Network Bulletin. Volume 7 #5, 6.