Ships with Tattooed Sails

Remembering the time I invented 3-D tattoos. I was staying at my brother's house, either in the seventies or in 1981. Bob Dylan's song The Gates of Eden, with a line in it "ships with tattooed sails," was playing while I was asleep, and I dreamed of a big ship coming into a harbor, and then I dreamed about a girl with a big 3-D tattoo on her back. It was the old '40s or '50s technology, the view for the left eye in green, the right eye image in red, overlapping. I dreamed she carried the red-green glasses around in her purse, so to display it properly. In the dream, her tattoo was a big sailing ship. My brother had a party that night, and some people from the magazine "Mother Earth News" were there. I told of my dream to several people that night. Soon after that, I moved to Ohio and worked for a year or so before deciding to move back to Texas, where I had chosen the town I wanted to live in. In Texas, I was browsing in a 7-11 store, saw a "Mother Earth News" on the rack, and picked it up. Odd timing! I never looked at that magazine on any regular basis. There, in a comic strip in the back, was my idea, including the slightly silly part of having to carry around the glasses for it to work.

Update: The red/ blue (or red / green) 3-D system will probably not be revived, and some form of the newer polarized lens technology, or something not yet developed fully, such as holograms for the masses, will probably be used for general 3-D use. As for tattoos, the "magic eye" type, used in the '80s for the posters that had people squinting (no help) and crossing their eyes (the key), would make awesome tattoos. Artist H.R. Giger experimented with this 3-D effect with good success.