ABSTRACT
In 1988, Michael Jackson purchased the Sycamore Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California for a sum reported to be somewhere between 16.5 to 30 million dollars, retitling it Neverland Valley Ranch. This chapter adds a specific focus on dreams to the author’s study of Jackson and peter pan, exploring how future oriented fantasies can all too easily slip into the realm of nightmare when they are made manifest in the present. Jackson was obsessed with returning to the past, yet this is a past that never was; his sympathy with Peter Pan was with a ghostchild who was also a dreamchild, one who might have existed but never did. Jackson's remarkable ability to shift and challenge identities served not only to please audiences; it also angered and upset them. The dramatic changes in Jackson's appearance due to his excessive use of cosmetology and plastic surgery inspired intense media criticism and speculation.
