Lately, I’ve been recalling some of my recurring dreams during daylight hours. (Yes, I have more than one recurring dream.) Although I’ve been dreaming them for years, these are not images I usually think about other than when I’m in the midst of the actual dream. They are always forgotten entirely when the sun comes up. However, two of them recently came to mind this week during my normal daytime activities.
I’ll take a guess that it’s because I’ve been staying up really late at night for the past week, staring at my computer screen for (let’s say) random reasons. And, therefore, my daylight hours have been a bit sleepy.
Anyway… here’s the one I dream the most:
I am standing on a train in the open air. I’ve traveled on it many times. Sometimes, it’s in a foreign country. Sometimes, it begins in a flower-covered meadow. Sometimes, it’s a subway system. Sometimes, a roller coaster. Or even a mine shaft with coal cars. But it is always the same feeling. I always know that I’ve been there before.
Once in a while, I can board the train easily because, somehow, I have managed to buy a ticket. Most of the time, though, I don’t make it to the ticket window because, prior to arriving at the station, I have missed connections from car to bus to train; I’m traveling in a rainstorm from location to location. But I have to (want to) get where I’m going, and the train is the only way I can get there… so, on occasion, I’ve sneaked on board at the last second, either thinking I had no other choice, or because someone was following me and I didn’t want them to see where I was going.
Once, I got off a subway car to shop at a mall. Another time, I took a streetcar to a city surrounded by mountains and just stared at the cityscape in the dark. Sometimes, I’m just standing on the train platform beside a lamp post watching everyone else come and go. Once, I lost a teddy bear on the train. Another time, it was a suitcase. I’m always losing something or missing something, and I’m always traveling alone. But I am always trying to get somewhere specific… I just can’t ever find the way or means to get where I really want to go. And I am always looking for someone in particular… but I can never find the way to get to that someone.
Often, the train will break down, or the conductor will find me and make me get off at the next stop, before I can reach my destination. Or I will discover that I’ve gotten on the right train, but on the wrong day or at the wrong time and I’m heading in the opposite direction and getting farther and farther away from where I want to be. No matter where I end up, no one is ever waiting for me when I arrive. And, the train always drops me off back where I started, back at the beginning… so I do it all over again the next time I dream the dream.
Go ahead. Analyze that!
Granted… I actually do dream analysis for my friends (or whoever asks)… so I have made my own “guesses” as to what this is about, but… a girl’s gotta have at least a few secrets she keeps to herself… once in a while. So, ponder away. 🙂
This is kinda what my train dream feels like.
Starcrost Hollow 