Tag: train

Categories
Dream Journal

Train Got Problems

I’m trying to get off a passenger train (a tram, really) with an unwieldy bag stun over my shoulder. Heedless of my struggle, the train starts along again quickly — the cowcatcher in front scoops me right back on board, like a set of stairs lunging at me.

In the station a giant diesel locomotive idles noisily, producing an overpowering mechanical smell. There’s no indication what it’s here for. Maybe I climb around on it.

I become angry that they spent a bunch of time and effort renovating and rearranging rooms on the next train. They all seem patently inferior to me. I storm off after hearing again of the coveted exercise classes for adult men.

Categories
Dream Journal

Reliving a Long-Ago Math Class

Peering out at the top layer of a canopy of skyscrapers. Observing an expensive-looking top floor patio garden so scary I wouldn’t want to be in, the reflections off other skyscrapers. A top floor passageway between two buildings permits bureaucratic workers to travel expediently between the two — something that strikes me as the result of having a good union.

Reliving an experience of trying to redo my fourth grade math class, not just to pass but to get it right this time. Sitting in the middle of a grid of outdoor desks on a lawn/sidewalk, sun shining on them in afternoon light. Can’t tell if I’m the only child, or quiet in a group of children. Maybe it was early as second grade? Trying to place it temporally; I sign my name “Orin” so I deduce it must be after seventh grade.

In the neighborhood nearby, a big old 70s sedan lumbers across the railroad track intersection. It selfishly blocks a train temporarily and causes the train (of all things) to divert.

Digging all the way to the white plaster at the bottom of a dirty firepit. Moving a sculpture of an old book into the heat, burning off it’s discoloration. Uncovering the name of a song and remembering the story of trauma involving the math class. It is finished, closed. I can wake up without problem.

Categories
Dream Journal

Dord: Abbreviation of Density

An unusually intimate experience with density, by melding inside layers of a substance. Understanding the thickness of a substrate, then coming up a less dense surface layer. Watching how a new member of SNL is playing a person good at darts, or temperature. Understanding how this can replicate the circumstances from a famous murder mystery case.

Dord, a notable accidental word added to the dictionary during the 20th century, is my odd gateway to finding this experience. It was meant to be a reference to an abbreviation for density, D or d.

A camping trip up a hill. A tram takes you up in a loop, with the station dropping you off along the length of a tree-dotted ridgetop in a long cycle — if you miss your timing you could be waiting for it to come back for a long while. It’s scenic and sparse up there, reminding me of some places in Arizona. I’ve just completed an outdoor class I was assigned as part of my work (this isn’t entirely a vacation) and now have the unforeseen opportunity to take the next class. The professor, who I know, is going to share an in-depth presentation on love. I have a short time to decide and I’m very tempted…

Categories
Dream Journal

Cabooses on the Next Hill Over

Wearing an elaborate bird-themed costume in my uncle’s basement (it was his birthday the other day), I take a break from a footrace. There’s a panel near my knee with a USB cord. It snakes out robotically, but gets stuck between me and my wife. We’re spooning each other, as we are in bed as I drift out of sleep then back into it.

In a crowded urban landscape with small hand-built homes. In a conversation with several friends from grade school (Robby, Christy) I interrupt when I spot a caboose made into a house on the next hill over. No one seems as excited as me though, but I interrupt again a few moments later when I spot two more.

Categories
Dream Journal

Yuban Coffee Ballet McBrand

Riding a train across an expansive strip mall, long and oversize. So long there are multiple stops of a subway that pass through. I get out at one of them into a huge enclosed rectangular gym used for prestigious ballet training. I’ve heard of it, a famous training space sponsored by the coffee company Yuban. I imagine it as a model, trying to understand how the tracks run through it at an oblique angle. I wait in the part of the large room where I think the train platform is, not knowing what side I need to be on. The train of course arrives and I have to scramble over it when it stopped to reach the correct side.

Lately it seems I’ve spent a lot of effort in between dreams trying to remember. Too much time passes and the interesting details fade, but oddly my impressions of them don’t. Having rehearsed the words I will put down, even dreaming as though I am writing, I lose the important and unique vibe. Which may be impossible to capture anyway, but the gap has started to be more noticeable and disappointing.

Later I realize I can buy the destination I’m trying to reach on the subway as it’s a chain store. It’s easy to come across, easy to replace. The brand is so generic I think of it as “McBrand”.

Categories
Dream Journal

Not the Nicest Parts of Britain

I arrived from a long overseas flight in London with my wife. We set out on the next leg of our journey, having to catch a tube train closer into town. A series of mishaps ensues: misplacing luggage, catching the wrong train, getting on the right train only to get off as it leaves. One train is made of narrow little linked platforms just big enough for a person, each shaped like beige pyramids that one must balance to ride on. My wife finds it difficult to stay on and dismounts just as this small short train leaves. Finally I get mad and yell at her, harumping down the stairs to see if I can find someone to talk sense into her.

There is a linking dream at this point in the night, forming a cohesive three-part story, but it’s been forgotten.

I view a map of Scotland, highlighting a major province disconnected into three parts. You’d think it was the nice part, that’s it’s reputation, but locals would rather you visit anywhere else. It’s almost camouflaged plaid coloring shifts into a saturated pink, revealing how ungainly it is on the map. I notice it’s shape seems to form the negative space on a Union Jack flag.

Categories
Dream Journal

Suzie the Mechanical Brass Goat

I’m playing tuba in a marching band. Have to haul it back from the field in pieces. When I get to the enclosed, beige, semi-circular practice room I have lengthy difficulties assembling it — the band has already started playing. The pieces for a brand new percussion drum the size of a person are laid out on the floor. Since those are clearly present, I consider playing that instead.

The brass of the instruments reminds me of a friendly goat, Suzie. She’s mechanical, also brass, and we amble together down a tree-lined sidewalk in a archetypical sunny American suburb (away from the band). I spot some Halloween stuff in the branches of a tree between the sidewalk and the street, forgotten so long ago that the tree is now growing through the plastic decorations. Reminds me of an image I saw recently, of a Barbie doll placed by someone’s granddaughter being engulfed by branches. Even though it’s enjoyably bizarre, I climb the tree to retrieve the spooky plastic junk. Suzie watches (perhaps giving commentary) and it’s a shiny, fresh, sunny experience, abnormally wholesome.

I’m later cruising on my motorbike down a curvy dirt road, fast. Hand-tilled grain fields border it. I narrowly dodge Indian pedestrians carving around corners, following the road’s course between blocky grey utilitarian buildings (like the setting from a fair dream on Feb 19, 2021 at 11:29 am). I get as far as a narrow corridor whose walls are made of train cars. I can’t reverse, and have to navigate back through twice. It feels like I’m towing a trailer or three. Headed back where I came now, I pull off a few wheelies — having the thought that I’ve only ever done that in dreams before (this is true). I soon notice (due to another person’s recent use of it) some pieces have shaken off the bike as I’m riding, importantly 3/4 of the front instrument panel. I manage to see a bit fly off over a fence and decide to hunt it down.

This neglected industrial area is officially off-limits, but also officially abandoned. I suspect it’s still quite inhabited though and used for all sorts of under-the-radar activity. This seems confirmed when I discover rows of diagonal pews inside one decayed warehouse, carefully draped in elegant purple fabric. I hide between these pews as I hear fumbling at the bolted front door. A few furtive-looking priests enter, and I consider announcing myself to avoid a potentially worse situation startling them. Yet I seem to overhear them talking about me without using my name, wishing perhaps to recruit me.

I do volunteer for some project cleaning up a diesel locomotive covered in grass. I scrub it’s side skirt clean of flecks and debris, leaving tall stalks of grass to grow proud and green over the engine’s back/top. It’s taken on an expedition up a marshy stream to study dinosaurs living nearby, blending in with the flora. Back in the yard we hide as a few mafia guys come to inspect the locomotive. A goon tears off the grass in one cohesive layer, saddening me even though I’m still proud of how healthy the greenery I helped grow turned out. We’re trying to trick these mafiosos somehow, and I know all my plants were integral to the plan.

Categories
Dream Journal

Werewolf Decal, Didn’t Expect School

Traveling via train. Someone is surprised I paid to sleep inside; they thought I’d just sleep on the roof. But I figured I wouldn’t get good rest, since I would worry about having to wake up to duck tunnels.

I attach a large werewolf decal to several corner desks while a classroom is empty. This is a mascot for me, maybe a video game companion or player class. Unexpectedly, the class fills up in a short time (when it should’ve been empty, for the summer or something).

An instructor asks for my ticket. For any of multiple tickets I’m supposed to have. I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about, I wasn’t planning on attending a class, just wanted the space of the classroom. I expect they’ll send me to the office to get it, at which point I’ll ditch and have to go without my cool werewolf art.

Categories
Dream Journal

Special Train, Bobsled Cousins

A bobsled track (like from the movie Cool Runnings, which I last saw when I was 8?!) with still pictures viewed overhead, relating a story. A process which helps my New York cousins Betty, Diana, and Miriam. We ask Miriam if she has that little vial we gave her, we think it may help with success. It’s noted that Diana has done well in love, though, more than the others.

I approach a rail crossing blocked by a train. My attempt to go between wheels underneath carriage is suddenly aborted when I realize the train is still slowly moving. From the train itself, a friend yells that they’ve brought it as a surprise — it’s actually the train I had as a kid: engine #5721 with two cars from the Pennsylvania Railroad. The caboose is there too, and I have an odd feeling that I’ve rode this train before without it being this particular set.

In a theater I receive an unanticipated blowjob during a parallel sex show on stage. Semi-acknowledgment from the stage when they’re done, so we play it off as nothing and I cover my erection with my forearm. Turning to talk to the girl — Lynae? Lauren? Someone else? — as it is announced that now we’re doing the mandatory switching-seats ritual. I have a bunch of my travel stuff under mine so have a difficult time moving to a new seat, and difficulty picking a new seat partner. I don’t feel like sitting next to Dayle Zimmer (whom I knew when I was 11?!). My wife has already delved into conversation with two people in the front row, is clearly having an easier time with the ritual.

Categories
Dream Journal

Coma Girl, Classroom Laptop, Brand New Train

I explore a tiered arena in an alternate world, where my crush has been in a coma since April 2019. This is a common occurrence and there’s a name for such class of person — basically never coming back, but not technically dead. Alive simply with the momentum of life, in an uncontactable reality. I wish I could remember the term used for it…

I sit in a high school classroom (Mrs. Fitz’s) engaging in a friendly discussion while on a laptop, another classmate next to me on theirs. The teacher mentions that my older hipster friend Marc Roper helped work on a music video, which we check out. I note that I feel more comfortable behind the laptop — I have something to do while in class.

On a brand new red train. The gimmick is that you can store stuff top-to-bottom in your personal traincar compartment “infinitely deep”. Train is renewably powered and spits out water from a hose that runs its entire length. A young man squats leaning out a door at the very rear waving the hose end back and forth to ensure the water diffuses, looking glum and underappreciated. We exchange a glance, hoping this job can be made obsolete once the train is fully tested.

Riding on the train with me are my elementary school friends Robby & Christy T. We make idle conversation while watching the landscape pass by. The train rounds a corner, following tracks parallel to the ocean, traveling on a street bordering a beach. Under the shade of a tree I recognize a particularly nice parking spot somewhere I’d parked my pickup truck many times — logically it should’ve hardly ever been free, but I always got lucky somehow. Robbie makes a sarcastic comment about how hard it is to get a baby, and I counter with a Big Lebowski joke, saying “You want a baby? I could get you a random baby today.”