Tag: train

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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”.

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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, harrumphing 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 (similar to these dreams, I suppose). One might think this province was the nice part, given its reputation, but locals would rather you visit anywhere else. On the map, it’s almost camouflaged with a plaid pattern coloration shifting into a saturated pink, revealing how ungainly the thing is printed on the map. I notice that it’s shape seems to form the negative space on a Union Jack flag.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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Dream Journal

Double Dream Sequence

A long set of story beats, repeated — the same dreams twice. If this was intentional or not, I don’t recall. I do remember waking up afterwards and wondering if I should write the story down, thinking it might be important, but they’re effectively evaporated.

Burning Man spent mostly scavenging. A sand quarry adjacent to the site. A small plane made of plastic you climb inside, used by the crew, with a single front facing plastic window — seems terrifying but I can imagine myself flying it. In a trash can, I discover two discarded pet slugs which are still alive. In the long canal of sand on the ridge, I leave as soon as I realize there are still workmen (who have yet to see me). Red jelly beans chewed up and dried in a jar into pebbles, then dumped out on the ground by my cousin Betty.

On a pair of stilts, I run after a departing train with a sackful of quarters in my pocket. It speeds up rapidly, but I’m not worried I won’t catch it was the stilts carry me at great speed. There’s a section missing, like a film that skipped, which those of us watching realize having seen it before.

During a theater performance, the Spanish royal couple have their view blocked by a large hexagonal cracker — ostensibly for security purposes, though deliberate provocation seems also likely.

A valet service has a wall of red ribbons and white ribbons, coded to mark self service. Too expensive for me to get myself.

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Dream Journal

Misadventure Locating a Locomotive

I’m driving the Chevy Nova car out around the streets of Palm Desert, California, during a time of day I’m possibly not supposed to. On the right, I drive past a rusted old hulk of a steam locomotive just a little ways off the road. I drive back around and park on the shoulder, leaving the car running for my passenger (either Josh or Naomi, Calvin Chaos’s parents).

There’s a small little community of maybe 8 to 10 houses on a dusty little hill. A gate blocks my way in the middle, close to the road. And there is a bar inside at the top called Adrianople that’s been flouting the law, hosting gatherings and selling weapons. In the course of trying to get to the locomotive I end up in a dead end parking lot overlooking the car, realizing my passenger might want to turn it off and trying to get their attention to throw the keys.

There’s an alarming disturbance and a red-headed, naked feminine monster appears from beyond the rooftops, quickly gaining ground. It’s like a banshee, breasts thrust forward and teeth ragged and mocking in aggression. As it advances I keep my camera pointed at it videotaping, somehow knowing this may be the only way to hold it back or to be one day be believed. It corners me at the edge then morphs / disappears.

I’m chased by a stalker / murderer.
It’s appearance is like my wife, and I save myself by slitting its throat with the black-bladed Winchester knife.

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Dream Journal

Protest at a Water Park, Saved

I’ve been dropped off at a water park with a group of friends. I spend most of my time by myself, but I see my handsome childhood classmate Zane Flynn walking around and I walk beside him twice.

There is a water slide being used by a giant girl near the edge of the sea. The slide cuts through a low straight ridge, water fed to it by two channels behind the ridge, the water sloshed in by two manatee-shark creatures from either side.

I’m involved in a dramatic incident where the coast is drained for an approaching tram. A lone protester walks up to the track and places his foot on it, forcing the tram to stop. Two armed guards approach to arrest him. Moving as one, myself and a large crowd surround both guards and protester, like white blood cells isolating an infection. We sweep back to the shore in a wave and break apart, saving the protester. Angela Merkel (who is in charge here) begins a retribution campaign, which I immediately notice by the presence of a creepy guy recording video directly in front of me as I walk back.

Some things in the park are already closed even by 3:00 pm, like the gift shop/president’s hall located on a mezzanine at the edge of the park. Headed back down long twisting perpendicular concrete stairs, I jump and surf on a series of long sloping metal handrails. Finally, on the way out, I consider how the musician Weird Al always seems to be on top of knowing about these protests. Then, I just happen to see him on the way out, playing an accordion cover of “We Don’t Need No Education”. I thank him. I’ve heard that he remembers all his fans names, and he yells back at me “thanks Amy!” Hm. Leaping up the stairs in bounds, I see two hip-hop kids having an argument about the protest. My answer to them is that it doesn’t matter what happened in the past, what happened today is always more relevant. And the protest happened today.

On my way back out to the communal bus, around the corner from the exit, I run into my family, which is the family from Malcolm in the Middle. In the cozy second story living room/kitchen, they’ve written a single name on a big board, “Artemisia”. I start saying “don’t even tell me, I know you’re up to something,” but they explain anyway (of course they do) it’s their list of names for people that would both wear cutoffs and who could be male or female. Of course it is.

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Dream Journal

Girl Named Fragrant, and Cooking for Cannibals

I’m writing on a railway tram with a load of people and, due to a breakdown, itself being hauled on the back of a towtruck (tow-tram?). Seems dangerous but whatevs. Seated next to me is a girl who’s very friendly and flirty. Reminds me of someone I know, maybe someone Asian, but despite otherwise having the same features this girl has bright orange hair and freckles. Her name, as she introduces herself, is “Fragrant”. I find this charmingly silly.

Later I’m staying in a room like my smaller childhood bedroom. But there’s this weird 30 degree corner with a built-in desk/ice chest. My friend Heph has graffitied one side of it which I didn’t notice at first — in fact, a good amount of the front is broken away. It turns out the desk is a switch which turns on the oven.

I prep a meal at home that I’m hoping to eat at a famous cannibal restaurant in Santa Cruz, one where you bring in your own meat. Naturally. I’ve foolishly left the plastic bacon keeper in the kitchen oven for 45 minutes. Thankfully it’s not melted, but after all of that, the bacon slices aren’t even cooked through. I’m not sure I’ll even have anything to eat at the restaurant. Which is all well and good, since it occurs to me it’s probably best not to admit where specifically the meat came from.