World Dream Bank home - add a dream - newest - art gallery - sampler - dreams by title, subject, author, date, places, names

Trains

Trains, rails and tracks, streetcars, trams, and trolleys. There's something compellingly dreamlike about that path all laid out in front of you so you follow it without thinking. Are trains the perfect symbol of... habits?

And then of course there are the endless puns around "training"...

RELATED TOPICS: other dream-transport: bikes - cars, trucks, busses - boats - planes and helicopters - mental rails: habits - conformity vs. individualism - passivity vs. initiative - dream-guides and animas - oracles - dreams of whole life-paths - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.


AIR PIRATES IN FAERIE: by Wayan; 1984/8/25, a complex predictive dream
DREAM: The future. A party. A woman spills her drink on my white pants. Off to Faerie, where fruit trees are mean...
NEXT DAY: I do not wear white pants to Sally's party. So? A woman spills her drink on Sally's white pants...
DAY AFTER: I open a book on musicals & see a shot from The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy baiting an angry fruit tree...
CAUTION: PREDICTIVE
AMAZEMENT PARK: by Stan Van Der Beek; 1980/12/30, a dream-proposal for a huge art installation
The "Amazement Park", as I dubbed it, was a building long as a football field and three floors high; you fly,
suspended, round an oval track, through a galaxy of images teaching that "sharing" is what matters...
THE BLUE MILLIPEDE: by Wayan; 1996/11/5 (Election Night), a political dream.
I'm a wizard chasing crooked politicians in a big city. They have a car, I hop a trolley--
only on the astral plane it's a giant blue millipede, and...
CAUTION: RECKLESS DRIVING, THEFT OF PUBLIC MILLIPEDE
BOXED IN : by Wayan; 1984/3/25, a predictive dreamlet proving I never, ever learn a thing
I dream I've decided to jog to Alaska. But that Arctic wind slows me, and then a traffic-snarl boxes me in...
Awake, I bike to work. Distracted by the dream, I leave my coat. An Arctic blast slows me, and then a...
BREAKAWAY ISLAND: by Vladimir Nabokov; 1964/11/5, a travel-anxiety dream turned predictive
Hurry to the station to catch the train--or is it a sky tram? a ship? a hill? an island?
Climb its flank, but fissures open--it breaks up. I'm adrift. Next day, on TV...
BREAK THE SCRIPT: by Wayan; 1993/6/19-20, two advisory dreams
A sexy encounter with two robotic girls hopping a night train outside Portland...
CAUTION: THREESOME
CHINA AND AMERICA: by Alder and Wayan; 1997/9/23, telepathic dreams.
Two giants wrestle in the Chinese mountains. Who'll win, Red or Yellow? But when I wake...
CINCINNATI HUNCH: by Anonymous #56, 1969/9/8, predictive hunch & clairvoyant dream
My husband had to go to Cleveland. I FOUGHT to keep him from flying out of Cincinnati; he took a night train.
I dreamt I was flying, falling, and woke feeling the house shake. Later that day, my sister called to tell me...
CAUTION: DID SHE SAVE HIS LIFE? WIKIPEDIA CASTS DOUBT.
THE COMING DARK: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 2002/3/2; a dream on one disaster averted, and one... not.
I climb down a cliff before night strands me; but in town, risky adolescent games cause a crash...
COMMUTE: by a Massachusetts woman, pre-1961, a recurrent telepathic prompt
I pick up my husband at the train station daily, but he never calls--I just know when he arrives...
CRYPTOMNESIC TROLLEY: by Wayan; 1991/4/22, a lucid dream of a suicidal experiment.
To prove I really am lucid-dreaming, I let a streetcar run me over. Mm, crunchy! Then I find out...
CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT OM...
DON'T YOU HEAR THAT WHISTLE BLOWIN...: by Denise Levertov; 1974/9/6; a dream poem
4 AM. A train wakes us all. We watch it pass, thinking of lost friends. And then I wake again to find...
THE DOOMED TRAIN: by Anna Kingsford; Nov. 1876, a galvanizing political nightmare
We were on a train headed for a crash. No one was in the engine. Rather than jump, my friend insisted we try...
DRACONIAN VACATION: by Wayan, 2019/4/16, an alternate-Earth dream
Just a dream vacation! I take a train trip up the East Coast,
meeting, sketching and flirting with the locals, though they're...
EYEBOLT: by Wayan; 2005/10/1, a squeamish advisory dream
I’m on a train in Britain, sitting across from a respectable-looking woman with a large bolt sticking in her eye...
THE FLYING SCOTSMAN: by J.W. Dunne, fall 1913; a lucid predictive dream
Just north of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, a train fell from the track to a grassy park where small groups of people
wandered. I sensed it was one of those odd dreams of mine & tried to get the date--next spring. On April 14, 1914,
the "Flying Scotsman" jumped the parapet 15 miles north of the Forth Bridge and fell to the golf links below...
FOR THEM: by Wayan; 1995/12/1, a dream of outcasts.
On the Night Train out of my small-town life, I meet the town rebel. But she's misplaced her tongue...
CAUTION: PETTING; UNNERVING TONGUE
FOX ON THE TRAIN: by Wayan; 2015/1/9, an advisory dream painted & poemed
I'm a guard on a train crossing the desert who falls in love with a refugee fox-girl,
despite heavy specist peer-pressure and the archaic Railway Code...
CAUTION: NUDE FOX
GIGANTIC SAND MOUNTAINS: by Jack Kerouac, early Sept. 1953, a dream on fun versus work
Perched on a huge sandpile by the train track, I wrote. Then met a narcissistic
hipster chasing happiness and sex. But this globe's austere and full of hurt...
GIRL IN THE WATER: by Wayan, 2000/10/7, twin dreams on... dreamwork?
In a California with no Gold Rush, wild deer carry a girl over the San Fernando hills to a secret dream-pool...
Then in a Japantown hotel lobby, that girl floats meditating in a huge aquarium, as local gossips lie about her...
GOLDEN EGG: by Larry Vigon; 1984; a real, nondream, synchronistic... summoning?
I was on a London train. An ad had an image from "Jack and the Beanstalk" and I pondered
the tale--the meaning of the golden eggs. A man got on, held out a golden egg, and opened it...
HELL-BOUND TRAIN: by Franz Jaegerstetter, summer 1938; a political dream
I was ordered to join Hitler's army. I dreamt a booming voice proclaimed, "This train is going to Hell!" So I...
HELL I SUPPOSE: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; a dream with a rockin' sense of sarcasm
I'm gloomy about the state of the world, but my alter ego cheerfully explains we're dead and in
Hell--as a demon train rolls up with Elvis Costello on the roof singing "This is Hell I suppose"...
A HISTORY OF ENERGY: by Wayan; 2021/2/19, a dream warning we're all shortsighted
I dream of a parade or train of energy sources--human muscle, horsepower, coal, oil, gas, solar...
But the train's ultimate engine is in our future, and is impossible--a dragon riding a broomstick...
HITCHCOCK BIRD: by Wayan, 1982/9/8, a shamanic little predictive dream
I'm trapped in a Hitchcock thriller. Then one suicidal gunman turns into a songbird!
Next day at lunch a bird acts crazy. Over the next year, I do change from human to...
CAUTION: SUICIDAL BIRD
I SEE'D THEY DID: by a Wisconsin 4-year-old; pre-1961, a waking vision (clairvoyant? telepathic?)
He asked abruptly "Did Aunt Myrtle and Uncle Charles have a wreck with a train? I see'd they did..."
THE ICE EXPRESS: by Wayan; 1982/5/19, a dream on memory vs. expression.
The trans-arctic Ice Express, blinded by birds, gets off-track and blocked by oddly rectangular ice floes...
THE ILL-FORMED TALE: by Wayan; 160K, 1981/4/7, a wild dream anti-epic.
To reach the Peak of Happiness on the Isle of Dreams, I must pass four Perils--but they're all backwards...
CAUTION: RELIGIOUS NUTS, KNIVES, NUDE ALIENS, BACKWARD PLOT...
JAPANESE RAIL CRASH: by an Air Force wife; 1927, a clairvoyant or telepathic dream
The track gave way and many cars fell into the bay. People crawled out of the windows as waves broke on the wreckage...
KITTEN'S QUEST: by Wayan; 2016/2/13, a dream-poem
I met two strange sisters on a train who turn out to be half-cat. They open my eyes
so I realize that my neighbor Elaine must be a shapeshifter too...
CAUTION: FLIRTATIOUS UNDERAGE CAT
LAKOTA TRAINSCAPES: by Wayan; 2018/10/30, art seen in an anti-lucid dream
In a general store on a High Plains rez, I find two surreal collaged postcards. If only
this were a dream they'd qualify for the World Dream Bank, but sadly, it isn't. Right?
CAUTION: STUPID, STUPID CONSCIOUS!
LAYANASHA'S DREAM: by Layanasha, laibon of the Maasai, c.1850, a prophecy spanning 65-70 years
Layanasha foresaw the British would bring a great snake spanning Maasai territory, then a plague killing
half the tribe, a second plague killing nearly all the cattle, and finally huge birds flying over the veldt...
MANTA-SQUID: by Wayan; 1986/3/13, a nightmare on the Senoi hoax
DAY: I read an exposé on "Senoi dreamwork"--the Malaysian Senoi people disavow it. Some white guy just made it up!
DREAM: I'm a dream researcher in Malaysia. A manta-squid attacks! Now the "Senoi" focus on my needs makes sense...
CAUTION: TENTACLE-RAPE ATTEMPT
MEMORY SNIP!: by Wayan; 1999/5/15, a dream on the cost of kindness.
My friend Mark does something I thought impossible: removes a snippet of my memory. Disastrous!
CAUTION: VIOLENCE... SORT OF
THE MONEYBIRD: by Wayan, 2005/3/18, a dream-poem on renunciation. Stupid renunciation.
Inspired by a bird who weaves her nest of dollar bills, I become a sort of monk,
sweeping, renouncing wealth--but my monastery's a Silicon Valley BART station...
MY SINE-FRIEND: by Wayan; 1984/3/6, an emotional dream of time and rebirth.
An animal-girl I know lives like a sine-wave, first forward in time, then backwards, dying at every zero...
NO ROOM ON THE MOON!: by Wayan; 2014/7/7; poem of a frustrating surreal dream
I want to catch a crescent moon home--our transit system's been buying up
old moons and running them across town--but tourists reserved all the seats...
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS by Anonymous #35; summer 1934, a psychic dream
The engine pinned a young man under it. A crowd gathered, but no one saw the girl on the far side of the tracks...
PASTLIFE TRAINING TRACKS: by Wayan; 1981/5/5, a bikin' buddha dream.
I'm biking around a railroad switch-yard. Slowly realize
they're life-paths. People start following me out...
POLYGAPO: by a Washington woman, fall 1951, a detailed unlikely predictive dream
I sat thinking "Now that boy will jump the fence"--and he did; "that boy will chase the dog"--and he did...
PRECOG TUNNEL : by Wayan; 1984/1/1, a small psychic dreamtale.
I'm riding a train through a tunnel in Marin full of symbolism. I wake, interpret it all, and open the paper...
RECUR: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, her recurrent dream types cartooned
Is our brain trying to tell us something that, evidently, we haven't heard the last 70 times? Or is the
dream-manufacturing area feeling a little lazy? I have no idea, but here are some of my "classics"...
RATTLER BY THE CONTROLS: by Wayan; 1978/10/19, an anti-phallic-symbol dream.
I dreamed I was riding a huge toy train, and a gigantic rattlesnake was at the controls...
SAMURAI BULLET: by Wayan; 1985 automatic drawing, 3x5", ink; tinted 2001.
I didn't know myself what this was about, till I had to write this note--and suddenly I got it...
SANTA CLUMP: by Wayan; 2009/9/16, an absurd dream-poem; Dreamverse #54
I find myself sitting on toy trains and fake snow as I'm told a fable:
how a herd of department-store Santas got tragically lost in a blizzard...
SEVERED HEAD: by Dr. Walter Prince, 1917/11/27, a detailed predictive nightmare
DREAM: a thirtyish blonde says her death is ordered. Her head's cut off. But it won't die--bites his hand!
Dr. Prince feels the dream shouts "premonition!" and writes an account at the Society for Psychical Research.
Next night, a thirtyish blonde nearby commits suicide, leaving a note saying her severed head will live on...
CAUTION: CREEPY DREAM, CREEPIER NEWS
SLIDES: by Wayan; 2018/1/28, a surreal playful flirtation dream
I cross San Francisco on public transit--a network of children's slides. One leads into...
A wormhole full of aliens, where a goofy-haired reporter interviews a hacker...
THEN I REVISIT SELMA CALIFORNIA: by Jack Kerouac, late Oct. 1952, a predictive dream
I dream of strange wide brown houses on the tracks... A knock wakes me--our train's moving out.
As we pass through San Mateo, I see them on the rails, ready to roll--the first prefabricated homes...
THE TRAIN: by John Hollander; spring 1974; a poem based on a shared dream
A couple slips in and out of sleep, dreams, one another's bodies and dreamworlds, trying to connect...
CAUTION: FREUDIAN SYMBOLISM, LITERATE WRITING
TRAINS COLLIDE: by Dudley Walker; 1928/6/27, a clairvoyant nightmare
I've never done railway work, but here I am signaling a train to approach a station at dawn. A second train hits it head-on...
CAUTION: EIGHT DEATHS
TRAVEL: by "SchlofM"; 2008/2/10, a dream about protection
I'm on a trip to who knows where, with my young-again mom, my dead dad, and--who's that guy?
A WISE WRITER PROTECTS HER EYES: by Wayan; 1998/8/19, an advisory dream.
A writer I meet either starts flirting with me obscenely,
or advising me about eyecare, or... are those the same?
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM
THE WITCH-PIMPS NEXT DOOR: by Wayan, 2015/12/19, a dream on healing from abuse
First I dream the neighbors are powerful witches offering dog-collared children
to the local men. Later, on a train, I meet two kids who managed to escape...
CAUTION: CHILD ABUSE, NUDITY


This topical list is one of many. See the full LIST OF TOPICS currently indexed.

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites