Dream Labs / Blog

A Guest on the Nightmare Express (Submission)

First of all, I must let you know that I have no knowledge of lucid dreaming.  Never heard of it before (until Inception).  So here is my dream:

It begins with me shoveling coal.  I am the sole engineer on a black steam engine train, towing a coal car and five flatbed cars.  The train is apparently being driven through the dessert, sometime in the morning after the sun has rissen, and it is not on any tracks.  It is also moving at an impossible speed for a steam engine.  Without looking behind me, I grab the second shovel and point it, handle first, behind me.  I do not know how, but my dream-self knew that there was someone else in my dream.  As I held the shovel out towards my guest, I turn my head to look.  It was a girl in a white, slim full-length dress. She had long blackish hair.  I then said to her, ‘If you’re gonna be a passenger, I’m gonna need ya to work your passage.’  She then looked at the shovel, then teh coal car behind her, and then down at her dress.  She then reluctantly took the shovel in her hands and filled it with coal; she struggled with the weight as she brought it towards the furnace door.  Some time passes, and I notice that her dress remains sparkling clean and wrinkle free.  I then close the furnace door for a final time and bury my shovel into the coal—the girl doing the same.  I turn to her and offer to give her the tour to my train.  Without any transition, we are suddenly on the first flat bed car.  On it, is a very tiny wooden chest—it could have fit in the palm of her hand.  I said, ‘Inside are dreams that boarder on being nightmares—they are very weak ones.’  Then we are on the second car.  This chest is slightly larger and is tied to the cart by a single thin piece of rope.  ‘This one holds my nightmares of falling—they always wake me up.  That’s why it is tied down.’  We are then standing on the third car.  The wooden chest on this one is also bound by two iron bars—a wood and iron chest (same as used by pirates).  I cannot remember what I said here.  The fourth car— the fourth chest is fully iron, and is also bound to the cart, but by two steel chains with a large padlock.  The chest is roughly chest high.  ‘This chest contains my fears of loosing the people I love.’  (Throughout the entire experience, i never once look back at my guest).  We arrive at the final flatbed car and the final chest.  This final chest does not resemble a chest at all.  More like a large steel safe with three combination locks and a large wheel locking mechanism on the front.  That is all you can see of the safe—the rest of the safe is bound by large, thick chains and a number of padlocks.  The safe is then chained to the car by four large chains—the kind attached to large ships’ anchors (each link weighing more than a man).  I say to her with a sad sigh, ‘This one, this one holds my darker self—the self no one has ever seen—will never see…. but I think it is time…’  I then look back towards my guest—and she is gone. I am alone on my speeding train with my nightmares and my dark self.  And then I wake up in the real world.

Thank you so much Doug for submitting your dream! It is a wonderful account of how dreams can really shine a light on to our inner selves. I love how your dream has such an introspective look on the natures of dreams, nightmares and the darker side of our waking lives.