Train Tracks Light Up, Reveal Underground Crew

Pastels, pencil and pen on multipurpose drawing paper

I am in an underground train station. By the tracks, a woman wearing an outfit from the 1940’s is standing with two shadowy figures by her side. There is the sound of a train approaching, but there is no train. Instead, as the sound of the train passes by, the tracks themselves light up, like a glowing movie reel of film passing over them. The woman and her shadowy compatriots can now see a space below the tracks. They point down to a train crew, busily shoveling coal into the furnace of the train. The crew looks up and sees the woman pointing at them. They are not happy to have been discovered.

The 40’s woman is now seated across from the head engineer in a shadowy diner or bar. They are separated by a pane of glass. She is desperately trying to describe what she saw to him, but he is not interested. He sneers and turns to the other members of the train crew and says, “Can you believe her story?”

Reflections: This is the first significant dream I had during therapy. My therapist recommended I bring a dream in to discuss: I will admit I rolled my eyes internally at this and thought, “Really? I thought this dream interpretation stuff was nonsense.” However, after she requested I do this, I had the above dream and wrote it down. I discovered that writing it wasn’t enough; I needed her to experience it with me, not just hear about it. So I drew it as best I could (above) and brought the drawing in for her to see. She was clearly interested that I had drawn the dream, which made me feel a little less ridiculous for doing it. Then she said: “If this were my dream, I’d wonder if it was addressing our work here - exposing the underground things that have kept the engine running but don’t want to be discovered.” This blew my mind. I had no idea that dreams could provide such meaningful commentary and guidance for my waking life.