Blue_Opossum

Morning of February 18, 2016. Thursday.



In my dream, I seem to be in an area that is loosely modeled after my Cubitis home (where I have not lived since 1978, yet my dream self sees it as my present home), at least regarding the large backyard and the railroad tracks behind it (to the east) but there are differences. It seems to be late at night and yet there are short time periods where I can clearly see the covers of books. On at least two occasions, I also notice unknown trucks parked in what would be the backyard.

I go near the railroad tracks and notice a shallow cardboard box filled with old How and Why Wonder Books that appears to have been put out by an unknown neighbor farther south, but the majority do not look like any of the ones I had in real life as a boy. However, “Coins and Currency”, which is one I did have, is near the top, but the cover is very worn. There are other books in the box in addition to the How and Why Wonder Books, including magazines and comic books. I think about taking them, as they had been discarded. Still, it is an unusual place to put presumed rubbish, as there is no pick up there (or rather, never was in real life) other than for the train to collect and take to the dump as my dream self reasons. A lifelong dream-related focus of a train taking large amounts of possibly valuable refuse to a landfill (or sometimes a warehouse where it is apparently sorted), usually northward, is a curious recurring theme.

I am on the railroad tracks for a time (remaining on the west side of them) but I am aware that a train is approaching from the south. I feel the vibrations and expect it to be carrying a lot of printed materials to a landfill, which enhances my curiosity about possibly attaining interesting books. Oddly, it turns out to be one boxcar moving down the track (with no discernible method of locomotion). It passes me, but when it starts to go through a tunnel (not a real-life feature) on the opposite side of our backyard, to the north, it somehow gets jammed in. I am somehow able to move it back out, as it seems very light. It falls off the railroad tracks directly into the living room of the house, which establishes consciously unresolvable ambiguity as to whether I am in an outdoor or indoor setting. (In real life, there was considerable distance from the railroad tracks to the house.)

I see various books inside the boxcar, which now seems only about half the size it had been previously. It is not only very light but starts to bend slightly, like thin aluminum. I notice a “Tom and Jerry” storybook with perhaps one small black and white drawing per page. I also notice two Nancy and Sluggo comic strip collections in book form. There are still a number of other books inside the boxcar as I tip it upside-down, some of the contents spilling onto the living room floor.

Two unknown men eventually appear and it seems as if they had been moving the boxcar down the tracks even though they were not seen until this point. They seem puzzled about the details concerning the wreck. They are not angry and seem friendly as I tell them that I hope to keep what I want from the boxcar. I even offer to pay for the contents (only because they showed up and I do not want to be seen as a thief) and the man to my right gives me a puzzled look as if there would be no need. (In the last stage, there is a vague sense of bilocation when the Cubitis living room is associated with the kitchen of our present home and the vague awareness of my real physical body in bed to my right, though there is also a vague awareness of one step leading up to it between the kitchen and where our bed is, a step or staircase symbolizing an increase of neural activity to eventually establish wakeful consciousness.)

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This dream seems to have been at least partly influenced by having reviewed and written about a childhood dream from 1967 (“Battle atop Boxes on a Boxcar”).

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A train is typically relevant to the dynamics of the dream state, not waking life. Here, it can be validated that I had threads of instinctual dreaming (unaware of being in a dream but still with influence and control). This is why my dream self was able to stop the boxcar (subliminally willing it to become stuck in the tunnel) and attain full control of it despite the size and weight. The preconscious and my emergent consciousness show up in the last scene as potential waking initiators, which is also unrelated to waking life as it is a common dream state component in case I indulge in a dream for too long (in which case the preconscious would become aggressive or more dominant, as waking up is a biological necessity).

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Resupplemented and minimally expanded on Thursday, 17 August 2017, due to seeing no evidence of public understanding of dreams or the dream state.

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