Chased By A Train: A Recurring Nightmare (Concluding Post)

A woman had a recurring nightmare in which she was about to be run over by a train. Yesterday, I showed the results of our together to uncover the metaphoric meanings of her various dream symbols. Today, we’ll reassemble her dream metaphorically. I think you’ll agree that its message is powerful.

The restated dream

It’s as if I can’t take time to prepare and get my bearings. I feel inadequate because I can never catch up. I’ve missed a lot of important stuff. It will be hard to put everything into context. I can’t seem to make forward motion. I find myself travelling along a place where huge and powerful vehicles that exist inside of me travel. I have to keep making leaps; I can’t just go forward in the normal way. There are supports that hold this entire pathway that lives inside of me together. But each one is placed uncomfortably distant for me. I have to use everything in my physical self. I feel stuck, encumbered, bogged down. I have no dexterity and I feel hindered. I am anguished and afraid. I can’t see very well, and I can’t protect myself, but behind me, there is a huge, massive vehicle that lives within me. It is not nimble and it can’t stop when it gets going within me. It will destroy me; I will cease to exist. It’s ominous and I know it’s there. It’s telling me to move out of the way or else. In this case, it’s like a paralysis. It’s beyond fear. My destruction is imminent. I suddenly come into full consciousness.

An initial examination

If you read this dream up to, but not including, the last sentence, it comes across as the dream of someone who is in serious trouble, of someone sinking—perhaps emotionally, perhaps financially, perhaps with all that she must cope with in life. But the last sentence puts it all into an entirely different perspective.

How many of us must sink to the bottom before we surrender enough to grow into who we are supposed to be? Let’s read what the dreamer herself had to say about this dream:

In the dreamer’s own words

Ever since I was small, I’ve had experiences and visions, especially at night during semi-sleep. When I would tell my parents about this, they at first accused me of making it up. I grew up in a fundamentalist religious family, and when the experiences persisted, my parents accused me of being in league with the devil. I became very afraid. Because of that, I have tried to resist and prevent these experiences, and they became like a monster to me. Even as an adult, after I grew into my own personal spiritual beliefs, I was scared of them. But I guess I got tired of resisting. I finally surrendered to these visions. At first I thought I would die. But after I learned to accept them, I felt totally liberated. I have learned to love them.

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