Dream Exploration: A Train Ride in Sydney
Dreams often draw on real-life happenings, so let me share what happened in my life before the dream:
First, I asked a friend if he wanted to go to a star party with me.
Second, I spoke to an aunt in Australia.
Third, I watched:
My alarm rang at 6 AM. It was cold, so I turned it off and went back to bed. Then I dreamt that I at a railway station in Sydney. I was looking all over for my friend, but he wasn’t there, so I decided to go alone. There was a TTE, a white guy wearing a good uniform with a white shirt (like an airline pilot’s uniform). He was standing outside the station and on one side was a railing. I asked him, “Does this train go to —” and then I realised that I didn’t know the name of the place I was supposed to go to. My friend did, and he’s not here. To avoid sounding awkward, I completed the sentence with “— some place by the sea?” I then realised that that sounded awkward, too, since half the places in Sydney are by the water. As we were speaking, four thin white girls between 20-25 opened a gate in the railing we were standing by (I didn’t realise there was a railing till then) and there were wide big steps going down, like the way the stands in this stadium1 would appear if you climbed to the top and looked down:
I then realised it’s a double-decker train that can be boarded from either level, and the girls, being locals, knew this, and were boarding from the lower level to reduce crowding. I thought it’s good for me they’re doing this since it will reduce crowding at my level, too.
I then realised that thanks to the delay caused by my friend not turning up, I’m running late, and if I start the journey now, by the time it completes, I’ll have overslept. I was aware of time in the real world, that it was getting late. Since I decided not to take the train, I wanted to exit the dream. I was aware that I was dreaming, but didn’t know how to exit. I was stuck2. The TTE was looking at me expecting me to say or do something, and while I knew he isn’t real, I didn’t want to be rude to him3.
Then I woke up, and had a dim realisation that I was back in the real world.
A short while later, I was back in front of the TTE and the railing, this time 5 meters away. I realised that I’m back in the dream world, which means I must have fallen asleep again. I was able to deduce this in the dream. The TTE knew that I’m not from Australia and wanted to help me, but did not know how.
The dream ended there.
The imagery must have come from my visit to the exact same stadium a couple months back.
But it wasn’t nightmarish.
Any more than I’m unnecessarily rude to ChatGPT.