Winter Death Dreams

Many dreams in the first week. Of the fragments i can recall, most have mostly involved annoying setbacks. Easily a reflection of my waking life, this first week of December. Last night, however, the dream felt different. I was on a train going from 'the coast' to Charlotte to see a basketball game. The train car i was in was full of people. I didn't know them but i knew i was part of their "group" and our destination or goal was the same. It was a fairly long train with several cars. We were cruising along at a high rate of speed and the people in my car were laughing and excited about the upcoming game. Just as we were crossing through a dry, desolate looking area the train came to an abrupt stop. We were confused and the laughing turned to muttering. Finally the conductor ? told us that somebody in another of the cars had said that the train was going too fast and running too hot so the conductor stopped the train to let the engines cool. I asked the conductor if he had seen the lights on the board and he said he did. Then i asked him if the train had been overheating and he said that the computer didn't think so. I became incensed that he had stopped the train based on a few people in one of the cars instead of paying attention and following what he knew to be the truth of the situation. It didn't matter though because now that the train was stopped there was nothing to do but wait until the engines cooled again.

Now we're at the station and i'm alone. I go to the container where my car has been parked and wonder if i'll be able to find my way out of the city. There's a man also getting his car and it's in the same container as mine. At first i can't figure out how i'll get my car out because the container is a train car and it's too high off the ground. It makes me feel anxious. The stranger explains to me that the garage attendant will release the ramp so we can drive down. Right as he says that the ramp is extended and i feel relieved that i'm not trapped. But as i go to get in my car i see that it's got a cover over it that prevents me from getting in. The stranger apparently drives this route all the time and knows the ropes so he's explaining to me how the attendants disable the cars by removing some of the internal controls to prevent theft. That's cool but i want to leave and can't. The attendant comes in and it's my old friend KevinH from Manassas and he's wearing his Mobil Oil grease monkey clothes. He removes the cover so i can access the controls. Everything seems fine when i start up the car, except the radio is blaring. When i try to turn it down i see all the controls are gone and just the bare circuits are exposed. I tell Kevin he needs to fix it because i have a long way to drive still and need to be able to have the controls working. He pulls out a tiny crescent ? wrench and puts the washers and screws back where they belong then puts the cover over it all so it's like it's supposed to be. I'm nervous about driving out of the train car so Kevin gets in the passenger seat to help guide me out.

We're on the street in front of the train station. Kevin gets out and leaves and i realize i don't know how to get to the highway. I drive around to the side of the train car again to see if the stranger is still around because i know he knows how to get to the highway but he's already taken off. I decide to pick a direction and go knowing that eventually i'll figure out where the highway is. All i know is that i'm going to a secret place in California that i go to sometimes in dreams. It's a Shangri-la sort of place that is situated at the southern-most end of a large blue tear-drop shaped lake.

I've seen that secret place on a map several times when i've gone to SanFran and Pacifica in dreams but i've never actually BEEN to that place because i can never talk my friends in to going there with me. It's so far from the usual places. I don't know why i just don't go alone. Probably because i know beauty is doubly pleasurable when it's shared with another. Maybe the dreams are saying that in spite of all the set backs i perceive to be happening, i'm slowly and surely getting to where i'm trying to be. I'll probably have to go there by myself because any sense of "group" i have is just an illusion. Death dream? More likely just a 'Time of the Year' dream with the Solstice so near.