I dreamed I was riding on a train. I had fallen asleep (in the dream) and woke up as the train was passing through a tunnel. Understand that tunnels frighten me somewhat in real life, and passing through one made me nervous in the dream as well. The tunnel in the dream was unusually long, vivid, shiny, white, and perfectly square-shaped, and in fact looked very much like this image I googled for, which is labeled "Montreal underground city," but I've never been there.

Being nervous in the dream, when I woke up and found us passing through this tunnel, I closed my eyes again until we were out of it.

Shortly after that, the train hit a bull--as in male cattle--and jumped the track but didn't topple over.

Inspection showed little damage to the train or the bull, but the track was visibly dangerous. It seemed to be sparkling with an electric charge of some kind. Crew wanted to do mickey-mouse repairs on the track and be on our way, but I wouldn't hear of it. Despite the protests of the crew and other passengers, I gathered my baggage and left for a pay phone to call my husband to pick me up. It might be significant to note that it was night time, and we were in the middle of nowhere when the train hit the bull.

It didn't take me long to pick up much of the symbolism. I've been "trained" to put up with a lot of "bull" even when it "throws me off track". Others still in that situation protest, not wanting me to leave them, because hey, if they're stuck in it, I have to be stuck in it with them. And I'm not having it. My present life is with my husband, not with the people from my past, who were leading me down a "dangerous track."

What I don't get is the tunnel. I know the usual symbolism of the train-and-tunnel analogy, and yes I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I just don't know how to tie it in with the other symbols, since my family (who are probably the other passengers) didn't want me to keep on being sexually abused. They just wanted me to keep quiet about it, that's all. And if this is what the tunnel represents, why was it so shiny, bright white, and perfectly square?

[Perna]

What a great dream! Way to go with the trained-to-put-up-with-bull-when-thrown-off-track figuring out!

The first thing I noticed was your falling asleep on the train. That interested me because I have read that dreaming you are falling/asleep when you're already asleep is about as passive as you can get, kind of don't want to see/know this and whatever it may mean. That's what I think going into the tunnel may have been too, the tunnel was stark white, nothingness (since you "rejected" falling asleep in the dream?). The only thing I have read about white, square "rooms" though is for hospital dreams? You have any hospital situations in your life?

Too, there is "tunnel" vision. Maybe you are seeing things only one way instead of in a broader, forest-instead-of-trees way in living "color"?

With your recognition of what the dream meant to you (and it is your dream) I am a bit confused because why would you have such a dream if you no longer have that problem? You are with your husband instead of the people in your past life, as you say so why the dream at all?

I've recently made a decision to have no more contact with my mother, because in the words of my therapist, "even when she thinks she's building you up, she's tearing you down." There is some guilt over "honor thy father and thy mother." A big part of that "bull" is "keep your mouth shut about family matters," and "family comes first, no matter what."

I note two things:

1. The train hit the bull *after* emerging from the tunnel.
2. I took my baggage with me when I left the train.

I'm figuring out that I'm still having these dreams until I can leave my baggage behind, but I still don't quite get the tunnel. It could be tunnel vision, rather than alluding to the sexual abuse, since I have a lot of guilt over not contacting my birth family and also over being divorced and remarried. That guilt is religious. Christian fundamentalism, to be exact. Walking the straight and narrow. And come to think of it, what is straighter and narrower than that tunnel? But I'd already passed *through* it when the train hit the bull. It seems to me that if the dream were telling me about the old way of thinking, the bull would have appeared inside the tunnel, which represents the old way of thinking, telling me that it was "bull."

Or...

Maybe I had to emerge from the tunnel in order to be able to "see" the bull.

In any case, I'll have to tell myself next time to leave my baggage on the train.

[Perna]

Too, guilt is a bunch of bull? Even/especially fundamental Christianity, one's sins have been forgiven so there shouldn't be any guilt. Honor thy Father and thy Mother is about respect, not blindly doing whatever rules they make up. You just have to listen to what they say and thank them for their opinion but, as a married adult (cleaving to your husband :-) you don't have to obey them, maybe "love, honor, and obey" husband but no longer parents.

I think you're supposed to hit the bull, is a message your dream might be telling you? That certainly goes with leaving your baggage on the train, LOL.

You're out of the tunnel of your parent's "rule" and have hit that guilt bull, left the train but took the baggage to a pay phone (does your husband "charge" for his help?)

Nice one, Perna.

My baggage continues to haunt me even now, when I'm safely out of that tunnel and off the train. Hubby doesn't expect things in return for his help, but there is a conflict right now between us that I'm going to talk about in the relationships forum. I don't know if it has much to do with the dream, since it just cropped up to the surface today. And given the nature of the conflict, I'm not sure what connection it would have to a pay phone.