Working With Dream Themes: Riding Trains and Planes

A Dream Scene: Hopes Rising or a New Life Phase Taking Off?

Riding in or observing trains and planes are common dream themes which suggest something about the direction our lives our heading.   In times of transition, it is common to dream of planes landing, taking off, or crashing. Being at a train station, changing trains or boarding a train are also common scenarios in dreams. Questions to ask around these dreams might be:

• Who is riding the train or plane? If it is me, how is the train or plane an analogy for my life journey at the moment? If the person is someone else, does the train or plane may represent my hopes or expectations for that person?
• What is happening to the train or plane? Is it analogous to something that is happening in my life at the moment? For example, a plane lifting off suggests the start of a new project. A plane crashing suggests the crashing of hopes about an endeavor.
• If I am changing or getting off a plane or train, what are the circumstances in the dream and how do they relate to things happening in my life now? Am I changing a career or have I come to the end of a project?
• Is there a conductor, policeman or pilot acting as a helper in my dream to help get where I am going? This person may be spiritual guide or may represent an actual person who is trying to help me get where I need to go. What does he or she do to help me?
• Does this dream refer to an actual trip? If I travel a lot, the dream may be trying to give me specific information about a particular trip. For example, missing a plane may be a warning to tell me to double check the departure time for the flight or it may suggest that the trip will not be worthwhile because I will miss the opportunity the trip affords.

In any case, further reflection and questioning about the dream can bring about added insights for your life transitions. Let the dream speak to you and you will go far!

Methods for Getting Unstuck

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For anyone trying to move along in a creative project such as writing a book, getting in shape or developing one’s spiritual life, there are times when we get stuck and it seems like we are going nowhere.  Beyond just stepping back from the situation for a moment (and sometimes that is all it takes,) we encounter times when the obstacles and inertia seem to take over, and one feels like a boat drifting nowhere in the middle of the ocean.  At this point, dreams and meditation help a great deal.

Using Meditation to Get Unstuck

There are various types of meditation which can release a sense of feeling stuck.  One is the Inspired Heart Meditation developed by Henry Reed, Ph.D. based on many years of research.  Like many meditations, one is calmed and more detached in a process of observing the breath.  In this meditation, however, the person is asked to experience gratitude for the breath coming like a gift. Gratitude, like hope, has a tendency to raise the person above the concerns being experienced and opens one to what is new and to come.   This gratitude not only opens the heart to receive positive energy, it also opens one to receive intuitive insight, especially if one has asked or prayed for it just prior to starting the meditation.  One emerges not only rested and re-energized but also inspired, helping one to get unstuck because getting unstuck often means getting new insights on which way to go, resolving a problem and being rejuvenated!

Using Dreams to Get Unstuck

Asking or praying for a dream to help get unstuck is another approach which can often bring profound insights on many levels, as dreams often do.  While the answer may come in seemingly unrelated symbols, events and people, this oddness might be a way of just getting us out of a box and see the world in a different way!  Working with the dream in a manner that sees every object in the dream as symbolizing some energy within myself helps unravel the oddness and often brings home amazing results.  For example, with the holidays over, I am going back to work and wanted a dream to inspire and motivate me because I have been feeling lethargic from all the down time and good food.

Dream:  Many New Workers

I am in an Information Technology office with a couple of co-workers.  I look up and am amazed by the number of young men lined up, coming  through the office door to work in my workplace!  One of the workers already in the office looks and me and gives me a reassuring smile.

When I awoke, I was at first thrown off in dismay that the workplace was an Information Technology office like one I used to work at many years ago.  Like many people who try to interpret dreams, I took the dream literally and dreaded that it might mean I would be working in that kind of job again with its fast past and high stress–great for those times but not for now.  The symbolism seemed at odds to what I expected.  Then I reflected on what it is I wanted from the dream, and that was information if I would be up to working–not where I would be working!   I realized the dream was really telling me this:  the “Information Technology” office was the dream space where I was doing the dreamwork to get information!  It could also be the mental space where I would be doing my work. The fact that I had plenty of workers to do the work filled me with amazement and happiness.   They symbolized a lot of work energy available to me, letting me know I would be ready and “able bodied” when it came time to start work.  I knew the vacation mode mindset would be fading soon.