A few nights ago I had an interesting dream that somehow included trips to both Sydney and London. Since I got back from Europe a few months ago it has been fairly common for me to have dreams about some new overseas trip that I find myself on. Nothing particularly new or exciting there. However, it seems that with increasing regularity I’m finding that the dreams seem to particularly involve the ways in which I’m getting around those cities.

It’s always interesting to see the similarities and differences between real places and how they appear in my dreams. I know that throughout the course of many hundreds of different dreams over the years I’ve managed to almost create an ‘alternative Auckland’ in my mind. In particular, the central motorway junction area is highly modified in my mind, and yet at the same time it’s reasonably consistent throughout different dreams, often ones that I’ve had years apart. For example, where Morningside Drive crosses the railway line (a railway crossing I went across a lot as a kid because it was near my primary school) my dreams have that as the start of a motorway that pretty quickly turns into a fairly giant interchange – which although complex seems reasonably surprising consistent and easy to remember. However, in recent times times those motorway dreams have seemed to end up being replaced by new railway dreams. I guess a sign of how my subconscious has changed with relation to transportation.

However, these dreams are almost always linked to overseas trips (probably because the only decent transit systems I’ve come across overseas). The other night I managed to experience both the Sydney rail system (although it was a rather strange version of it) and then also the London Underground. I don’t remember much from the Sydney part of the dream (or in fact even how I got there, or got from there to London), but once I was in London I distinctly remember from the dream that Leila and I were going to the Victoria and Albert Museum (I must have a subconscious sense of guilt that we never got there even though I know Leila really wanted to). We had to get on the District Line to go to South Kensington station (which is actually quite correct as South Kensington is probably the best tube station to access the Victoria and Albert Museum and it is also on the District Line), although the District Line on the map in my dream looked very very different to how it actually looks in reality. Once again I guess it’s my subconscious being fascinated by rail maps, but is not quite able to transfer my actual knowledge of the London Underground map (which is probably unhealthily extensive for someone who’s only been in that city for 8 days) into my actual dreams.

Perhaps I’ll be having dreams about what an electrified Auckland rail system will look like eventually.

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