I’ve had flu for a bit, which has led to a lot of snot and a few fever dreams.

I can’t define the subtext of snot, but a lot of the dreams have been anxiety ones set on trains.

This makes sense. I’ve spent a lot of time on trains recently, racing from cat to dog to rehearsal, or – before that – across Germany in clunking ancient night train carriages full of confused Mexican tourists.

Last night’s dreams were a mishmash of endless corridors on a train to York with a rotating cast of dream-logic companions: sometimes family, sometimes friends, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary. The train was overcrowded, dirty, and chaotic – different to imagine in the sober awake times, I know.

The mood was one of panic. Panic over finding somewhere to sit. Panic over finding somewhere to put my bike. Panic over getting off at the right stop.

And, beyond the panic, fury: at the rude and unthinking behaviour of other passengers, at the insouciant shrugs of the mysteriously plentiful staff, at the sheer anarchic and endless misery of it all.

I woke up this morning quite shaken by the fury in particular. Anxiety dreams are fairly common to those who remember them – so, teeth falling out, for humans, or a bowl that is inexplicably devoid of food, for dogs – but my behaviour in them is so strange. Sometimes I end up screaming at dream-strangers, or raging in sweaty impotent fury at dream-avatars-of-control, like the aforementioned imaginary rail staff.

I wake up shaken and embarrassed by my behaviour. I don’t get angry much in the daytime – if this were self-criticism hour, I’d probably say I don’t get angry enough – and I wonder if my nighttime fury is a kind of subconscious safety valve. My inner Basil Fawlty raging at the metaphorical broken-down-car with a metaphorical tree branch.

Though, obviously, with a more progressive form of transportation.

Some more details from the dream (hey, I know dreams are terribly boring but hey this is *my* blog):

• People repeatedly taking my seat. One was the most stereotypical young Tory one might imagine, replete with Union Jack badge, poppy in his lapel, moustache, comb-over, and a desire to engage me in edgelord conversation. I sat on the floor and listened to his deliberately contentious views politely, while inside I was boiling with infuriation.
• Possessions falling all over the floor, and becoming mixed up with other people’s possessions. Tablets, notebooks, random bits of paper (probably scripts). Bikes, clothes, drugs (legal). And people desperately scrabbling for what they think is theirs.
• Constantly missing our station, York. And the train dividing and re-forming. And more and more people getting on the train without anyone ever seeming to get off.
• Secret areas of the train that I had stumbled into by mistake. Have you ever seen that very silly film Air Force One, where Harrison Ford is President and terrorists hijack his plane, but he hides in the seemingly vast areas of the cargo section? Like that, but with train carriages filled with lifts, mysterious panels, and crawl ways.

We made it to York eventually, and there was nothing there.

I did at least experience a fun coda dream, though, after I had woken up and gone back to sleep.

It took place on YET ANOTHER train, and was initially suffused with the dread of more disaster.

Wary, I walked through to the buffet carriage, and noted, in the dream, that there were no tables between the rows of benches, presumably (dream-logic) to prevent people from lingering.

And there was a serving hatch, and a friendly member of staff waiting to take my order. And lots of interesting beers on tap filled up the narrow space, temptingly. Dream me relaxed and thought – oh, finally, this is the good (not goods) train.

And ordered a cola.

—-

Lots to unpack there, though I don’t think I’m particularly Murakami-esque on the importance or meaning of dreams. They all seem fairly predictable to me, in that odd, sluggish, dreamlike way. It’s day to day life that I find strange.

I am interested in the anger and fury, though. It could be a simple case of processing – on my way to Thursday’s show, I saw a young man pick a fight with six different members of ticket barrier staff, most of whom wisely refused to engage.

I went through the barriers myself, then turned to watch, in case it escalated and anyone needed help. He was screaming in their face, swearing about disrespect and what he would do to them if they ever spoke to him or touched him again. He was absolutely out of control, a raging, animalistic, defensive, stupid, unpleasant, mess of ‘roids, toxic masculinity, and perceived grievance.

As someone played a jaunty tune on the station piano behind me, he absolutely would not let it go, even when he couldn’t rile any of the poor, put-upon staff into anything as validating as eye contact. He prowled away towards his train, then doubled back several times, making further violent threats, before finally marching off, kicking out at invisible enemies, desperate for us all to take his rage seriously, and ready to punch the first person who dared to laugh.

Imagine having to put up with that every day. Imagine the people around him. Imagine the horrors of being a woman in that man’s life.

So my dream could have just been an uncomfortable way of processing that uncomfortable encounter.

Or it could mean nothing at all.

Brains are strange.