So I dream I’m at Grand Central Station and I’m trying to get home to downtown, but the station is stuffed with people jammed in for an upcoming rock concert. I weave through the crowd and find a policewoman and ask her the way to the trains. She asks me my name, I give it, she mispronounces it, I mispronounce hers, and I think “how can she possibly help me if she doesn’t even know me.” She gives me to a disinterested lush young Indian woman, who leads me down into the subway platform, but then it’s the wrong line, or is it, I don’t even know any more. Which is upsetting because I used to carry a perfect New York metro map in my head in real life. Is that the best train downtown? Will I have to wait a long time? Is the train even running? Will I regret taking that train. Should I ignore the Indian woman and choose my own line that I know better, or would that be a mistake? It’s impossible to tell. Then just as I’m trying to decide, I wake up.
As a woken-up person I remind myself that I know all the trains in New York and exactly how to get where I’m going (home to downtown), and if my map is literally outdated and old, it doesn’t matter because this is “only” a dream we’re trying to solve. So: in the dream Grand Central was located up in Harlem. If so, that’s easy! Take the A train! Change at Times Square for the N-R to Greenwich Village, or take the 7 across town to the 4–5–6. You could also potentially take the 1–9. And if it’s where Grand Central really is, it’s even easier. Take the 6 to Astor Place. Or go even faster on the 4–5 but then you have to get off at Union Square.
I had the answers I needed…I just had to trust myself that I did know where I was going!