What is the monkey dream?
Saru yume (“monkey dream”) is the story of an eerie train that appears in a dream, one of the classic horror stories born on the internet. It is based on an account posted to the occult section of an internet message board around 2000.
The story of the monkey dream
In a dream, someone is standing on a dim station platform when a small train like those at amusement parks pulls in. A conductor wearing a monkey mask is aboard, and passengers are seated. As the train moves off, an announcement plays, “Next stop: sliced alive,” and the passenger in the back seat is cut to pieces by little people with blades. With every announcement, another passenger is killed in a cruel way, and the turn draws closer to the dreamer. They wake up at the last moment, but days later have the same dream again, and the train starts up from where it left off.
A ghost story of dreams
The monkey dream left a strong impression on many people, with the fear that what happens in a dream might affect reality and the inescapable situation of being trapped in a dream. Sometimes a twist is added that whoever reads the story will have the same dream, and it is still told as a classic of internet horror.
