The Out of Control Car Dream

This is a very common dream motif, to be in a car that is in some degree out of control. It takes various forms – to find oneself in the back seat of a driverless car, driving at night without lights, or to be in a car with a dysfunctional driver, not to exclude other variations.

The other night I had a relatively optimistic version of this Dream. I was on the passenger side of the front seat, with several people sitting in the back. I noticed that the driver was having a difficult time controlling the car. While continuing my conversation with those in the back seat so that they would not grow alarmed I reached over and helped out the driver with both the steering and the brakes. I noticed that the driver had been fumbling with the ignition key just as the control inputs became very difficult. The engine was off which turned off the hydraulics to both the steering and the brakes, but the car was going downhill and would go no slower simply because the engine was off. So I whispered some reassurance to the driver and restarted the car and showed him that the steering and the brakes work much better with the car turned on. Then the driver was able to establish a reasonable level of control for himself.

Overall, this was a favorable dream for me. I behaved well. Even if the inept driver whom I was helping represents a inept facet of my self, by the end of the dream even he was functioning better than before.

This does bring to mind another car related dream I had had recently. I was again on the passenger side and a little old lady was the driver. There was a huge accident in front of us, and we were impacted a bit, but the little old lady panicked and over-controlled us off the main road to a run off that took us down the side of a hill virtually as steep and deadly as the side of a cliff. This was one time that I used some Lucid Control to intercede into the Dream Content. I clapped my hands and the car froze in its precipitate dive down the hill. I went around to the drivers side and helped the little old lady out of the damaged car, and then clapped my hands again to allow the car to again resume its drop to destruction.