Saruyume (猿夢), A Record of Someone Who Could Not Get Off the Train in a Dream

Saru-yume.

In Japanese, 猿夢.

Translated literally, it means something like “Monkey Dream.” Judging by the name alone, it sounds a little silly. I thought so too when I first saw the title. I did not immediately understand why this story had lingered for so long.

But when you follow the line of the original text, the monkey is almost more like a joke attached to the name. This is not a cute animal story. It is a train story. More precisely, it is a dream about going somewhere you cannot get off from.

According to currently available materials, Saru-yume is generally identified as a ghost story posted on August 2, 2000, in the first thread of the 2ch occult board’s 「死ぬほど洒落にならない怖い話を集めてみない?」, meaning “Want to collect scary stories that are no joke, scary enough to kill you?” It was later reposted many times as one of the representative works of the 洒落怖, or “Sharekowa,” lineage. As is always the case with message-board ghost stories, however, it cannot be confirmed who wrote it, whether it was an actual dream, or whether it was fiction.

The story, in brief, goes like this.

The narrator knows they are dreaming. The place is a dark, unmanned station. An announcement says a train will soon arrive