Long distance lorry [or car] driving

‘Seeing the black dog’ is an expression truck drivers use to describe the hallucinations they get from long periods of driving on monotonous terrain. The hallucinations are not confined to just lorry drivers, motorists get them too, but what marks out the lorry driver is the very long periods many of them go without sleep, the number of days they work driving, and the nature of some of the roads on which they drive.  They get them more often – which is somewhat alarming.

Comparitively few European truck drivers appear to get hallucinations because both our roads and motorways wind and turn and twist and there is lots to see and keep the senses alert.  But an Australian truck driver or an American truck driver going across the desert or across the prairies or similar largely featureless landscapes is continually being sent into a trance like condition by the straightness of the road and the monotony of the landscape.  Add to this the sensory deprivation of an airconditioned and sound proofed cab or driving in the dark and you have a recipe for seeing a whole pack of dogs! There is also the effect in many of sleep deprivation, and finally it can be related to reverse REM from the flashing car headlights or lines in the centre of the road.

The term ‘seeing the black dog’ was used in the film ‘Black Dog’, which is where many people come to use the expression.  In the film Jack Crews (Patrick Swayze) is a truck driver who has just been released from jail for vehicular manslaughter, for accidentally hitting and killing a motorist on the side of the road during a trip in which he experienced a ‘Black Dog’ hallucination.

The expression however derives from the folklore of the UK.  The black dog is essentially a nocturnal apparition – a ghost or hallucination – often said to be malevolent  [although benevolent black dogs are not unknown].  Its appearance was sometimes regarded as a portent of death. 

Interestingly, many of the black dogs that people claim to have actually seen, as opposed to those in legend and stories such as the Hound of the Baskerville, have appeared during electrical storms and if you turn to the description for ‘storm and thunder’ you will see there is every reason for a person to have a very intense spiritual experience during these events. Black Shuck’s appearance in Bungay in Suffolk is just such an event.

Other places where black dogs have appeared have been crossroads where there is often a crossing of fault lines and thus telluric currents – another good place to get an hallucination [see also geomagnetic Hot spots] so the legends may not be legends at all.  So not all black dogs are seen by lorry drivers, but the ones that are, come in some quite interesting flavours.