Lightning is one of the most common transient interferences on overhead transmission lines of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems. Accurate and effective recognition of faults and disturbances caused by lightning strokes is crucial in transient protections such as traveling wave protection. Traditional recognition methods which adopt feature extraction and classification models rely heavily on the performance of signal processing and practical operation experiences. Misjudgments occur due to the poor generalization performance of recognition models. To improve the recognition rates and reliability of transient protection, this paper proposes a transient recognition method based on the deep belief network. The normalized line-mode components of transient currents on HVDC transmission lines are analyzed by a deep belief network which is properly designed. The feature learning process of the deep belief network can discover the inherent characteristics and improve recognition accuracy. Simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Results demonstrate that the proposed method performs well in various scenarios and shows higher potential in practical applications than traditional machine learning based ones.