Does anyone out there have a history in analyzing the meaning of dreams? If so, I’m looking for some direction on a particularly bizarre dream.
I’ve had a dream before where I’m back in high school. We will be in the gymnasium (myself and all the students from my high school) and the coach will call a couple of captains. The captains will pick the teams and … surprise! … I get picked last.
I’m fairly certain that the dream mentioned above isn’t unique. At least I hope it isn’t. It is, however, a dream that I had frequently after leaving high school. I haven’t had a dream like that for decades.
Last night I had a dream in the same vein, but with new and interesting twists. It ran thusly:
My wife, myself, my brother-in-law, and my sister-in-law are on a cruise ship (which is a planned vacation for the four of us. We are going on such a trip in August). We are in a common area, but dressed as though we are at a dinner party. Much noise and cocktail imbibing ensues. Out of nowhere, my high school gym coach appears and says, “Let’s pick some teams!” My wife and I both run to the coach, somehow assuming we are the chosen captains. Instead, high school gym coach (his name was Mr. Bone, by the way, not that it probably matter, but it was funny both then and now) waves my wife up as a captain but gives me a stop gesture and says, “Not you.” He then points me to sit on the bleachers -which are the bleachers from my high school.
From the door on the left of the room, my eldest brother, Dennis, runs in. Coach points him to the captain’s area. From the door on the right of the room, my other brother, Dan, runs in. Coach also points him to the captain’s area. Then, from the banner behind coach (a big, burgundy banner with the Trojan’s logo -Winston High School, yo!) my dad, who has now been dead for 26 years, also joins coach in the captain’s area. They start calling students to join their teams.
I watch from the bench as my wife, my brothers, and my father call literally everyone in my high school to their teams. At the end, I am the only one sitting on the bench. They start to play a game -I honestly don’t remember what they were playing- while I watch from the stands. I stand up and shout, waving my hands frantically, thinking they have forgotten me. Everyone sees me (I make eye contact with all the principle characters) but no on acknowledges me. I eventually flee in horror.
When I reach the double-doors of the gymnasium, instead of opening to the outside, they open to the lobby of an airport. I don’t know what airport I am in or where am I going (I don’t know in the dream, but I don’t know now either). I do know that I need to go up the escalator to get where I need to be though. I get on the escalator to go to the next floor.
Midway up the escalator, the motor stops. I am frozen in place on the escalator with a guy in front and behind me that keep me from using it as a staircase. I am about to hop over the rail of the escalator -you know, to use the stairs beside- when the ‘stairs’ on the escalator drop. When they drop, I am left standing on what looks like a sheer piece of sheet metal that is slanted at a forty-five degree angle. I still have my hands firmly on the arm rails, and I still have the plan to jump over, but then I hear the voice on the intercom again, “The escalator has failed. Please keep your arms near your body for protection.”
Everyone else on the escalator disappears. I don’t know if they disappeared at exactly this moment, but when I look in front and behind there is no one else there. The escalator (which -if you remember- now looks like a sheer sheet of metal) starts to roll up like the lid of a sardine tin. Before I can react to any of this, the sardine-tin-lid/escalator rolls me up inside it.
Now rolled inside the sardine-tin-lid/escalator, I am reinserted in the high school gymnasium where I am forced to continue watching my wife, both of my brothers, my father, my brother-in-law, and my sister-in-law all playing a game I can’t quite see. As I scream for help, none of them look over to see me wrapped in the piece of thin sheet metal, unable to move.
And then I wake up.
…
I’m pretty sure the dream is just trying to tell me that I’m awesome, but I am more than open to your interpretations.
