Saturday, February 4, 2012

MARATHON DREAMS

After seeing my doctor already once this week, I had to crawl back to her office. Now I have a monstrously evil and green sinus infection.  Fortunately, I also have a big blue bottle of antibiotics.   It’s a blue versus green battle. Go Blue.
Note to self:  when you get well again and feel like you are ready for running, you aren’t.  When you feel you are ready to run, then you should actually wait another day or two and then you might be ready.
Nobody loves us as much as our dogs and as our five year old children. My five year said to me, “Daddy, I am going to wish on the first star I see tonight that nobody in the world ever gets sick again.”
So sweet, but until the star comes out, I will be sick and accept it, and in the meantime, spend the time resting, sleeping, and dreaming.
I’m a big believer in the interpretation of dreams. It unites us.  There is something about the collective unconsciousness of all of humankind that appears in our unfiltered thoughts, a messy kaleidoscope of psychic barf that lands on the floor, tiny chunks of our head mixed in with undecipherable muck, but still somewhat recognizable as crazy as it all looks.  I am sure our ancestors had some of the same primal fears we do; dreams of falling, of flying, of being stuck in wet cement or swamp water and needing to run but feeling powerlessness.

I hope I wake before I land!

Lebowski in a flying dream


Well, the realm of marathoning has crept it’s way into my dreams, sprouting like tulips into my sleeping thoughts  from time to time,  and it’s probably no surprise. When something really scares you, invigorates you, enlivens all of your senses and has been subliminally implanted into your psyche and soul, it will inevitably end up in your dreams.

After many years of training, the physical experiences have left a mark, a permanent psychological imprint.  The dreams are as likely to happen if I am training for a marathon or not. There have been many of them, and some go like this:
Usually I am trying to finish the marathon but I am lost. The route follows a maze, often actually going into buildings, up and down fire escapes, through the windows and then back out the front of a building. (which would be cool, right, but of course, in the dream I am frantic.) I’ve lost the rest of the crowd, possibly never to find them again, and the whole idea that months and months of training are lost, all for naught, pooof! Out the door, and it's not just that I  wasted a  day, but I’ve wasted six months,  wasted my whole running life, I’m living a meaningless existence cause I’m lost, adrift at sea with no compass to guide me and forever forgotten…
Okay, I’m sensationalizing a bit, but there is huge panic being lost and unable to find the marathon course.
I have also had this same dream of being the leader of a marathon, in first place, but I have to follow these dotted lines to the finish but they zig-zag all over the place.
In one dream I showed up marathon morning in a pair of bowling shoes.  They were the big floppy kind that might of well have been clown shoes.
In another dream I was at the start but I had forgotten my shorts, so there I stood in thick cotton sweat paints, debating if I should try to make it home to get my gear (it was a big marathon and 40,000 people needed to get out of the  starting chute, giving me probably 20 minutes) or just run as is.
So, I guess these are versions of showing up to school in your underwear, forgetting to study for a test, and all our deepest silliest impossible to understand fears coming true.  And if nothing else, I wake up with gratitude knowing it was just a bad dream, just a lesson that things could be must worse, dreams could come true.  Wishing on stars, on the other hand always works.
I looked at a couple dream interpretations regarding marathons. Here's one:
Marathon
To dream that you are running in a marathon represents life's journey and how you are performing or feeling. It is symbolic of your endurance and willpower. Consider how you feel about the marathon and how you are approaching it.
And here’s a post with the same running fears.. NY times Post on Marathon Dreams
So, I don’t think I have ever solicited for comments on this blog. Mostly because my fear is that the only folks who read it are my cousins down south and some guy from India who googled 'Dobby'.  But, I am curious if anyone has had these dreams, or am I that strange of a bird.

6 comments:

SupermomE13 said...

Look! It's Dobby! :)

Actually, I usually have marathon dreams when I a close to race day. I had a dream similar to yours where I was running, and then all of a sudden we were detoured through some crazy obstacle course, in and out of stores, etc. Never dreamt about bowling shoes though. :)

Leah F said...

I have running dreams all the time and they almost always involve me running in completely random places (like up and down staircases and hallways) and I invariably cannot run normally. Something is always off with my gait or stride.

Anonymous said...

As former competitive figure skater, I frequently have dreams that I suddenly have to skate at a competition, and I am freaking out about what fool of myself I will make since I haven't skated in years! I suppose since I was a skater longer than I have been a runner is why I dream about the skating events. It usually happens when I am stressed about something else in my life that I feel unprepared for (i.e. work/residency).

On the Right Track said...

I have dreams all the time about running...probably because I can't right now; however they are motivating to me because I always finish hard and fast...kind of like a superstar!!!

I guess that's why we call them dreams, huh:):):)

I'll have to check out your book!

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una flor said...


Hi,I really interested in dreams and now I am normally working with them because it is the way to know more about me and my feeling. sometimes, I synchronizes some dreams in my real life, well they are not exactly as I can see or live in dreams because the language can be interpreted and it works in symbolic way. Symbolic language shows and makes me discover a new inner world that comes from the unconscious mind. Well, I have dream about marathon and in this case it is about the purpose that I want to achieve. I remember another about a cycling competition that I was cycling very hard to win and that time I was in a hard time because a relative person died and It took me time to be in courage and forces to recover

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