Dream Diary - At The Football Game

I haven’t recorded a dream here for quite a while. I was just thinking the other day that it seems like I don’t remember my dreams as well as I did while I was blind. But I had one last night that is sticking with me, so here goes.

I was going to a Nebraska football game with some friends. The only friend I remember specifically was Brent Richardson. Jon Nutter may have been there but I’m not sure. I think there were some friends of Brent’s that I didn’t know that well, classmates of his from school. We were walking through the stadium, which was a lot like a tremendously huge shopping mall with large hallways and shops lining the sides and lots of people walking or milling about.

Here the dream skips and I’m on the sideline of the football field watching the game. All the people I was with are gone. There is a progression of events here that I don’t fully remember but it goes something like this: During the game I caught a ball that was thrown to a Nebraska receiver but went out of bounds. I tossed the ball to the player it was intended for. Later in the game that same player scored a touchdown and he tossed me the scoring ball so I could hang on to it for him until after the game, which I did. After the game, I went with that player into a kind of lounge area where the players were hanging around after showering and changing.

Here’s where things get weird. Two or three of the players, not including “my” player, had removed my right shoe and sock and were rubbing something like baby lotion on my foot and kind of laughing among themselves about it. I have no idea why they were doing it, or why I let them, but by the time I wanted them to stop I felt powerless to do so, them being big muscular football players and all. I finally asked them what the stuff was, and the answer I got was “Tane Acetate”. I got the impression it was something they had learned about in one of their college science classes. I asked, “What does it do?” One of them pointed down at my foot and when I looked I was horrified to see that I had several extra toes growing, a couple growing right out the side of my foot below the pinky toe. They had played a trick on me, and a pretty mean one. I felt pretty stupid for thinking I had made some new friends. I asked how long it took for the stuff to wear off, and they indicated that my foot would never be right again. Without another word I collected my sock and shoe and limped away. I knew the shoe wouldn’t fit over my newly deformed foot so I just carried it.

Then the dream turned into something very familiar. I was back in the mall-like stadium area looking for the way out. The place was nothing but one hallway after another, all looking vaguely the same. I’ve had lots of dreams like this, a few of which I’ve documented here in my blog.. The place was so huge and I couldn’t just find any old doorway out, it had to be the one to where my car was parked. I tried to remember which shops we had passed on the way in but I hadn’t been paying that much attention and could remember only a few details. One of those details was a comic book store by the way, also a recurring theme in my dreams.

So I wandered. At one point I thought I had made it into the stands overlooking the football field and might be able to retrace my steps from there, but when I got to the railing and looked down to the field I saw that it was actually a swimming pool and some kind of swimming or diving competition was under way. At another time, I found a door that went out to the street. I looked out and knew it wasn’t the right way, and I was scared to go out fearing that the door would lock behind me. Even though I was lost I felt better being lost inside rather than out. There were lots of people around but I knew it would do no good to ask for help because I had no idea what area my car was parked in, I would only recognize it if I saw it myself. Through all this I still had my shoe off and the extra toes gradually receded, although one of my natural toes disappeared as well.

So I guess you might say that was a bad dream. I actually felt myself begin to wake up and I immediately thought “Good, wake up and get out of here!” which is exactly what happened.