A dream about proving myself
In one of last night’s dreams I was playing football in a field with a group of people. It was a typical English field, but not one that I remember ever going to. The day was fairly overcast, and I couldn’t really see whom I was playing with. At one point I noticed that a guy called Ed Holden was in my dream. I went to secondary school with Ed. He was picking on in the dream me and being quite mean, and in the end, four of us who had been playing football started playing field hockey, while the others around us carried on with their game.
Ed was taunting me and I began feeling like I had something to prove. I kept missing the ball, but pretended like I was only practicing, as you do in golf. I got so pissed off with Ed that I launched the hockey ball so high into the sky that it went over the roof of a house. I watched as it bounced twice on the roof, and then came down the front of the house landing on the windshield of a car, again bouncing twice (four bounces in all). A great fear rose up inside me and the dream started to darken, both in the literal and figural sense.
I became aware that the house belonged to James Veale, who was my best friend in primary school. I was supposed to be staying over at his house, and now I was worried about what his dad would say about me cracking his car’s windshield (the car was red). Nobody had seen the crack at this point except me, and I thought maybe nobody would notice.
James’ Dad then opened the front door of his house and screamed: “It’s not just dirty! It’s CRACKED!” The fear I felt then was very real, and I did the only thing I could think to do, which was to fly away somewhere I could not be found. I hid somewhere dark, although I’m not sure where I was exactly.
This dream raised a number of issues. It was another dream with people in it whom I have not seen for many years. Ed Holden was someone I’d always liked, but I wasn’t particularly good friends with him. As we approached the end of school I thought he’d become a little bit arrogant, but he was a good guy. The one thing I still associate with Ed is a comment he said to me once about a girlfriend who had cheated on me. His comment was rather offensive, even though it was off the cuff. Having recently broken up with my girlfriend (who didn’t cheat on me), this could explain Ed’s presence.
Playing hockey was something I always enjoyed and was good at, but as I got older I began to feel more intimidated by other players, and my game slipped completely between year 11 and year 12. I was afraid to really play (especially with new people whom I was unfamiliar with) for fear of being made to look bad. My life at the moment is riddled with fear of failure in a world much bigger than myself. I usually put this fear to the back of my mind.
Attempting to prove myself to Ed in my dream may be me trying to prove myself to the girl who is most on my mind at the moment, as well as trying to show the world something about my abilities. Breaking the windshield and the subsequent fear could be linked to the fear I feel at the moment as I prepare to leave my job and maybe leave the country in which I live. I’m afraid to fail, and flying away was my way of hiding from the realities of life, which I have been doing somewhat by pretending that everything will be fine, when deep down I know there are many things that are rather uncertain right now. The dream was rather gloomy, so I’d say it represents something about my apprehensions about the future and about wanting to achieve, but being afraid to put myself into unfamiliar places for fear of failure or not being accepted. I think I also fear rejection by my ex-girlfriend, with whom I still speak every day.
I’m unsure why the car was red, or why the number ‘four’ made an appearance. Money, work, life, girls: those are four things I said were prominently on my mind just a few weeks ago. When I think of a red car, I think of something that stands out, particularly in Thailand where most cars tend to be dark in colour. Could the car be a part of me, wanting to stand out in an otherwise graying world?
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