Finding Treasures in Dreams

Finding treasures in dreams fascinates me. Especially when there is some uncertainty of exactly what the treasure is. Twice recently, I’ve had vivid dreams where some unidentified magnificent presence was there, but fogged away upon my awakening. Last week, I dreamt that my father, brother and I traveled together to watch a professional baseball game at some unknown stadium. The two of them walked down to some lower bleachers, while I grabbed some suds on an upper concourse in between a couple of shady characters. One of these men wore a dark motorcycle T-shirt or jacket with elaborate writings on the back. These complicated slogans made great sense in the dream and were certainly an integral part of an answer to some broad realm, but I disremembered them upon later awakening. In the dream, the strangers and I split apart after our order from the snack bar, and then I looked down at my change and noticed that somehow in the chaos of the busy exchange my ticket became bent up. Inspecting the ticket closer, I saw it was for a lesser seat, way up behind the outfield bleachers. I went back and told the barkeep, “Thanks for teaching me a lesson.”

Suddenly Rickey Henderson came up to bat. (This was the first clue that it was a dream, because I thought he was retired, but not 100% sure) In the dream, Henderson still had it. He smacked the first pitch hard and high. An AM radio voice announced, “Will Rickey Henderson get another triple in the World Series?” Suddenly (to show how he still had it?) Henderson transformed into an outfielder and made a giant leap to try to catch his own hit ball. I was at the back of the high fence and the gates opened as the ball transfigured into a rubber sun-like object -red and fiery. It was about the size of a very large beach ball and it bounced down a chasm onto a several hundred wide foot trampoline-like object newly revealed in the depths of the stadium. It rebounded off the earth’s mantle spinning around in slightly different spots and seemed to be asking a guardian to direct its bouncing energy. I jumped out and balanced upon the ball each time it bounced back up to the fans eye levels. In a way, it was like the logrolling contests of yore. Some fans that were friendly toward me were amazed that I could continue to have some sort of control over this small sun-orb, and lightly chanted, “Banholzer can bounce with the core!” As I bounced, a distinct pinging sound repeated itself each time small sol dipped into the mantle. I kept having simple thoughts –“The core bounces off”, “A rebounding edge ping” and “stay in synchronicity with the core” Much of this time; I sensed that another presence was peeking in on this besides Rickey Henderson and the fans. Something seemingly from outside time and space. The sonaric pinging was so distinct that it repeated in regular three or four-second intervals, continuing even for several minutes of a determined slow awakening as I tried scratching down the dream’s essence upon my nightstand notebook.

Rickey Henderson Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com

Only now, when I looked up Mr. Henderson’s statistics –to see how many triples he has had in Post Season play, did I realize that his nickname is “The Man of Steal”. Last week in my psyche class, we were discussing dreams and I recounted an interview I had seen with Christopher Reeve on Sixty Minutes three years ago. In that interview, Superman said that when he dreamt he could always walk or fly. He was never in a wheelchair in his dreams.