Dream Journal
December 18, 2025
I was at work. It was a combination of working and a party. There was lots of food on tables, and some lines. People were talking. I was not very excited to be there.
Later on I was in a house, possibly Jeff A’s house. A gray soccer ball rolled down the stairs and I went down to get it. I didn’t really want to. There was an open door at the bottom of the stairs and it opened out into the parking lot of a huge soccer complex. I walked out there and looked around a little. No luck. I came back to the stairs and went into the messy bedroom next to them. I found a couple gray soccer balls in there, but they were too small, and broke apart as I touched them. I left the room and returned to the parking lot.
I noticed there was a path it could have rolled that would have taken it a block’s distance down a road through the parking lot. I decided I should probably go check. I was not particularly engaged in this task. Along the way I saw a team among the cars walking to the fields. Someone called my name and waved and I waved back. It was someone I’d recently met in a group in another dream. I kept walking, and noticed I was in my underwear and a shirt. I thought I should get some shorts but dismissed it — nah, no one cares. For a moment I was looking into the possibility of following that thread, a path in the dream where a security officer comes up to talk to me about my lack of pants, but I looked away, deciding against it.
I got to the parking section at the end of the lane. There was a big silvery metal grate there with spaces large enough climb through. A couple balls had collected at the edge of it. Only one ball was gray and it was too small, a size 3 maybe, and I was looking for a size 5. Beneath the grate was a pristine glowing tiled chamber with shallow waterways of pure, clean water. I would have been tempted to go down there at other times, but not today.
Weak Replicas: Looking for something doesn’t always make it appear. My lack of enthusiasm meant my attention was only creating small versions of the ball, versions that crumbled apart when I touched them.
Looking Down Possibilities: I began to see the scene with the security guard as a possibility created by my thoughts about walking around in my underwear. The emotional response of embarrassment is what began to call forward this scene. I decided against that path, so although I saw it briefly, like looking through a small window, it didn’t actually happen. I didn’t take that path, which would have made it my main storyline.
The possible scene with the security guard was like a small video in the scene before me, getting larger as I gave it attention. Had I continued giving it attention, it would have enlarged around me and become my reality. This is how consciousness navigates possibilities. Experience gives us foresight as we recognize what’s coming and why, and the chance to choose differently before it reaches us.
This is similar to how we can rewind rotes to make different choices. We go down a possibility branch, then, not liking the result, return to the branching point and make a difference choice. However, this wasn’t a rote, so the mechanism was slightly different.
A second choice presents it to me a minute later with the chamber beneath the grate. Subterranean dream exploration held a great draw for me for many years, but I’ve lost interest in it over the years. Here I remember this as I feel the slight draw of the chamber, but choose against going in.
A Familiar Unfamiliar Face: I think this was a guy I’d played soccer with in another dream.