Dream and senior tour de france and corvallis, oregon and grant hackett and 98 degrees

I usually don't remember my dreams, which friends tell me is sort of a pity. But I had a vivid one last night that I recall, and I wanted to share it with you to see before I forget it. See if you have any insight about it. Five "facts" from my day yesterday somehow ended up in the dream: (1) Grant Hackett's (Australia) world record in the 800 m freestyle; (2) The hottest day of the year in town (98 degrees); (3) a vigorous workout at the gym, capped by a 45 minute "sprint" on the elliptical machine; (4) The fact that my web site "disappeared" last night--I learned this morning that the University was doing its regular "maintenance" on web sites for four hours last night; and (5) a friend's impending move to Corvallis, OR to take a job beginning early in September. Ok, to the dream.

Winning the "Senior Tour de France"

In my dream I was staying in a hotel but I didn't recognize either the hotel or the city. I had my laptop with me, and was checking my email. I recall receiving an email from someone I didn't know, congratulating me on a bicycling victory (I am not a cyclist). He gave enough information in the email for me to do an Internet search on myself, and sure enough, a story had just been posted about me just having won, in world-record time, the Senior Tour de France (you had to be over 50 to compete). I don't recall exactly how long the race was, but I think it was only a short one--about 31 miles--which I finished in one hour and 20 minutes. I had broken the world record by about 10 seconds. The story not only appeared in the Web article, but there was also a picture of me on my bike, helmeted, with a broad smile, in my lightning yellow jersey and tight black spandex-style shorts.

I next recall in my dream shutting off my computer and going down to the lobby to walk around. My eyes fell on a bulletin board where already there was an article posted about my victory. It was from a Corvallis, OR newspaper. However, they got one fact incorrect. I am 53 years-old, but the story said I was 51. In any case, after seeing the story I returned to my room. I then decided to check my office phone, and picked up some messages commending me for the victory, with a few of them issuing invitations to come speak at their groups. I don't recall whether they were "senior" groups; I sort of remember they were "Rotary Club"-types of invitatations. More emails came congratulating me, with some of them requesting that I respond to them pretty quickly.

Thinking in My Dream

I was still asleep, and I remember thinking in my sleep (was it the same dream or another dream?) that this coudn't have happened, but then, again, maybe it did. 'Maybe I actually did this,' I said to myself. After all, the story was on the Internet, and there I was on my bicycle, smiling and helmeted, as if I had just pedaled the race of my life. I knew that I had pretty vigorous workouts a few times a week; maybe, just maybe, I had taken some time to compete in cycling competition and I had been lucky enough to win (with a world record!). I remember debating with myself in my dream as to whether this could possibly be true. On the one hand, I had affirmations starting to pour in from all over the place commending me for it; I had the Internet story. Certainly these things woudn't happen if it was all a hoax. But then, I recall going over my "calendar" in my mind. The race was supposed to have taken place right after the end of the "regular" Tour de France, maybe that Sunday afternoon (July 24).

And so I recall, in my dream, doing the following. I reconstructed my life between 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 23 and 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 24. The only thing I remember doing on Sunday was going to a 3:00 p.m. reception in Portland with my son for alumns/students of the Eastern college he will attend. So, I tried to reason backwards in my dream. The "Senior" Tour de France must have ended at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon on Sunday July 24 in Paris. Did I have time to complete the race and fly quickly back to Oregon to make a 3 p.m. (Pacific Time) reception for my son? That question hounded me in my dream for what seemed like several moments, as I wracked my brain to try to figure out if I could have taken the Concorde, if I could have made all the connections, and finally if I had done so. I finally concluded, in my dream, that it would have been impossible.

What to Do

Then, in my dream, it dawned on me that I couldn't have done what the Internet article (and a growing number of emails and phone calls) said I had done: win the Senior Tour de France in world record time early on the afternoon of July 24 in Paris. This realization almost caused me to panic briefly in my dream. What do I do now? What is my ethical obligation to the world? Should I put out a note on my web site telling the "truth?" Or, should I just "let things go," and hope that no one ever discovers the truth? I quickly dismissed the latter alternative, but was unsure of how to proceed. Then, a more chilling thought emerged. Maybe someone had "stolen my identity" from my web page and created the story by studying my words so closely that they "knew" they could create a plausible enough story to "sell" to the world. Then, I looked more closely at the facial smile on the Internet story. It was the same smile in one of my web site pictures, a picture which a dear friend has been unsuccessfully trying to get me to take down for weeks. I wondered, "Oh my God, has someone entered into my inner spaces and made all this up, but with such an air of plausibility that even I was deceived for a minute?"

Conclusion

Then, suddenly, in the words of John Bunyan, "I awoke, and behold it was a dream." It took me several minutes, lying still in my bed, to conclude, in fact, that it was a dream.

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