Basketball Dreaming

3:30am ....

Just woke up from a dream of playing 3-on-3 basketball on an outdoor, asphalt court.

Matched up with a guy who was bigger and stronger than me.

A game where I was trying too hard ..... often with back to the basket and forcing things instead of slowing down and using footwork to get good shots, like I developed a feeling and skill for in my later basketball playing days.

Or facing the guy up and creating distance between us to get jump shots.

It was like I forgot everything I once knew.

There was also the knowledge that I had some sort of reputation as a player that I was failing to live up to in the eyes of the other five participants.

And the longer the match dragged on, the worse it became.

Then afterwards, walking with an old friend who had just done something weird at the high school prom .... an action not recalled after waking .... not anything hurtful but just kind of odd.  

How or why did the main plot of the dream morph into this short little sub-plot?

I don't know what physically happens when a person is experiencing an action dream ..... if a person is thrashing around in their sleep while they lay there dreaming? ..... But I woke up feeling physically like I'd just been through an actual game after not playing for months, with hips, knees and ankles bruised and hurting, feeling like I'd added twenty years of wear-and-tear in twenty minutes.

Early 2025. First remembered dream of the new year ...... the dreams can only get better for the next eleven months and 27 days, right?? 

And now I want to go searching for vinyl records which causes a yearning for the days of late evening pilgrimages to the 1980's mecca for vinyl, Tower Records.