Wheelzinese: Fuck Michael Phelps
Often, my dreams seem to mirror what I’m going through in real life. I suppose that’s normal, but sometimes they hit too close to home and literally hurt while I dream them. This one was like that.
I was at Chuck E. Cheese with my mom and there was a guy who looked like someone I could be friends with, but was afraid to talk to. While I tried to convince myself to go up to him, Michael Phelps appeared at the bar (there was a bar in this Chuck E. Cheese). He was having a beer and chatting up the bartender like he was a regular. He then went up to the guy I wanted to talk to and challenged him to an arcade swimming game and beat him. There was a hoopla and confetti and people saying, “He just wins!”
So I turned away from the spectacle and saw two cute girls sitting in a booth. I wanted to talk to them, but was afraid again. So, again, I tried to psych myself up. Then Michael Phelps saw them, went up to them, took his shirt off, lay down on the ground with his head on his hand and winked, “Hey baby”. They went nuts over him and before I knew it he was giving one of them an ass massage and the other a topless tit massage. “What an asshole,” I thought.
The theme here is pretty obvious: I’m terrified of approaching people. I see other people who make it look so easy, and I envy them. I blame it on my disability– “it’s not fair” and “if only I could walk.” But I can’t and that won’t change anytime soon. I need to get over it.
Some of the details baffle me, though. Like, why the hell is there a bar at Chuck E. Cheese? Why am I even at Chuck E. Cheese in the first place? So I asked Dr. Rob for his interpretation:
…Consider that you might not be playing yourself in the dream, or that you may switch characters. Dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious,” so the brain is attempted to coalesce a fuckload of stuff into a single story. Thus you may bounce around from one person to another. Could the Phelps who scores with the chicks be you? Or perhaps the person you want to be: confident, a lady’s man?
In both events (arcade and chick banging) there is a clear winner and loser. Who is “you” in each of those parts? I suspect you, like 99% of people, have a mix of self-confidence and low self-esteem and it’s coming out in both characters. Depending on your mood’s climate these past few days or weeks, you could be more the victor or the loser. Why you were at Chuck E Cheese is a mystery to me.
I may need therapy since I’m the loser in both situations. Maybe he’ll give me a discount?
Explore posts in the same categories: Blog
October 25, 2008 at 1:35 am
*shrugs* I think you rock bro.
October 26, 2008 at 3:21 pm
your also the winner in both situations.
October 27, 2008 at 11:37 am
Dude, while M.P. is a big swimming champ, have you ever noticed that he has Will Smith type ears as well as a severe underbite?
You crack me up man. I read the site every chance I get.
You need to get put up in the blocks on the bottom.
Keep on writing.
And screw those who are scared or unaware.
You’re fine the way you are.
October 29, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Fucking swimmer. Like you can parlay that into anything other than banging chicks and getting on a Wheaties box. I read a few of your stories and enjoy them. Come check out my blog if you want. And the trach tube isn’t your color. Have you considered an upbeat pastel?
October 30, 2008 at 1:04 am
You’ve heard of Plato’s cave. If not go search it and read (even a simple premise/distillation will do).
So now here you are…or should I say, “here I am” since my life is hampered by its many disabilities, also. So you’re watching these acts unfold in your dreams…and it’s with the same mind that watches the real world unfold. And you watch it from a very different throne than does someone else…for example, Michael Phelps. And that’s the difference, each of us is bolted to our the throne of our own circumstances which is where Plato’s Cave comes in. We all have access to the story played out in the cave but some of us can get up and partake or leave to go out in the sun. Others of us have to sit and watch it with only a secondhand knowledge of what it must be like, perhaps even meager slivers of those acts because at some point and time we were capable enough to “do what Phelps did” if only in some fractional manner. But winning is winning and losing is losing so it doesn’t matter how fractional the each of the losses in the string are that we have to live, we still have to experience it. So imagine now that you are not “you” but the very material that is the throne you’ve been viewing life from this whole time. Some are stone, others are wood, others still are reeds that bend. Consider yourself a static, immoveable element of the forest and that you may have functions other than a deerbuck or falcon. Mushrooms, fern, moss, and vines have their own lives, too. They’re just less anthropomorphicly desirable. Realize they may not seem to have value, but they do have structure; a structure different and incomparable to that of the lives of others. Find ways to understand your structure and where in between your personal floor and ceiling there are ways to love, enjoy, and succeed. Fuck Phelps. He didn’t do it on his own, self-created merit. Much in the same way that you -didn’t- choose your problems. So blindlingly many factors converge into any one person for them to take credit for much that happens in their life. Think about it; if a leg can be different between two people, so too can something less concrete…like self-motivation. Both are created by so many blindingly many factors not of your doing to create who you are and all of your circumstances. Continue to move away from what you aren’t and move into what you are and want to have and do from the platform of your own existence.
HW: You are most wise. Thank you.
November 3, 2008 at 8:25 pm
you are an inspiration, and your raw honesty is humbling. i wish i could be as honest in my own writing, even if my subjects are a bit more trifling.
it is a few days late, but have you ever thought of joining nablopomo – http://www.nablopomo.ning.com? post every day for the month of november. pretty easy, right? that’s what i thought last year, but i think it would be a great way for you to meet people interested in you – friends – even if you’ve never met them in person.
April 4, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Do you think the dream could have another theme you are missing? I am not a psychiatrist nor am I a good writer so bear with me, but is it possible that the dream was about wanting to be a full fledged adult without a disability? and you feel (or felt as this is an old entry) like you are still a child, or at least are treated like a child hence why you were stuck in Chuck E. Cheese watching him in the bar.
I don’t think it is easy for anyone to make the transition from being a teen (technically still a child) to being an adult. It would be exponentially harder to do it if a nurse had to be with you every step of the way insuring you didn’t have any autonomy.
I just found your site today when I was catching up on Dr. Rob’s entries. I will continue to read your stories. You seem like you would be a fun person to hang out with.