Taking My Turn on the Karmic Wheel

I usually put the authors of dream interpretation books up there (or down there) with the authors of horoscope books and psychics. This is to say that these people do not take much of a risk in giving generic predictions and information, in that it is nearly impossible to prove them wrong. The Aquarius who is advised in his horoscope that "his high energy may rub others the wrong way" --we can convince ourselves that this is true for everyone, right?--and the psychic visitor both assure themselves that the predictions come from someone who is in some way "trained."

In the same way, let me take my foray into the dream interpretation arena yet again. Being that it is not possible in any way to contradict my "findings," let me begin...

I had a dream that I was coaching my basketball team. As I huddled the team during a timeout, I told the dream to put on a fullcourt press after each basket by our opponents. A player of mine (nameless and faceless while a few of the dream's players are really on this year's team) shook his head and scoffed, saying, "It won't work."

On the first defensive play, an overweight and hefty player--obscured in name and face--refused to stand where I told him to, and proceeded to go down in a heap with an unclear lower body injury upon colliding with an offensive player.

Was the message of this dream that there were conscious decisions that I made that led to my injury? Was it the shoes, an awkward position on my jump shot? Or was it more subtle and seemingly unrelated factors?

As I prepared today to return to a favored barber in an area thirty minutes-plus from my house, I was reminded that I haven't been back since the hours before my injury, twelve and a half weeks ago. Is my hairstyle, picture a slightly slicked-back version of Kevin Costner's Elliott Ness, so difficult that only this barber could have done it? Would a visit to Supercuts have eliminated the opportunity to get hurt? Maybe the universe was only prepared to injure me during that enclosed time period. Maybe a made shot earlier in the game by a teammate would have shortened the game and made it so that my gamewinning and butt-to-couch connecting shot would not have been necessary.

The importance of fate versus personal choice--the neverending debate continues...