Dream: The Water Race

Dream 20021005, 2:30 AM:

I’m involved in a race. There are several teams of two people each, and we have to get several items, around 8 or so, to a finish point. Each team has one member who is doing all the running and swimming, and one member who is staying at the finish area and keeping track of the team’s progress. I am the running member on our team, and my partner is some big heavy-set guy I don’t recognize.

The race starts with marbles. They’re dropped from the sky over a stream that flows through a rocky area that has shelves of stone stepping down to the banks of a large body of water like a lake. The marbles float, and so we knock them into the stream and follow them down to the lake. Once they’re in the lake, we grab them and carry them along with the rest of our stuff. Some of them are pure white, others are various colors, blues and greens and others. They’re all the size of regular small marbles.

Once in the lake, we each have to get several items, and each team has a list. I start finding my items and dragging them along with me as I swim. I drop several of them at the water’s edge where the contest finish line is, and keep going back and making trips until I have everything. There are a couple of books, as well as the marble and several other items I don’t recall. I remember someone (Maeven?) has what appears to be a white bear or lion costume, I remember her removing the “arms” with the big black claws from a branch in the water.

I get done first. I’m feeling very excited. I start going over my list, making sure that I have everything. It’s all piled up in a little area on the bank, and each team has a similar pile. Once I am pretty sure that I have it all, I call the judges over. The other teams are still frantically hauling stuff to their spots, because if I miss anything, the first team who gets all their items will win. We start going through my items. There are a couple of books, and they are slightly sodden from being in the water, but not nearly as much so as I’d imagine. They’re really only damp. One of them is something like “Ancient Arthurian Romances” but in Spanish – the front plate is elaborately worked in ornate gold lettering, and we read and translate it to make sure it’s the right book. I don’t remember all of the other items. We confirm that I have the whole list of items, and we start jumping up and down and whooping excitedly. My teammate says that he’s going to let me do the fetching from now on, because I did such a good job of getting everything. I am elated, a little exhausted, and kind of annoyed with him for saying that he’s going to keep letting me do all the work in the next race.