Friday, August 23, 2024. More beautiful late Summer weather yesterday in New York. With temps in the upper 70s and cooling down into the low 50s in the night. I like this time of the season when it slows down here in town.
I see New York with different eyes when it’s so quiet. That leads to pleasant thoughts about the beautiful environments all over this amazing city. I’m not just enjoying it, I’m taking it in. Everything changes. You learn something new everyday in the Sun.
Today Lauren Lawrence’s Society Dreams is about a dream of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I was familiar with the name but knew nothing about the man. Nothing. I did know he was prominent in the world and highly regarded for more than his sportsmanship and his superior ability on the court. Although Sports, per se, have never been an interest to me. Which is fine, although it’s one of those moments when I feel like I’m not doing my job.
Well, thanks to Lauren’s Society Dreams, I am awakened, and see quite easily that Kareem was not only internationally famous as one of the best players in NBA history, but a highly regarded star and a hero in his ways. Good news for everybody, for a change.
SOCIETY DREAMS: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
by Lauren Lawrence
At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA’s regular season career leader in points, games and minutes played, field goals made, blocked shots, defensive rebounds and personal fouls (sorry Kareem!).
He played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
The Dream: I dreamt I was home and I jumped into my body. I looked at my body directly, and it was falling apart. I had an alarming feeling. I was looking inside my foot.
The Interpretation: As an athlete’s greatest fear is the non-functioning or disintegration of his body, this is a typical athlete’s nightmare — for Kareem’s body — as a symbol of his physical world is falling apart.
Long retired from the game, Kareem’s dream allows him to see beyond his athletic career, and thus, beyond his body.
One understands that his cerebral self wants to integrate with his physical self. But to get beyond his body, he must view it directly, from within. As such, jumping inside his body depicts the mind/body split.
In the past, Kareem jumped to make his patented sky hook while seeking to score; now he makes that leap of faith inside himself, seeking harmony and wholeness. Kareem dreams of self-discovery much in the same manner as someone who takes something apart to learn how to put it back together again.
Jumping into his body, Kareem symbolizes the basketball cliché of staying within himself. He shoots for self-critical evaluation or assessment. In this view, the dream impressively reveals Kareem’s introspective need to understand the physical nature of things, to gain poignant realizations, no matter how alarming they seem. No easy task, this, for his dream is working through the aging process, and the anxiety it carries with it.
For private dream analysis, contact laurenlawrence@aol.com
