Dream Weaver

The other night I had a dream that I was running on a cart path. And I was running fast. Nothing hurt. I remember thinking, clear as day, “why on earth am I having surgery? My foot and ankle are fine!” I decided right then that I’d cancel the surgery as soon as I got off the path and back home. And then I woke up.

Most runners know the very odd games our brains play on us, especially as we approach a big goal, like a marathon or, in my case, an ultra. In the days leading up to the start, strange niggles and pains creep in, even though the real training has ceased well before then and I’m deep into taper mode. It’s a psychosomatic effect, a way for the brain to try to exert its influence over the body one last time before relenting to the expectations I’ve placed before it. None of it is real, but it sure feels like it. My dream, I figured, was the reverse manifestation of the same effect; a way for the brain to try to escape the very real “event” coming up. Or so I thought.

I figured I should ask ChatGPT what it meant; after all, I’m sure AI can accurately interpret dreams, right? And it said something genuinely remarkable:

There is actually a phenomenon where symptoms temporarily improve when people feel they have a path forward. Chronic pain isn’t generated solely by damaged tissue; it’s influenced by attention, expectation, emotion, stress, and perceived control. Knowing surgery is coming can reduce some of the emotional burden of the problem, which can reduce pain perception.

So the solution, it says, is to embrace it, because my brain is doing two things at once:

1. Reducing threat signaling, because a solution is finally scheduled.
2. Grieving and preparing for the temporary loss of running by creating “running dreams” and recovery fantasies.

This is a normal response, and one to lean into. Not because the foot is actually fine; the imaging and the hardware in my future say otherwise. I lean in because the dream isn’t denial; it’s rehearsal. My brain is already standing on the far side of the cast and the crutches and the eight weeks of no running, picturing the cart path waiting for me there. That’s not the part of me that wants to cancel surgery. That’s the part that already believes in the recovery, running ahead to scout the route home. Seven days out, I’ll take the company.

Dream Weaver, carry me through the night.