After leaving some kind of social gathering with people I didn't know that well, I am walking across a neighborhood street and looking down the street, I see a slender woman walking up to a house with several other people. She is wearing a colorful bikini top and as I watch, her left breast slips down out of the bikini. Her breast is quite flat on top but full and curved underneath so the nipple is pointing almost straight up. Seeing her breast feels like a reward for looking at her chest. As I continue to walk across the patio of a local coffee shop with couples seated and a few of the outdoor tables I consider that I know how to talk with women but not how to ask them to have sex with me.

I come to a sort of park where a terraced lawn slopes down to a pebbly beach. Quite a few other groups of people are scattered around on the terraces. I want to go swimming but I'm concerned about leaving my stuff unattended so I hide the contents of my pockets inside my insulated pants and leave everything in a pile while I step down to the beach. The water is mostly calm and clear except for numerous small clumps of brown algae suspended in it. I wonder if the algae will make me sick but decide that it is harmless. Nonetheless, concerned about my stuff, I return to the terrace where I left it.
My camera bag and camera with the large telephoto lens are sitting on my pile of clothing. The lens has mud smeared on the barrel but I think it will be okay. I pick up the camera in one hand and the camera bag in the other and wade out into the water to bypass a rock, or perhaps the corner of a building, in order to reach another part of the park which is less crowded. The water is fairly deep so the bottom of my camera bag and the hood of my lens both get wet but I think they will dry out okay.

The lowest terrace of the lawn in this section of the park is about at the height of my chest so I have to mantle up onto it, potentially a difficult maneuver because of my ALS, but I manage. As I'd hoped, this part of the park has fewer people but while I get ready to go swimming, the crowd grows quickly. I decide that I need only to take my drivers license and credit cards with me in the water and don't need to worry about the rest of my stuff so I pull out my wallet. A friend helps me go through it. The wallet is stuffed with receipts and other papers but not cash. I cannot find my drivers license, only some card which has my photo on it and looks like a driver's license but is not it.

The water has become very turbulent with steep choppy waves, some of them almost 10 feet tall, but a few other people are out there swimming and do not seem to be having any difficulty. The waves seem to have no force at all when they break on the rough ledges at the foot of the lowest terrace. The crowd presses around me, which is okay, but when I realize that the young man on my left has Covid I decide that I had better get out into the water. I get down off the terrace onto a narrow ridge of rock from which small pieces have been chipped out leaving smooth scalloped surfaces of semi-opaque yellowish agate.

I have a theory that some of my dreams represent attempts to work out various problems from my past. In this dream the main problem seems to be how to ensure that my belongings remain safe while I leave them to go out swimming. When I was training for triathlons back around 2004 this was an actual, if relatively inconsequential, problem that I faced from time to time while doing my open-water swims. Another "problem", from several decades earlier, was how to ask girls to have sex with me, and yet another problem, during my Christian years, was my almost irresistible (but sinful) impulse to look at women's chests.
The problems raised or referred to in this dream may not get resolved but they are presented as resolvable, or if not, then inconsequential. The woman's breast appears, and does not induce shame. The water is not perfectly pure but will not make me sick. The camera lens is soiled but can be cleaned. Nothing gets stolen. I am able to climb up onto the terrace despite ALS. A friend helps me with my wallet. I am able to avoid contact with the person who has Covid. The waves are not too dangerous for swimming.
On the other hand, nothing in the dream is altogether right either. The woman's breast is oddly shaped. The water is not clean. The camera lens has mud on it. The grassy terrace on to which I climb is soft and soggy. I can't find my drivers license. The ridge of rock is pure agate, but the agate is of low-quality. I never do end up swimming.

My sense is that this dream reflects my life with ALS. Attempting to secure my belongings before going out for a swim may represent trying to resolve my affairs before I die. That nothing is right, but I am still able to work things out, at least with the help of friends, is descriptive of my life with ALS. Because my hands are paralyzed I cannot caress my wife's breasts but I can look at them. I cannot use the camera with the big lens. I do not have a drivers license, but rather an ID card. I have been able to avoid getting Covid. I am not overwhelmed by a flood but on the other hand, I never get to go swimming.