I am in a shed at the Glen House with half a dozen other people, perhaps members of a ski racing team, who are preparing to drive up to Wildcat to ski. I have to walk over to my room and get my stuff but as I am leaving, someone tells me that the group is departing for the mountain in one minute and they won't wait for me. I know that is probably true but am hopeful that I can catch a ride with them anyhow.

My room is a mess and it takes me a while to gather my ski clothing together. Susan is there and even less ready to go than I am. Several minutes later I walk up to the shed with my skis and poles but the group has already left. of the half-dozen people remaining in the shed, the only one I recognize is John Macomber. I walk around to the other end of the shed where a couple of guys are standing and ask them if they will be going up to the mountain but they do not respond. Returning to the side of the shed from which I had just come, I realize that I have lost my ski poles. They must be right there at the shed but I see only a couple of broken poles which, although similar to mine, can't be my poles because mine were not broken. Imagining myself skiing without poles, I feel a bit anxious because if I fall, I might not be able to get up again due to my arms being weak it by ALS.

Announcing that I am going to try to hitchhike up to the mountain, I leave the shed to head down to the highway and find myself walking diagonally up an open, snow-free slope. The man who is with me asks why I am going uphill if the highway is below us and I explained that I always tend to walk uphill when I am crossing a slope. Realizing that the ski area parking lot and the highway are quite a ways below us, I start sliding down towards them over low reddish-colored bushes, as if I am glissading in my boots down a snow slope.

For a dream about skiing, this one is notable for a lack of snow; I don't recall snow at any point in the dream. Skiing without snow is not the only mismatch of symbols in this dream, which seems to combine unrelated times or elements of my life in each scene.
The location is real although the shed is imaginary. Open at both ends and attached to the side of a larger building, it reminds me of a shed at the house in Jackson when I was young. Although I did not ski with a racing team back then, it is nonetheless a familiar context. John Macomber was a skiing friend of the family, closer to my ski-racing sister than to me. The skis and poles in the dream were those that I used back then. The punctuality with which the team is leaving for the mountains reminds me a bit of my stepfather John, who could be impatient at times.
Elements of this scene which do not fit the time and place it depicts are my sharing a room with Susan and my concern about skiing with ALS. Susan did not ski; neither she nor ALS fit with that time of my life, but then again at that time, I myself did not fit with the ski racing scene. In the dream, that may be represented by my missing the ride up to the mountain, and by the young men ignoring me when I ask them for a ride. This first part of the dream seems to depict the alienation from my true self which began in my teenage years and persisted for most of my adult life, through my marriage to Susan and my contracting ALS.

The open slope in the last scene in the dream strongly resembles the lower slopes of Wildcat Mountain, the destination of the ride which I had missed. Getting to Wildcat Mountain in the dream probably symbolizes becoming the person I wanted to be; I have become my true self. My actions - walking diagonally up the slope then sliding down on my boots - suggest hiking in the mountains as an adult. The man who is with me reminds me of Marshall Bain, a fellow elder at the Auburn church. Although we are walking across the slope together in the dream, I did not think of those two elements of my life as fitting together. Hiking was an activity in which I felt I was truly myself. Serving as a church elder on the other hand, was part of my attempt, through much of my adult life, to be someone other than myself. I became and remained a Christian for over 30 years because Christianity promised to make me a new person. Marshall Bain in the dream represents that attempt, and perhaps also that new person. In any case the dream combines hiking and Marshall in the context of reaching my destination to reveal that both what I considered to be my true self and what I considered to be a false self are now, and apparently always have been, both integral parts of who I am.
Despite missing my ride, despite my life not following the course which I would have thought suitable (eg. skiing without snow), I ended up content with who I am, and aware that whomever I have been along the way is part of who I am now. The concept of a true self to whom I have returned after a long diversion as a false self may no longer be a useful way of interpreting my past.