I define agency as making choices in my life based on my knowledge of myself and what I want, and taking responsibility for those choices, rather than basing my choices on what other people want from me and for me. That certainly does not preclude considering the needs and desires of those around me, or even prioritizing their desires about my own, but it does imply doing so with intention and awareness. Agency has been an issue for me over much of my adult life dating back to the period after college when I lost confidence in my ability to manage my own life. I delegated that responsibility to others both directly and through God as a virtual intermediary. Agency dreams often represent my process of reclaiming my ability and right to manage my own life, a process I began in my mid-50s but which accelerated after my diagnosis of ALS.

I diagnosed myself with ALS in August 2013 shortly after my 59th birthday, a diagnosis which was confirmed about two months later. At that time, and pretty much ever since, I have anticipated that I had only about two years left to live. My variant of ALS began with my hands, arms and shoulders and has progressed primarily downward through my torso to my legs. The decline of my breathing capacity has been more or less linear beginning at about 120% of normal and diminishing to about 10% of normal as of early 2022. My ability to chew and swallow food has also gradually declined, but as of early 2023 I am still eating a variety of solid food with the assistance of blended soups. Psychologically, my diagnosis of ALS upended my world, triggering a determination to live intentionally, to reclaim responsibility for my own life and to pursue my heart's desires in the time I had left. Well, at least after I abandoned my anger-fueled determination to end my life before ALS could prevent me from doing so.

Darchelle is both a theme of many of my dreams as well as a symbol in many dreams, usually representing herself. She and I began running marathons together in 2013 and had become close friends by the time I was diagnosed with ALS late that year. Her love for me was instrumental in enabling me to love myself and choose to continue to live. We were married in November 2015, six months after my divorce from Susan. Our relationship balances her role as my caregiver with our mutual experience of living with our soulmate, the love of our lives.

Disability has become an increasing issue for me as ALS has progressed. I switched to lighter camera gear and took my last independent birding trips in 2015. I lost the ability to drive in the spring of 2016 and ran my last marathon that fall. That year I also stopped cooking for myself and began wearing clothing without zippers or buttons. I took my last photos in 2017. In 2019 my ability to hike was significantly curtailed and by the end of 2020 level walking was challenging and stairs were no longer an option without help. During 2021 I began using a wheelchair full-time and a ventilator during the day as well as night.
Psychologically, my increasing disability evokes feelings of frustration, anger and loss as well as shame about my need for assistance and dependence on others to provide it.

Death entered my dreams the night before my official diagnosis with ALS but cut off my future three months earlier when I self-diagnosed. Preparing to die has been an ongoing theme of both my dreams and my waking life but denial renders the reality of my impending death elusive. Death is represented in my dreams by darkness, night, going to bed, going into a basement and various other symbols. The period of my life during which I have been aware that I am going to die is often represented in my dreams by winter or snow.

The term God is to some extent a shortcut to describe my experience of Christianity, so I have combined them into a single theme/series though "God" pertains more directly to the emotional and psychological aspects of that experience, describing not so much the actual or even imaginary entity as it does my various beliefs about that entity.
I became interested in Christianity through the influence of my friend Tim's parents when I visited them in the Middle East after high school. About a year later while a freshman in college I asked Jesus to save me. In so doing I adopted God as a virtual parent in my life, but after graduating I rejected him for a year or two only to return to Christianity in becoming a Seventh-day Adventist. For the next three decades I retained God to hold both my self-hatred and my self-love but encountered the same difficulty with feeling good enough that had led me to abandon Christianity after college. It was, I believed, at God's command that I married Susan; if I loved her I could become good enough to secure His love. Through Susan's influence, and through my increasing responsibilities in church, I became an adult, but at least in my own view I never became good enough to please my virtual parent.
When God rewarded me with ALS I finally took ownership of my attitudes about myself, accepted the responsibility of loving myself, and rejected the authority of both my God-parent and the church though as my dreams reveal, that process was neither easy nor quick. God has been primarily represented in my dreams by one or three dogs, but many other dreams also depict aspects of my experience with, and struggle to liberate myself from, Christianity. The story does not end with my rejection of Christianity; thoughts regarding the existence of a divine being and the possibility of life after death continue to occupy me in my dreams, if not often in waking life.

Growing-up - the transition from adolescent to adult over a decade starting in my late teens - was one of the biggest challenges of my life and still appears as a theme in my dreams.

Integration is a process of recognizing and taking ownership of my own attitudes and feelings. Given the importance of that belief in God which I held for most of my life, a significant part of integration has been to reclaim those feelings and attitudes, both positive and negative, which I had projected onto God. Learning to treat myself with love and acceptance has required internalizing a loving parent in place of the critical virtual parent I had identified as God; an early step in that process was to embrace the sadness I felt, and long suppressed, related to my father leaving the family when I was a child. Intellectually integration has required rejecting the authority of the church and the validity of the Christian belief system as the ultimate truth, replacing that worldview with another which is more consistent with my own experience. Psychologically, integration has included relinquishing cherished ideals in order to accept what is my own reality. In another sense, integration involves acknowledging that the different selves with which I have identified over the course of my life are all legitimate; they all have been "true" in the context of that time in my life and they are all part of who I am now.

Over the course of my life my losses have been relatively few (at least until ALS got hold of me) but have made enough of an impression to show up as a theme, at least occasionally, in my dreams. Clearly I am still trying to work out the loss of important relationships (including God) as well as the loss of abilities and activities due to ALS. My dreams also revealed concern about how those who love me, in particular Darchelle, will cope with losing me.

Memory is a bit of a catch-all category for dreams which explore various aspects of my memories. Are my recollections of and interpretations of my past accurate? Is my past as real as my present? The space in which my memories reside is sometimes depicted in my dreams as a dusty and cluttered room.

Overcoming is a catch-all category for dreams in which I successfully deal with challenges and obstacles. Being in control of my situation is related to the idea of overcoming. These are similar to "Agency" dreams but lack the theme of explicitly acting on my own behalf.

Susan, my ex-wife, is like Darchelle, both a theme of many dreams and a symbol in many dreams, usually representing herself. She and I met in church soon after I was baptized in November 1983. We became friends, and briefly romantic, over the next several months. God revealed to her soon after we met that I would be the husband she was seeking but I did not see her as a fit for me until God told me that if I wanted to love Him I should love Susan, soon after Susan had made it clear that our friendship could only continue if we progressed towards marriage. My belief that God had commanded me to marry Susan forever linked them together in my mind, and often in my dreams. We were married in June 1985 and remained together until December 2013. I was determined to serve God and love Susan, and I did love her, and she loved me. Nonetheless there were prolonged periods of stress in the relationship with responsibility on both sides. ALS triggered the ultimate break, both from Susan and from God.

My career as a computer programmer spanned about 25 years but wrapped up a few years before I began consistently recording my dreams. Apparently my work issues were mostly resolved by that time because work is an infrequent theme in my dreams.