Trail Dreams

I continue to have dreams about the trail nearly every night even now 4 months after returning from the trail. However, the intensity and reality of my dreams have diminished. For the first month or two, every dream was as intense and real as if I were still on the trail. Over time, my dreams have become more abstract.

A few days ago, I had a dream about being on the trail with Shamrock. In my dream, we had to crawl through a mine tunnel for 100 miles of the trail. I remember thinking about how confining the mine was. I think this dream was probably the result of work related deadlines and stress.

I think the nature of my dreams changed as the memory of the trail faded. I still have visual memories and knowledge of the trail. However, I no longer feel the trail in my bones. I remember talking with several people at Abol Bridge the last full day on the trail about what life would be life off the trail. None of us could imagine life off the trail. We knew intellectually what we would do off the trail, but we could not feel it. Our intellectual knowledge lacked the knowledge of the physical experience. We were on the trail for so long that we could not imagine what it would be like waking up in our own beds. We could not imagine zeroing for more than a day. We could not imagine life without all of the trail pains.

There types of knowledge. We like to think that we can understand something or someone just by listening or imagining, which I think is important. However, there is something else that we can not understand unless we directly experience it, and then its gone. Even that knowledge does not last.

People ask if I ever intend to do the trail again. In a sense, I can never do the trail again. The experience would be entirely different. You can not go back. If I were to do the trail again, it would be a completely different experience, and I would need completely new reasons to do the trail.