It's All About Me, Baby!

I truly believe that dreams have meaning. However, I think what meaning they have is highly personalized and can't be told by a generic dream analysis book.

For instance the dream I had last night involved my friend Mia and I wandering around the University of Arizona campus.  My dream campus was nothing like it really is, yet it was accepted as the UA.  At one point we stopped and she asked someone directions to the library.  The person told us to walk straight ahead and cut through the parking garage, go up some stairs, past the fountain and around some red brick building.  That last part is a trick because red brick is the UA standard, but I digress.  We start walking, following these directions, and right away Mia starts pulling away from me.  It isn't that she is walking faster and faster, but that I'm going slower.  She doesn't notice that I've fallen behind.  I'm getting very frustrated that I can't keep up.  I just can't seem to move.

Now a dream analysis book would probably say I feel alienated from my friend Mia and I feel she doesn't care about me; that she is leaving our friendship behind.  And you know what?  The book would be partially right.  She did move away and we aren't the friends we once were.

However, that is not what that dream was about.  I think the key is the feelings I had.  I wasn't upset or frustrated at Mia.  I was upset and frustrated at myself.  I just couldn't seem to move.  In fact, a dream of that nature is often what I have when my hip acts up and hurts so much that I can't move in my sleep.  I frustrate myself enough in my dream that I wake up so I can roll over and change positions, move and stretch my hip out.

Sorry, Mr. Dream Analysis, but that dream was all about me!

The Fine Print:  And speaking of being all about me, I'm always myself in those kinds of dreams, but often I'm not a player in my dreams.  Instead it's like I'm watching a bunch of other people do stuff.  I wonder what a dream analysis book would say about that?  I wonder what a shrink would say about that?!  Cards made months ago from that Simon Says Stamp kit with a few things from my stash added in.