Do Dreams Relay Important Messages?

Last night I dreamed I was in a large, enclosed yard.

Positioned all over the yard were several pieces of huge, adult-sized playground equipment – slides, jungle gyms, hanging bars, swings, along with fake trucks and fake buildings. I was there along with a number of other adults and some children. We were all confused about why we were there.

We took shelter in a large “play” building custom-made to look like an old fashioned ghost town jail. As we talked, we tried to find a connection to why we were there. The only connection we could come up with was that one of the children was my Cousin Brad’s infant son (in my dream he was about eight).

Then, instantly, I was transported to a diner. I was having enchiladas at Dairy Queen (because that’s what people have at Dairy Queen in their dreams apparently) with my Cousin Charity. She was telling me how our waitress used to be an old high school friend with whom I had fallen out of touch (this is true in real life).

Charity then proceeded to tell me that she (Charity) had told this girl that I hated her (this girl) and that I would rather DIE than be friends with her.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded.

“Because I wanted you to reconnect with her, and I knew you couldn’t handle her thinking that about you, so you’d at least go talk to her and straighten it out,” she said.

Which actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it – I mean, for a dream and all.

At that point, our waitress came over to take our order (Again? We’d just had an entire 8 x 13” pan of enchiladas.) and let me know how mad she was at me.

“My mom’s mad at you, too,” she said, pointing a finger to the cashier behind the Dairy Queen counter. It was her mom! (In real life, her mom’s past retirement age!).

I had a brief flashback to the adult-sized playground, where I was laying on my back in the ghost town jail building reading a book.

Then my dream was over.

I tried to find hidden messages, as I do in all my dreams, but this one was a little hard to translate.

I think the important message was that I need to reconnect with this childhood friend. I have been thinking about her a lot lately. I know she lives in town, attends a church I know, and now has several children of her own.

We fell out of touch when I was in college, because my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) and I didn’t really like the lifestyle her new husband (they’d gotten married right out of high school) was leading.

It was an immature response, and since that time, we’ve both come to be ashamed at how we acted, deserting them when perhaps that was the very reason God had placed us in their lives.

I’ve always felt bad about that, and when I had the chance to rectify it about a year and a half ago – running into her at Beef-a-Roo – I fowled it up badly by dismissing her. I was actually just insecure about myself, but I handled it poorly.

And I lamented my actions afterward. If I could have kicked myself, I would have.

So, if I’m parsing my dream correctly, perhaps this is the time to call her and see if she wants to reconnect.

Perhaps, somewhere in Rockford, there is an adult-sized playground where we could go and talk.

Any other interpretations?

P.S. – I think the “ghost town jail” comes from watching too many promos for the upcoming Kid Nation show. Just a theory.