ONE WAY TO GET A HANDLE on the meaning of your dreams is to look for puns or plays on words. What better way to generate a shift in a dreamer’s thinking than to make a verbal shift? Our dreams employ plays on words to turn our thinking upside down, to shake us up and force us to see things in new ways.

This is called for often when the dreamer is stuck in a self-defeating pattern of behavior and doesn’t see it — like today’s dreamer.

Dear Carolyn,

I’m in my late 20s and have a pretty good job making decent money. I do still live with my parents even though I could probably move out and make it on my own. Both my brothers are college graduates and are my parents’ favorites. Most of my friends are married already! I’m not ready for that!

Anyway, I like things the way they are — my parents and I get along really well. They can travel and not worry about the house or the dog, so to me, it seems like a win-win.

Anyway, I keep having this dream every couple of months. Let me know what you think it might mean. Every time I have this dream, it’s different. Maybe it’s in a different place or with different people, but it always ends the same way. In last night’s version, I was hanging out with some of my friends from high school. We decide to go to another place, a party or a bar or something. Next thing I know, they are way out ahead of me on the road and I’m just sort of standing there. Then, a police officer comes up and puts me under arrest! Hands on the car, being frisked, the whole nine yards. Every time, I try to tell the officer I’m innocent, I didn’t do anything. But I wind up in jail, arrested for something I didn’t do.

Signed, Frustrated

Dear Frustrated,

Your dream most likely is pointing something out to you through its use of a play on words. In it you are arrested for something you didn’t do. In waking life, this might be a situation of mistaken identity or a false accusation. But your dreaming self is not mistaken.

In your dream, your friends have left you behind. Just as in your waking life, they are further down the road, finding mates, progressing to the next stage of life and the next. You on the other hand are “arrested” — stopped in place, unable to move forward because of something you have not done.

Maybe a first step would make the difference for you, Dear Dreamer: Move to your own place — you can still house-sit when your parents need you. Or perhaps you want to further your education and your prospects. Have you thought of starting your own business? Whatever it is, you must take one step and then the next, or you will continue to be arrested for something you did not do.

Sweet Dreams to you!

Carolyn Plath, M.Ed., is a Benicia resident and member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Reach her at sendmeyourdreams@yahoo.com.

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