I dreamed I had raised, white bumps on my skin that looked like rice. Smoke started to come out of them. I was running around a school looking for a nurse. I found a cop instead, but then the burning and smoke stopped on its own.

— Patricia, 66, West Chester, PA

Lauri: Has someone or something really gotten “under your skin” lately? Has someone raised an issue that has alarmed you? Being in a school suggests you are learning how to deal with this issue. It’s interesting that you were searching for a nurse but found an officer instead. I believe that reflects your thought process: first wanting to heal what could be wrong (the nurse) and then perhaps wanting to put a stop to it (the officer) but then deciding to leave it be (the smoke stopping on its own).

Patricia replies: As far as someone getting under my skin, it’s my daughter. I get hugely distressed because she has no time for me anymore. She lives twenty minutes away, and I’ve been asking for two years if we can get together, but she never has time. It’s not that we don’t get along. Nothing has ever happened. She just can’t take the time. It brings me to tears sometimes, and at other times, it annoys me. So I guess you can say that she’s getting under my skin. Yes, that’s exactly how my thinking process was. I am now at the realization I just have to let it go.