THE DREAM - I dreamt that I had just had a baby. I was overjoyed with my baby. My boyfriend was not helping with me and the baby. He said that the baby was not his so he just left me to get on with it. I was paranoid that I would do something wrong. I kept asking for advice on what to do. I was struggling with all the work and cleaning up and working full time.

THE REALITY The dreamer had been feeling overwhelmed with having to do so much at once. She had just got her own flat and was soon to start a new course. She felt her boyfriend was not helping her at all.

THE INTERPRETATION Try to strip a dream of all the details and summarize the most important emotion or feeling. In this dream the feeling "I cannot cope" comes across more than anything.

The dreamer felt that this phrase was relevant to her life at the time. She was feeling overwhelmed. So the dream does seem to resonate with her. The rest seems strangely irrelevant. She did not have a baby and was not thinking of having one. What is the meaning of these other symbols?

What is the meaning of the baby? In real life the dreamer had just got a new flat. She was soon to start a new course. This mirrored the dream in the sense that both situations left the dreamer with a great deal to do. A baby is a responsibility, a new flat is a responsibility. The baby made the dreamer proud and she felt proud of her new flat and new course.

One important feature of the dream is that the dreamers boyfriend does not want to help. The dreamer felt that her boyfriend had not been helping her. So that part seems to mirror reality as well.