Common elements in my dreams

I kept a [nearly] daily journal from junior year in high school to the first semester of law school. I'm glad I did, but I'm not terribly sad about stopping. I mean, I was going to stop eventually, I guess, so it might as well have been in July 2006. Plus, that summer and following year was a pretty rough one emotionally and I can't imagine wanting to read about it again. It sounds completely ridiculous, but (despite many good things happening that year, and not fully realizing how bad it was at the time) certain things about that year traumatized me in a way that's real and that I haven't fully gotten over.

Well, THAT was a tangent, huh? Anyway, all this to say: I used to keep a diary, then I didn't, and now I've just been using one to write down my dreams. Sometimes I get a total feeling of deja vu, and I thought it would be cool if one day I could say see? I wrote it down a month ago that this would happen! But my dreams, it turns out, are so ridiculous that I don't expect to be living them anytime soon. Here are some things that keep coming up:

1. The co-op I used to live in, and visiting with its inhabitants now that we no longer live together. These dreams are generally very pleasant; there's lots of hugging and just feeling very welcome and included.

2. Going on a Birthright-type trip, often with my relatives and/or with a bunch of people my own age. Not necessarily to Israel though. Sometimes they take place in an airport; other times on a bus or train or just walking around with a group.

3. My thesis adviser. I mean, she's nice, but I didn't realize she (or my thesis!) were having such an impact on my subconscious.

4. People (generally me or my brother) being extremely ill and hospitalized. Since he WAS very ill and hospitalized frequently over the past year, I understand where it's coming from. But geez is it depressing.

5. Being at an airport and either being asked to watch a child but briefly losing him, or helping return a child who'd wandered away from his parents. I say him because it's always been a boy child. The child generally belongs to one of my professors, but is never a child I'd met (or that even exists, usually) in real life. I'm not too panicky in these dreams; somehow I feel confident that the child's not far away, and that I can safely return him to his family. These are the weirdest dreams for me because they feel full of meaning but I'm not sure what. Traveling to new places/experiences in my life? Meeting professors' expectations? Having more options for responsibility (job, perhaps a pet--a child is unlikely for at least the next several years, especially while I am single) and feeling eager yet unprepared?

Probably all of these. Or maybe just that I should keep my eye out for babies running loose next time I'm at the airport.

Bonus #6: Arguing with my mother. Interestingly, I rarely have these dreams when my mother and I are actually spending time together (which is generally when we do argue).