I had a dream last night that one of my good friends from college, who now lives in Connecticut – only a few hours from here – came to visit me. He brought his wife and two children, and they were at the door when I opened it. So was a shiny black pickup truck, parked less than 10 feet from my front door.

“Why did you park your truck right in front of my house?” I asked him, pointing at the Chevy. “At my door?”

He turned, looked at the truck and shrugged. “Because there’s nowhere else to park. This was the easiest place to park it.”

He always had the most simple, direct logic. Probably a reflection of his upbringing in a small town.

But after I woke up, I thought a lot about the dream for the rest of the day. And about dreams, in general.

One of my recurring dreams was that I’d go to a huge event, get to my spot on press row and realize I had left my laptop at home. Fortunately, that never happened. (Though there were times I’d reach into my bag while driving somewhere, just to make sure my laptop was there.)

Dreams are messages. They tell us something about our lives. They’re manifestations of a lot of things that we may not want to admit to ourselves but of the things that are buried in the back of our minds. Anxieties. Hopes. Feelings of the conscious and subconscious. They come to us as these vivid visions. Or they’re terrifying sensations – have you ever been jolted awake because of a dream where you felt like you were falling or losing control of your car? It might be a parallel to something that’s happening in your life.

Of course, when I woke up, there was no black pickup truck parked right in front of my house.

Chances are, I miss my friend.