I am a police officer and every night for the past two weeks I have dreamt that I respond to a person who wants to commit suicide but when I get there it’s a 10-year-old boy. He jumps in front of me. I see him falling and landing on the ground and I try as hard as I can to bring him back but I can’t. I call it in and I wake up crying. Please help me. I hate going to sleep now. - Guillermo 29, Miami, FL

Lauri: The little boy is a part of you or a part of your life. Usually, children in dreams represent a part of our self that is still growing and developing. Less often they represent some sort of project or idea or even relationship that is growing and developing. Whatever it is, it is something that is now threatening to come to an end, most likely by your own doing. See, death in dreams is not about an actual physical death but rather an ending, something changing. Suicide is a self afflicted ending or change. The child also falls, which may be connected to you feeling like you are failing in some area of your life. What in your life is so close to its demise that you no longer feel you can save it? The message of the dream may be to simply let it go.

Guillermo replies: My marriage is falling apart and I do sometimes feel like that it’s already too late and can’t be saved. I’ve been on the force for 1 year but with my previous job I was with them for 9 years and with them I was very successful and made a lot of money. The last 2 years with that company is when everything went downhill. I was forced to take a lower paying job and about then is when my marriage started falling apart. I do feel that there are two aspects of my life rapidly going in the wrong direction, my marriage and my career. Thank you.