Why do we have dreams? To help us work out parts of our waking life while in a different consciousness where we might be more open to understanding?

I am unable to run in my dreams. Sometimes I can't get purchase on anything solid under my feet. The ground is not substantial so my legs may move as if in a slow bicycle exercise, but I can't get anywhere. Other times my legs seem to have grown more joints, like crab legs.  They bend and bow to the point where they are useless, never becoming firm enough or straight enough to push off the ground into a run. But mostly, I just can't move. I try, and I'm either frozen, or my legs move so slowly, as if I'm in curing cement, that I am starring in the slowest of slow-motion movies going nowhere.

During my waking hours, I spend a lot of hours feeling like I'm pressed for time. My mother always used to say she needed more hours in a day. Consciously or not, I seem to have adopted this tape. So much to do, and not enough time to do it. So I press forward full steam, hour after hour, even though this forced shoulder-to-the-plow mentality gives me a real pain in my shoulders and neck or tenses my stomach muscles into mild indigestion, and no doubt taxes my adrenal system, making me feel "run down." And yet, on the rare days when the day stretches open and unfettered—I don't have to hurry to do anything—I may feel bored, lost, empty. Where's the adrenalin push? Where's the feeling of satisfaction and happy exhaustion when I've accomplished much in a small amount of time? Am I addicted to meeting or besting my own production quotas? Am I trying to beat life? Do I honestly think I can get EVERYTHING organized, done, and up-to-date in some given future moment? Yikes. Scary thoughts, all.

Do dreams have messages for us? I don't even have to consult a Magic Eight Ball to surmise: Signs point to yes.