It is not very often that I remember my dreams, but this one stuck with me. In my dream, I was in charge of constructing a new building. There were many people, but no faces I could really make out. I was in charge of the bricks, the foundation and the walls. I remember that in the dream I was laying the bricks in a trench which had been dug, to build the foundation. Others would pour the cement down through the layers of bricks and holes to make it stronger.

At one point, I noticed the wall leaning, so I crawled way down underneath the wall to look up and see why. I realized some of the cement was not going all the way to the bottom. This was why the wall was swaying. When I decided to crawl back out, I felt the pressure of the wall on my chest to where I couldn't breathe, and I was afraid the whole building was about to fall down on me. Somehow I made it back out, and was standing there asking other people to pour in more cement, to make it stronger.

Then I noticed some other people, along with a rottweiler and a dalmation dog, across the way beyond a fenced area. They were sitting on some benches (like at a football game), laughing, pointing and yelling things at me. When I approached them to ask what their problem was, they continued to laugh and point at me and the building. One of them (a male), said something to me which made me really angry. I picked up a large bone (like a dinosar leg bone), and I really wanted to hit this person with a lot of force, and hurt him for his remark and for laughing at me.

When I approached him, the two dogs attacked me, trying to bite my head off -- literally. Then the two dogs turned on each other, which gave me a chance to run away. As I was running for safety to the other side of the fence, the dogs tried to attack me again, but someone from the side where the building was shot the dogs before they could reach me. I fell to my knees crying.

My recent background is I just went through a long and costly divorce which took two years. I am a single mom, trying to keep ahead of the mounting bills and rent. I have been working part-time at the post office and have been trying to obtain a full-time position and change careers for stability and better pay. But I haven't had much luck. My ex is in arrears by thousands of dollars, which has put me in a financial bind for the past few months. And the lawyers seem to be taking advantage of the situation, bleeding me dry of any extra money that I receive. Somehow, I think this dream interprets my life right now.

—Cala, age 40, divorced, Monmouth, IL

Hi Cala—

They say that whenever you're in a fight, you want to choose your weapons carefully. I think the dinosaur bone was just the right tool for those jerks who were laughing at you!

After a long and costly divorce, you are in the process of "rebuilding" your life. Your dream represents your struggle to create a new "foundation" by showing you in charge of constructing a new building. The job is challenging, and at times you worry the building will topple over. It doesn't fall though -- and this dream shows us what an able "builder" you really are.

It is always important to consider how we respond to challenges presented to us in dreams. For example, when you notice the wall out of alignment, you do not call for someone else to help you fix it, nor do you passively wait for the wall to collapse. To the contrary, you crawl beneath the wall and quickly identify the problem, then immediately give instructions for its repair. Similarly, when you hear the hecklers laughing, you are not intimidated, nor do you idly suffer their insults. If it weren't for those two guard dogs, those hecklers would have been dinosaur soup!

Your dream shows that you are responsible (that's response-able), intelligent, and direct. Any business would be fortunate to have such a capable person on board. I am confident your full-time job, and your career change if you want it, are both within easy reach.

The attack dogs most likely represent the lawyers, in addition to the stress you already feel -- physical, emotional, financial -- during this difficult rebuilding period. Lawyers like to brag about being like "attack dogs" when they defend their clients, and they like to "take people's heads off." They are expensive, but no one would advise you to proceed without one.

A bit of anger -- well, okay, maybe a lot (after all, it was a dinosaur bone!) -- towards men, especially, is implied. This is natural enough in the wake of broken relationship, but you are too able a person to waste energy here. Your solid foundation will empower you to meet all of today's, and tomorrow's, challenges.