I am married with an 11-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. My son gets most of the attention because of a medical condition. I am a doctor that sees patients out of a room in my house. I do not want any more children. Also, we do have a broken window in our dining room that needs to be fixed.

I dreamed that I went to get my daughter up one morning and she wasn't in her bed (in the dream her bedroom was in my home office). My husband and I searched for her everywhere around the house. I went back in her room, pulled back the blinds that cover her window and there she was -- hanging by her bloodied hand and neck in the middle of the broken window!

We raced to get her inside and when she was pulled in she was no longer her eight-year-old self, but a two-year-old (that didn't actually look like her but was her in the dream) with only a few scrapes on her. I cradled this sleeping baby and was happy she was alive. What does this bizarre dream mean?

—Christy, Age 39, Married, New York, NY, USA

Hi Christy—

Welcome to the always-confusing world of maternal instincts dreams! Your dream is not precognitive in any way. To the contrary, you care so much for your daughter that you worry about her getting hurt -- especially since you also worry about her getting the attention she deserves.

As a parent of two young children, you obviously recognize the window in your dining room -- which needs to be fixed -- as a potentially serious accident. What would happen if one of your children put a hand through the window, playing, and wound up getting cut? What if they tried to stick their heads through the window, and then fell?

Your dream reflects fears common to every caring parent. And indeed, a clue left in your dream informs us that, while your eight-year-old surely is more responsible now (and needs less tending than when she was a toddler), you still often think of her as a small child. When you retrieve her from the broken window where you find her, she is transformed into a two-year-old girl. What is the meaning of this curious dream transformation? She's still your "little girl" (no matter how old she is), and you still worry about her accidentally getting hurt.

By showing your daughter unharmed by her accident, the dream informs us that her accident was not real, and also hints at a broader, symbolic meaning. If you are concerned that your daughter's current "lack of attention" (due to your son's medical condition) may be "injuring" her, your dream is a sign that you need to make a regular "appointment" for her -- in your already busy doctor's schedule! You can put this on your list of things to do - right after you fix that broken window!