I’m approaching 60, but in my dream I must have been a teenager again. I was out working, and when I went home, it was to my mother instead of my husband.

It was some sort of work program. A bunch of us were supposed to be gathering and then selling these thing-a-ma-whatsits. I gathered and sold quite a number, made good money, and headed for home. One man had bought some thing-a-ma-whatsits from me and paid with a check for $100. Later on, that man tried to pickpocket me. I fought him (the second dream in a row that I had about getting into a fight) and got back what was rightfully mine.

But then he followed me home and told my mother that I had mugged him, not the other way around. My mother looked through my pockets and found the money, plus the check that *he* had written out to *me,* and she never once considered that he might be lying. “I’m ashamed of you. You know better than to take things from people.” She gave it all to him, leaving me nothing to show for the work I had put in. Didn’t occur to her that I was anything other than guilty as charged. Wouldn’t listen to me trying to say it was my money and he was the one who was trying to take it from me. She just handed it all over, and he’s like, “Thank you, ma’am,” and leaves.

Your insight? Thank you.