When your life is out of control, your dreams have a way of letting you know. The details in the dream may often lend insight as to how you can take back control or what may have led you there. It is often easier said than done to actually remember the details of a dream, especially if you are jolted awake by a fearful one.

Dear Dream Retriever: My life right now is in a bit of chaos and I feel like I am losing control, and I believe this is why I am having such bad dreams but can’t seem to put a finger on how to stop it. I hope you could help.

In my dream, I am driving up a hill and it is snowing. My car begins to slide backward down the hill. The car starts to spin, then hits a rail and goes into a roll down the hill toward a lake. I am frantic in the dream, and I wake right before the car hits the water.

Second dream: I am in my home, and a tractor comes down the street. I am watching it as it pulls into my driveway and drops a huge bucket on the driveway. When he drops the bucket, the house begins to shake and then falls all around me. I am in the house and the house is on its side. I am thinking to myself that I have to get up to the window that is above me to get out. — Rolling

Dear Rolling: The car rolling backward is a sign that your efforts to move forward are being compromised. This would be due to your lack of understanding of the emotional attachment to the situation. The water you are heading for is the detail. The house rolling is your own self. Each room in a house signifies a different part of you, but your entire house goes over. That represents every part of you. The detail is how you choose to get out — not by the door but the window. A door is hope and opportunity; the window is a lack of it.

Your dreams indicate turmoil in your life, but the details indicate you are waiting for someone to rescue you but no one is coming. Your dreams are telling you that you have to control your emotions to get through this.

Reach Jackie Bryson at dreamretriever@yahoo.com.