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    Craig,
    
    Mmmm interesting. I do not know the full facts here, but it sounds to
    me as if your friend is suffering from a childhood trauma caused by
    a failure in the fundemental logistics of early school tutoring.
    
    Either that, or she'll have to cut back on the Holsten Pils & Ritz
    cheese cracker midnight feasts !
    
    
    
                             
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|  |     I had something sort of similar for awhile...
    I had recurring dreams (or nightmares, whatever) where I returned to a
    former home and always found starving animals there...their coats and
    eyes dull and lackluster, the lack of energy due to the malnutrition...
    I would feed them right away and I remember I always felt responsible
    and guilty as if it were  my fault they were in such a state...
    
    After careful self-analysis I got a hunch...at the time I was ignoring my
    own needs, to the cost of my own health and well being.
    
    Being the mother of two teen-agers and a wife she may (I am NOT giving
    psycho-analysis here, just a *maybe*)
    
    put the needs of others before herself and sub-consciously she may
    resent this.  In fact, it's possible that (since you said she's had
    this dream for awhile) she has some unresolved adjustments to putting
    someone else's needs before her own, which spouses often tend to do,
    husband or wife, and especially parents. 
    
    It's possible she has put some of her own very important desires and
    needs in life on hold and has in a way cheated herself of some things. 
    This could come out in the dream as hungry animals which could be
    symbols for her own hunger for something she has put off or put on hold
    because of the other people in her life.
    
    It's only an idea but I'll tell you, when I began to think of myself
    first, sometimes, instead of always putting myself last, my  health 
    improved and the dreams went away.
    
    
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|  |     Just a thought,
    	I would like to add to an earlier reply.... instead of this
    person ignoring her own needs maybe there is something else in her past
    that she has walked away from that still requires her attention.
    Perhaps an unresolved relationship difficulty with a parent or other 
    friend/loved one. If this is true, she needs to return to the situation
    and resolve it before the dreams stop.
    
    		Chuck
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