Dream feelings

Very early yesterday I awoke from a bad dream, featuring Dylan.  Even after I had gotten up to potty, then returned to bed, I couldn't stop thinking about it.  Which isn't really rare, when my kids make a cameo in one of my dreams.  Usually they disturb me.  This one certainly did.

We were walking along, he and I, and it was getting dark outside.  He seemed to be getting tireder and tireder, hanging on to me for support.  I asked him what was wrong and he said he hadn't been sleeping much.  At the same time, he was getting younger...

We were walking to the bank or someplace, and when we got there, he conducted his business at the counter with some woman while I waited.  I stepped up to the counter because I could hear them talking, and Dylan was curling himself up on the counter, as if to sleep.  I told him to get down, thinking, this really isn't appropriate that a grown person should be doing this!  The woman was carrying on with her business, barely noticing.  All the time Dylan was talking to her, but we finished up and left.  Flash forward a bit, and as we were walking away, he became a baby, maybe a year old or so.  It was apparent to me that he was very ill.  He was in a sort of box-like crib on the ground, struggling to breathe.  I was holding some suction tubing near him, trying to drain a serous fluid that was leaking out of him.  He also had an oxygen mask on, but I have no idea where it came from.  As I struggled to keep the fluid from engulfing him I thought to myself that I would continue to save him, even though I didn't know what I was really doing.  Then the dream ended.  Or nightmare, I guess.

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I guess this is a pretty easy dream to interpret.  He's growing up, with adult pressures and responsibilities.  But he's still at home, so I can offer him support and advice. He had some kind of intestinal bug when he was about a year old that alarmed pediatrician.  No matter what I did, the diarrhea came every day for weeks, and it was a struggle for me as a working mom to balance that with two other kids and a full-time job.  So I worry about whether he will take care of himself. 

Dylan is a gentle soul of a person, and I worry that he is making very slow progress to leave home and strike out on his own.  At the same time, I know that everyone has their own path and it can be very challenging. 

Also, I worry about my kids in general as adults.  Did I hold their hands a little too long?  Was my mother right about loosening my grip? My gut feeling says no and I don't want them to feel like they are a burden to me.  But I feel like the time is coming pretty soon that Dylan will need to leave the nest and experience a little more hardship before Mark and I pull up stakes and move out to the country.