The plot of the dream is very simple:  A toddler, after having a play date, does not want to go home and throws a fit.  But then a dream is never just that simple.

The child was a flaxen-haired boy with lots of curls and he was lying on his back, pressing his palms and calves into the low-carpeted floor, screaming.  Screaming. Screaming.  He sounded like the young man they scooped out of a crumpled car and loaded into a Medevac ‘copter that night before the morphine kicked in.  I wonder if, in my dreamstate, my cortisols or adrenaline kicked in?  So in the dream the child stopped screaming, stayed still lying on the floor.  I stood over him and said kindly, “I know how much this hurts. I know you are in so much pain. But tell me, does this make it better?”  The child said nothing.  I told him, “You are not welcome here again.”  I looked at his mother and she nodded her consent, she understood, and the dream was done.