I write to a couple of people in prison in the US.

One of my closest pals recently told me of a recurring dream he had where he is in his bedroom and a young child appears.

The child attacks him and he wakes up.

Whilst there is a little more to it, my interpretation was that the child is him and that it represents his wasted potential - his anger at himself.

I shared my thoughts with my friend and he agreed this was most likly the case.

Since telling me about this recurring dream he has not had it again.

Maybe all he needed to do was face his own anger and disapointment at himself.

I think that's a good interpretation.

Is this person just telling you his dreams because you like interpreting dreams, or because he has been instructed to pay attention to his dreams by a prison psychologist? I think that paying attention to dreams might be very helpful toward rehabilitation, depending on the situation.

Basically we just got talking about dreams and he told me about a recurring nightmare he'd had for years - seeing as this person and I have become good friends I wanted to help and so he explained what it was about.

It's nice of you to want to help. How did you get involved with corresponding with people in American prisons, if you don't mind answering the question on a message board? I'm just curious.

About two years ago I came across a website listing pen friend requests from people in prison. I'd always had penfriends and thought 'why not'. Now I write to about 20 people - some write once a week, some once a fortnight, some once a month and some once every couple of months.

I've made some great friends and it's taught me a lot in terms of humanity and that people who do bad things aren't necasarily bad people. Most of the people I write to have very similar backgrounds - lack of education and / or abusive parents - often alcoholic parents and lack of a father figure.

It's a most rewarding relationship but you need to keep your eyes open as some inmates are just in it for $$$.

Very interesting. Thanks.