"I had another bad dream," she told her fiancé. "It was about you again. You and your ex-girlfriend were kissing. I yelled¹ at you to stop it. You looked right at me, and then you laughed at me! She laughed, too. Then you both went back to kissing. I tried not to watch, but when I covered my eyes, something pulled my hands away. I tried to leave, but my feet were glued to the ground. Finally, I woke up. Of course, it was very difficult to get back to sleep.

"I had to drive home from Las Vegas this morning. It's a wonder I didn't crash 50 times. Instead of seeing traffic in front of me, all I saw was you and her. I can't take any more dreams like this. We're going to have to break up. We can be friends, but just friends. That way, I won't be jealous² anymore, and I won't have these bad dreams anymore."

"Why didn't you call me up and tell me about your dream?" he asked. "They say that the more you talk about bad dreams, the sooner you'll stop having them."

She disagreed. She thought that the only solution was to break up and be just friends. She loved him, but these dreams had become so frequent³ that she was actually afraid to go to sleep. She was losing weight and having stomachaches from the stress.

He didn't know what to do. He wanted her to have pleasant dreams. He wanted her to have a life without stress. He wanted her to be his wife. This was it, she repeated; if she had just one more bad dream, they were through. He squeezed⁴ her hand, but said nothing.