Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?

Once again, I'm awake an hour or two earlier than I would prefer. I seem to have developed this bad habit of waking up at dawn, which isn't that horrible when it's January but definitely annoying when we're sliding into summer. For a change, I woke up from a dream that I can actually remember. Usually there'll be a vague feeling that I was dreaming, but I can never remember what the dream was about. Or worse -- I'll be wide awake at 5 a.m. for no apparent reason whatsoever.

This particular dream was weird, kind of a mix of apocalyptic science fiction -- parts were vaguely reminiscent of the television show Falling Skies, one of the cheesier endeavors Noah Wyle's been involved with, and parts were more like fragments of memories. At one point the S.O. and I were apparently in the process of moving somewhere (a not unusual situation for us, given our peripatetic lifestyle) and wound up having to boondock at an Interstate rest area due to some emergency that blocked the road ahead. That's when it started morphing into Falling Skies. Very strange. but before the aliens (our new piscisian overlords?) could make an appearance, I walked out of a room at the rest area and into an office in a building somewhere. . . and there were a bunch of former co-workers sitting waiting to be interviewed for some mysterious reason. Okay, that's not too weird -- these were a group of people I liked working with so it's not odd that my mind would create a situation where we're all back, sort of, where we were 10 years ago. Except for one thing -- along with my former NPS colleagues, a former pen pal, a person I haven't written to for maybe 15 years, was sitting there as part of the group. And we're talking like she's always been a co-worker. Which is pretty odd considering that I actually have no idea what the woman looks like -- I don't think she ever sent a photo.

I woke up right about the time our division chief started telling us he was going to send us out on a special assignment, but instead of the usual GSA fleet van we were going to be driving Fiats so no one would recognize us as federal agents. That must have struck me as just a little too weird even for a dream, especially when we're all sitting there in full uniform, right down to the Smokey hats. Except for my friend Carol -- she was in a 1970's women's uniform complete with go-go boots.

Does it mean anything that the former pen pal's name is Karen Messenger?