Description: You are trying to operate mechanical equipment when it malfunctions. Many of these dreams involve difficulty with a telephone: trouble dialing, getting disconnected or making a faulty connection. Computers lose their connection with the Internet, data gets deleted, a virus destroys your files and so forth. Other machines jam, break or sometimes become actively malevolent.

Frequency: Machine malfunction dreams are only moderately common. Some people have them often, others seldom. They usually arise when you feel anxious about making an emotional connection; sometimes they refer to mechanical difficulties with your body.

Usual meanings: You feel as though you can't seem to connect, can't reach him or her, that you keep losing touch. You can't reach someone on an emotional level, or feel that something in your body is not working properly.

Questions to ask yourself:
Unable to communicate variation:

• Who are you trying to reach in your dream?
• Who does this person or agency represent?
• In what areas of your life are your efforts to connect with someone not working?
• How can you improve your efforts to communicate with this person?
• What aspect of your health concerns you at the moment?
• Are you having difficulty communicating with someone?

Machine malfunctioning variation:

• What kind of a machine are you trying to operate?
• What is this type of machine used for? (define it, even if it doesn't exist in the waking world)
• Precisely what goes wrong?
• What situation in your waking life does this dream problem resemble?