This material originally appeared on learningtoeat.com on March 22, 2008.

A good rest for me is nine or ten hours and includes dreams I can remember when I wake up. Freelancing allows me to get this much sleep every few days. Call it my bonus for not having a long commute, or a trade-off for a lack of paid vacation.

I think of my dreams as belonging to groups or categories. For example, one group would be "recurring themes."

I call another group "pacing" or "speed" dreams -- these feature a lot of stuff that happens so quickly that I can't get a grip on any narrative or story. I usually interpret speed dreams as messages that I'm afraid my life is going too fast (or too slow) and that I need to slow down (or speed up) to feel better.

I have "everyday" dreams where what I am doing and saying is very much like my real life. I have a conversation with my husband or I go get the mail. They reaffirm feelings of satisfaction, that the status quo is pretty good (for now).

Then there are the "metaphors," which can be whole stories or short bursts of loaded images that I need to dissect when I wake up thinking, "Why on earth would I dream about THAT?" A big proportion of my dreams lately have been metaphors.

This week I dreamed of pies. Two specifically: pumpkin and an Amish-style oatmeal (like pecan pie but with oatmeal instead).

Why pies?

Pumpkin pie is by far my favorite pie. It means safety and comfort to me. And while I have not yet made or even tasted an Amish-style oatmeal pie, I have been reading and thinking about it for a long while, maybe years. I could taste it very clearly in the dream.

I have thought of baking both these pies more than once in recent months. It started back in September. I hosted a Pampered Chef cooking show when my dear friend Christina became a consultant. Because I wanted to try one of Pampered Chef's well-reviewed stoneware baking dishes and because I have always loved pie, I bought the beautiful Deep Dish Pie Plate in Cranberry.

I LOVE this pie dish. It heats and bakes very evenly -- better than any glass or metal pan I own. I have used it many times -- for apple crisp, brownies, even a lovely lemon cake. I get better results than I expect with each new trial. But for some reason I have not gotten around to baking a pie in the pie dish.

No pie. This is strange because I am a pie enthusiast. I have a pie background. When I was 17, I spent an entire day picking sour cherries from my grandmother's two trees, half a day pitting and preparing them, and the following two days baking cherry pies from scratch. I made 19. It was July in Ohio (humid), my mother's house had no air conditioning, and the oil-based dough that made my favorite crust back then practically melted into each pan. It must have been 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the kitchen. The pies were lattice-topped and I crimped the edges pretty, too. No shirking.

Why have I not made pie?

I have meant to, and I certainly have the ingredients for both a pumpkin and an oatmeal pie. In the fall of 2006 I went to Costco and did a serious stock-up on canned pumpkin. And thanks to the oatmeal habit and my love of apple crisp, I keep both steel-cut and olde-fashioned oatmeal on hand as pantry staples.

I have lots of recipes to choose from because I seriously love cookbooks. I flip through them at night to help me relax. In preparation for testing the new pie pan, last fall I bought and read Pie by Ken Haedrich, which I adore for its depth and variety and think of as "The Pie Bible."

I've recently been cooking from the earthy and homespun From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens by Phyllis Pellman Good and Rachel Thomas Pellman, and they have a perfect, simple oatmeal pie on page 220.

There appears to be no other reason for not baking pie besides irrational pie block. I think that I have both a literal and figurative need for pie. I am putting off pie for later when today and every day is a great day for pie.

This is definitely a metaphor dream. I think my pie block may have something to do with a wrong idea. And that wrong idea whispers in my ear: "You don't have time." Or: "You should be working." Maybe even: "You don't deserve it yet."

But would baking a pie keep me from doing good work? No, I know it wouldn't. Would joy contribute energy to the work in front of me, this week and month and year? Oh, yes.

This is why I need that sleep to pay attention to my dreams. Because without them I can mess up for a very long time -- by not baking pie or by missing some other vital aspect of life. I never forget work and deadlines and clients and bills. But I do forget to nurture myself, sometimes for months.

I've got some correcting to do this weekend. I've got to go bake a pie.