Hi all—new here. Would greatly appreciate comments on a dream I had in the early morning day before yesterday. Unfortunately, the dream and dream interpretation subreddits haven’t been much help.

In the dream, my (real-life) best friend is leaving the country the next day, and we want to do something together. We go out to a beach where the waves crash over the boardwalk, and then we go back to my house (apparently—doesn’t look like it).

There we meet a very pretty young woman with flaxen hair who’s apparently a princess! She tells us there’s a buried treasure in my basement. So we three go down there and end up in a long stone hallway. At the end is a wooden chest, but when we open it we see not treasure but a jump rope, board games, and keys.

We take the keys (one of which has a square on the end where the “teeth” would be), walk to the end of the hall and turn the corner, and go over to an old-fashioned washer-dryer.

My friend is trying to figure out how to put the square-key in and gets frustrated; I eventually figure out you have to push some buttons and put the square-key in a bottom slot.

I don’t know what putting the key in actually does, but I think it made the washing machine swing out, a trick door to a secret passageway. Before we go in (or anything), though, I say to my friend, “Do you have to go?” He says, “It’s not till later tomorrow. We can keep looking now.”

Soon after that I wake up—both excited and, more than anything, sad. For some reason I feel that I’ve forgotten a part of my life, a Goonies-esque adventurous part. I want to keep searching, I want to meet the girl, I don’t want my friend to leave.

I’d like to know why the dream, which seems fun looking back at it now, seemed so painful and so poignant when I woke up. Again, any help greatly appreciated.