One of the theories regarding dreams in general is that they're part of the unconscious reaching out to us. I tend to buy into this, though I'm not certain that it's applicable to every dream.
What I've found is that dreams often are symbolic if you don't know the people or situations clearly. I find myself prone to animal symbolism in my dreams (especially cats and birds, though sometimes also dogs and wolves), as well as place symbolism.
To take a stab at the unknown people in hard situations motif, I have had similar dreams. In my case, I found that it was at a time in my life where I was going through a certain personal crisis. I was a young college student and my father had lost his job; I was grappling with whether I would continue my studies, putting my family in debt (which violates my convictions) but doing what my father wanted me to do, or to leave school and try to work. At the time, I had the dream and variations upon it quite frequently for a couple months, at which point my father had found a job and the crisis ended.
I now believe that the dream was supposed to be a sort of message to myself from my subconscious: life is hard, and it happens to everyone. Rather than sinking into a depressive and indecisive state, I should have firmly committed to one path or the other and annihilated regrets by accepting all the consequences and benefits of the road I followed.
Dream interpretation is a tricky subject, and I'm not particularly gifted at it but I've had some experience and seen a lot of interpretations from people (actually, I'm in a bit of a stint where my current dreams are inscrutable to me right now, though I have had times when I am keenly aware of what my dreams mean). There are other issues that should be considered: Does a dream recur? Are you yourself in the dream? One of Jung's theories is that it is impossible to interpret a dream wrong; that is to say that if you come to a satisfying conclusion the dreams will stop, but if you don't and the dreams continue you will know that you are wrong. I don't know that I believe that wholeheartedly, but I've found it true that most of my stressful and undesirable recurring dreams end once they have been interpreted.
I highly recommend Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols (affiliate link) for dreams, since it includes not only Jung's work but also that of some of his followers and a lot of overviews of dream analysis as well as symbolism that is common in dreams. It's written for people with limited experience with depth psychology, but it's also got some deep elements to it. Just be forewarned that Jung's chapter is kind of dry, as Jung tends to be.
The Life Examined (affiliate link) is a bunch of case studies written up in detail. I think that Grosz is more accessible than Jung, but his book's also more expensive and doesn't have the advantage of multiple perspectives.