A childhood friend is read as innocence, shared memories and a younger self. Dream books see the figure as a reminder of qualities or joys you may have set aside. Playing together as children is read as a wish for lightness and play in adult life. Meeting a childhood friend as an adult is taken as comparing who you became with who you hoped to be. A falling-out with them is read as an old hurt or regret surfacing. If the friendship ended long ago, the dream is often read as a part of you asking to be remembered. It can help to ask what you loved doing then, and whether there is room for it now.
Does the traditional reading fit your dream, or did it mean something else to you?
My Cosmic Code has a private dream journal. Write a dream down and the app picks out the symbols in it, shows what dream books say about them and, over time, which words recur across your entries. The journal is stored on your device only.