Not to Be Taken Too Literally

In the dream last night we were staying at the home of old family friends.  It was very late in the dream, around 2AM, and I could not sleep for all of the various noises in the house.  In the dream I went from room to room, sobbing with exhaustion, trying to solve the problem.  But the radio that the father of the old-family-friends' family was listening to in the kitchen was an intricate mass of wires and knobs and equipment, and I couldn't figure out how to turn down the volume.  I explained to him how the sound traveled up and was amplified by the stairwell, to no avail.  In the room next to me, the kids were... I'm not sure what they were doing, but it involved making noise and for some reason I couldn't stop them.  Noise seemed to emanate from every room in the house, and my earplugs were powerless to block it. 

In the dream I finally went to the room where my mother was sleeping, thinking at last I'd found a place to rest, but then realized/remembered -- she sleeps with the television on.  In the dream I felt doomed, and I awoke this morning with an ache in my throat from sobbing, sobbing, sobbing for some sleep.