Have you ever dreamed of falling? What if someone chases you to a house you’ve never seen before? Have you ever dreamed of being pregnant or having a romantic relationship with your own family member? Dreams are really very, very strange. They often confuse us, deceive us, and provoke certain feelings upon awakening. Due to its mysterious aura, most people will wonder, why are my dreams so strange? The answer is simple and complex.

To begin with, we all know that dreaming takes place in the subconscious. Dreams can be so mysterious because as human beings we dream thousands of dreams a night. Because we have so many, certain images and events can be interpreted and mistaken as a complete and very strange dream. In essence, they are mixtures of innumerable little dreams that are difficult to separate. Another reason dreams can seem so much stranger than life is because our dreams are supposed to be our “safe place.” That means that we are likely to dream of dissociated or irrelevant things during our waking life, they are our inner desires, emotions and fears manifested as images, strange behaviors and recurring nightmares. Dreams are especially related to our own self-loathing and therefore sometimes point to traits that we want to repress.

According to the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, dreams can compensate for the one-sided attitudes that we maintain in our waking consciousness. Dreams are rumored to regulate moods and allow the mind to walk through fantasy as a way to control difficult emotions. Historically, the Greeks believed that dreams were used both to heal and to divinely guide or inspire. Today, dreams are said to be very strange due to diet, bedtime thoughts, or the use of mind-altering drugs.

There is also evidence that certain medical conditions of the brain can affect dreams. For example, people with synesthesia, a neurologically based condition, often experience black and white dreams. Post-traumatic stress disorder can also lead to some pretty weird or scary nightmares.

So the answer is, should we take our dreams seriously and try to interpret them to the best of our ability? That is really an individual decision. Some feel that their dreams are signs, requests from a higher being to examine their waking life and make a change, help a friend, take care of their back.