The other night I had a strange dream, one of those rare dreams that I wake up thinking about – which doesn’t happen very often so when it does, I try and pay attention.

I dreamt there were lions everywhere in the streets, roaming calmly around buildings where you’d expect to see pedestrians.

There were no pedestrians.

Male and female lions, seemed very relaxed as they cat-walked all around a town centre – they were everywhere you looked. The lions didn’t seem to be attacking anyone (though I don’t remember seeing any people walking amongst them either, I’m not sure what happened to all the people) and I have no idea where all those lions came from either, it seemed like they’d taken over, running the town.

At one point during the dream I was in a vehicle, being driven through lion filled streets and the driver was holding a weapon. Interesting!

That’s all I remember, since I didn’t bother to write it all down before getting up that morning and of course I ended up forgetting the rest of it – as per the case with most of my dreams.

What are dreams, and why do we have them?

I think dreams are usually symbolic in meaning – so this one probably had nothing at all to do with ‘actual lions’ but the lions represented something, the question is what?

That said – I do have a strong admiration for lions, such majestic and beautiful animals….maybe it’s time I went on a safari trip!! Yep – maybe the dream was a travel nudge!!

Or maybe not.

In stories, religious texts and even real life testimonies, we continually see that the themes running through a dream and the symbolism expressed through it’s events – have more to do with real life than the the finer detail in the dream.

You hear people saying they dreamt something prior to an event taking place, and that the dream they had was a warning or pleasant message.

In other cases, dreams function like a mirror – reflecting thoughts, feelings, frustrations, insecurities, fears and desires we may not be addressing head-on in our conscious states.

Dreams have always been a bit of mystery to those who study the human mind; I’m no psychologist but I believe dreams can be very powerful communicators that connect with something deep inside us – deeper than anything a microscope or ECG machine can measure – well at least I think so!

Way back in the day when I did A Level Psychology, we learned about the different stages of sleep, and that dreaming occurs during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage.

Our deepest level of sleep is REM sleep, and the brain is very active throughout! I guess you could say we’re quite literally ‘busy sleeping’ at this point.

I’d love to hear some of your ‘strange dreams’ below, it’s such a fascinating subject and never ceases to leave me wondering…….