Should I see a doctor about my dreams?

When I was younger, I was terrified they would make me lose my mind. Now, I embrace them which I think is a sure sign of maturity

I have been told, by a sleep professional no less, that I am a "vivid dreamer". I remember my dreams often, the twilight theatrics of my unconscious seared into memory by their intensity. Sometimes my dreams upset me, rehashing painful memories and serving them up with an extra side of terror. But mostly they're just a bit odd, and leave me wondering what I've witnessed in the still of the night.

Perhaps that's why interpreting dreams is one of my favourite activities. You can tell a lot about a person by how they do it. Do they subscribe to the superstitious ("A message from the other side!"), the psychological ("This speaks to a wider sense of insecurity") or the physical ("The human body is not designed to eat whole wheels of cheese")? Sometimes, the reading of the dream can be more telling than the vision itself: such as the time I told Auntie B that I had had a dream about an owl with guillotine talons. "It's a message. I knew it would come," she said, straight-faced. "God is telling you to lose some weight." This was an interpretation that told me nothing about the dream and everything about why I don't call Auntie B.