What are brain dreams about?

Most people were complete strangers to me. I was interacting with them as they were all interacting with each other. The interactions were fun, joking, flirting, etc. I wasn't the center of attention, the group had something else going on and I wasn't involved with it. How did my brain make up a ton of people I've never seen before?

I did recognize a small number of people (maybe 3) that I believe I've seen or met in awake life but even they were basically strangers to me as well. I interacted with them as if I hadn't seen them in a long time. I felt that I was seeking them out because they were more recognizable to me and I felt some kind of small connection to them. I was hoping they would help me find what I was looking for.

From what I gathered, the group was working in my industry so I was trying to find the leaders of the group to make a connection. While interacting with multiple people and sorting out who the leaders of the group were the police arrived and started searching for the same people/person. The group disbursed and I ended up finding the leaders who stayed behind but now they were dealing with this police situation. I waiting around trying to find an opening but ultimately decided to leave them alone because it would have been seen as bad taste to try to make a connection while some of their friends were getting arrested.

Then my alarm went off.

It was a room. Empty. Black, bit with white lines. As if you colored the lineart of the walls white. There were no lights but there was a faint glow, just enough for me to clearly see. There was...something in the corner of the room. Crying, muttering to itself, drawing on the walls with what I thought was a red marker. But as I inched closer, I realized its fingertips were cut off. And it was drawing with its blood. The blood was bright, not like normal blood. It was like, neon red. Very strange.

I don't exactly remember what it was drawing but it was drawing the same symbol over and over again. It was whimpering to itself. My brain automatically went "Help it, it's hurt" So I put a hand on its shoulder. It didn't even jump or get startled. It just stopped everything. It lowered its hand from the wall and slowly turned its head to face me. It had strange features. It was tall, skinny. But it still had like, basic human anatomy. It had a nose, lips, a chest, muscle definition (of whatever muscle it had) It was just a completely black skinny human, but with crazy eyes that were completely white. And they were...scribbly. Like if you took a white pen and angrily scribbled a circle on black paper.

It stared at me for a second, before saying in a raspy, pained voice. " You're like my art in a lot of ways." It moved closer to me. I smiled slightly, " How so?" Its hand curled around my neck, but not choking me, as it leaned into my ear and whispered, " You were created. You have blood. And..." It leaned in with its hands still around my neck, its lips almost brushing against mine, " I can rip you up whenever I wish."

With that last word, it dug its fingers into my neck. Literally. Its fingers went through my neck, piercing the flesh. I choked a little bit. Then like a movie, it cut to a different scene. Back to it drawing on the walls. Then it cut again to it curled into a ball, sobbing, whimpering, muttering. Then I woke up with the horniness of a thousand 13-year-old boys. Which was hella confusing. So like, what the fuck?

My freshman year of college I had a dream that my friend who had died in a car accident earlier that year approached me at night, I was in a dark house, and there were people around him moving in studders. He looked at me through a stained yellow window, and I asked him "
what happens when we die?" and he told me, "whatever you believe." After that dream I had another where an aztec man broke through my childhood room glass window and started shedding blue nails from his fingers, until he was just a pile of nails. Like the information my friend gave me was sacred or something.

Cool concept though. If you believe in heaven, you'll go to your brain's idea of heaven. Reincarnation, you'll live the life of some other animal/person. Hell, you'll live in your brain's idea of hell. Nothing, you'll live nothing. Maybe there is something to that, with the chemicals released in your brain when you die, and the few weeks it takes for that electrical activity to completely dissipate in your brain after dying. Maybe when we die, we're at least alloted a brief respite living in whatever colorful fantasy we imagined we might pass on to when we were living, before the electricity shuts off like a light switch and we do too. That dream always stuck with me.

I had a really vivid dream a couple months ago.

It started with me just standing outside an old rundown gas stations. It looked like no one had been there in years, and no one else was around. I walked inside and I saw three figures sitting at a table on the right, but I didn't pay much attention to them. The only thing not covered in dust and rust was a shiny new vending machine to the left. There was no employees behind the counter, in fact, the counter was completely torn apart.

I walked to the vending machine to get a snack. As im looking I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and my boyfriend is standing there. But hes standing weird, he seemed more confident then usual. I now see the other two people at the table. They're both also my boyfriend, but they were different. One looked meaner and was wearing a baggy tshirt. The other was sitting with their legs crossed, smiling at me kindly, and he was wearing my clothes. It was kinda like his feminine and masculine sides, and the one that tapped me on the shoulder was more like normal him, he was the "leader". It wasn't too weird cause sometimes he is more masculine, talking about football (soccer) and play fighting with me. Other times hes more feminine, he'll wear my clothes and makeup and watch rupaul's drag with me. So I think my brain just split him into 3 different people. (Imma just call them main boyfriend, feminine boyfriend, and masculine boyfriend to tell them apart)

The main guy asked me how im doing. I just said im good. He introduced me to the other two, and they both said hi. I started to get really nervous, and I didn't know why. I started having a panic attack, and main boyfriend reached out to comfort me, which freaked me out even more. I screamed for them not to touch me, I didn't want anyone near me. I ran to the corner and curled up into a ball. I was breathing heavily and crying and I didn't know what was going on. My boyfriend's circled around me, but gave me some space. They kept asking me what was wrong, but I didnt know. I just kept screaming and telling them to not get near me. My main boyfriend just stood up, walked over, and sat down on the ground next to me. He just "well, now im next to you" and a wave of calm rushed over me. I immediately stopped screaming and crying. I just looked over at him, and he was smiling at me.

Then I woke up, that was the end of the dream. Does anyone have any ideas on what this might mean?

Hello all!
About 2 weeks ago I had a very existential lucid nightmare that I can’t get out of my head. It’s to the point where it has been effecting my waking life. I need some outside help making sense of what it could mean.

For context, I have existential issues involving what my purpose in life is or even if I am supposed to exist at all.

So it began in a sort of black void with a warm colored aurora in the sky. Directly in front of me there is a hooded man with his left eye missing that looks like an older grizzled version of me. Same look, voice, eye color, scar on our upper lip, everything. He is looking into a circular stone fountain looking thing with a bonfire positioned on a raised platform in the middle.

Around him in every direction as far as I could see were hundreds of thousands of gravestones. All of them had a vague “endings” written on them. (For example, “The Swiss Ending”, “The Atomic Ending”, “The Fantastical Ending”, etc.) Some were filled in while most had empty holes in front of them.

I approached the man in the middle and politely asked who he is and where I was. He simply responded with this,
“You know where we are, this is where we all go to die. Now find your grave, I’ll help you out when you get there.”
I responded with,
“My apologies, pal, I’m not dead yet. Who did you say you were again?”
“Does it matter? We’re all the same here anyway.”
That is when it occurred to me. All these graves were for different versions of me. From different realities or universes I don’t know. I was fairly certain I wasn’t dead and this was all just a bad dream so I decided to explore and possibly see which gravestone in this labyrinthine graveyard was mine.

As I walked, I started to feel a tug from my chest, like my heart was being pulled in a certain direction. I followed the pull for what seemed like ages. Eventually the graves just stopped except for this one gravestone sitting alone just outside of where the rest of them lay. As I approached my soul felt like it was it was sitting next to a cozy fireplace, so I had the feeling that this grave was mine.

I eventually got close enough to read it had it not been for the dust and debris that covered it. It looked old and dilapidated yet it still had an open plot in front of it. I brushed off the dirt covering the gravestone and what I read chilled me to my soul.
“The Bad Ending”

The old man came from beside me.
“What an unfortunate soul this one. Feel real bad for him, you know?”
“I think that’s me.”
“What? No, it couldn’t, he’s not-“
He looked at me, his face grew grim.
“Oh shit, you’re not supposed to be here yet!”
He then grabbed my face and I felt my brain shock like it had just been struck by Thor himself.

Then I woke up. Sweating, crying, and white-knuckled. It’s absolutely fucked with my mind ever since.