Have you ever dreamed that you slept with your father? Or rode a mechanical bull while a coworker watched? We have and were disturbed for months. Fortunately, dreams don’t always mean what you think they do, and having sex with your father is nothing to worry about, so long as it only happens in your subconscious. Here, we ask psychologist Veronica Tonay, Ph.D. to decode your crazy dreams each and every week, so that you can sleep at night, and dream some more.

THE DREAM IN QUESTION: I never had fantasy dreams when I was single, but now that I’m committed to one person, I have them all the time. I once dreamed that I met present-day Paul McCartney, my favorite Beatle, at a Stella McCartney fashion show. We had sex in an abandoned, pink Spanish-style house with no windows that was covered in ivy. Then, we moved it to the roof of his silver Mercedes, which was parked outside under a big tree. —Kickin’ It With Macca

ANSWER: Houses in dreams often represent our own psyche, our own mind, so this dream may be a picture of your current state of mind. Your dream house is abandoned, foreign, and it doesn’t have any windows. We often dream about unfamiliar, windowless places when we are thinking hard about something and temporarily tuning the outside world out. And sex in dreams is not usually about sex, it’s about two parts of yourself that you’re coming to know. In your dream, you’re having sex with Paul McCartney, whom I’m assuming you don’t actually know. Is there some Paul McCartney-like quality in yourself that you’re starting to develop? He is extremely famous, musical, creative, and successful. And he’s older, so he’s more mature. What a great character to put in a dream! Whenever you have a dream that you’re having sex with somebody, make a list of their qualities and consciously think about what qualities of these you are beginning to master in yourself. Hold that character in your mind and purposively “try on” some of his positive qualities: Pretend you’re him for a few minutes or hours, and see how you feel. This dream suggests you may be looking inward, considering your own creative life and career path, and that you’re getting ready, or are actually taking steps, to make your dreams come true!

Veronica Tonay, Ph.D., earned her doctoral degree in psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and has conducted and supervised research on the meaning of dreams for 25 years. She is the author of The Creative Dreamer: Using Your Dreams to Unlock Your Creativity and Every Dream Interpreted.