Might sound a bit weird, but are you, the ones who encounter it, spiritually active? By that I mean if you 'believe', as in religion way. Most certainly not necessarily the christian god, but overall. I believe that dreams is the 'outer you', while your actual 'you' are the physical 'you'. It's quite hard to explain in english. It is all explained in this book, Temple of Wotan:
https://archive.org/stream/Temple_Of_Wotan/temple-of-wotan-ron-mcvan#page/n39/mode/2up
(You should be sent to the exact page, if you are not, go to page 43/44)
Whether you don't want to be spiritually active, for whatever reason, you have to be. It is what makes us rational animals and determines a human and separates us from animals. I also believe that, as a huge darwinist, the atheists ought to die out, due to their lack of spirituality, which the modern world replaces with 2x dose of materialism, but the civilization will collapse at some point and my predictions and darwinism ought to take place.
P.S.: It has NEVER happened to me.