This article analyzes the subconscious fears and anxieties connected with loneliness, low self-esteem, all kinds of frustrations, a sense of being trapped in a bizarre reality or being pushed to transgress (i.e. to cross the border between life and death, between the human and the animal, or getting exposed to new technologies or forms of religion) in Olga Tokarczuk's Opowiadania bizarne [ Bizarre Stories]. The resulting emotional volatility gives rise to questions about one own's identity and one's place in a world beyond control. At the same time the manifold fears and anxieties impose on one a Manichean, dualistic perception of an incurably weird (bizarre) reality. So in Opowiadania bizarne we are constantly reminded of man's arrogance in his relations with the earth's ecosystem, the destructive nature of his subconscious mind, the dangers of new technologies and the corrosive effects of postsecularism.