If 'this man' looks familiar to you, you are not alone, thousands of people claim he regularly appears to them while they sleep.

A website has even been setup for people around the world to detail their nocturnal encounters and reports have come in from places ranging from Los Angeles to New Dehli.

It is claimed the image was first drawn by a New York woman for her psychiatrist -- after repeatedly seeing him in her dreams. The drawing is then said to have been spotted by a fellow patient who also recognised the man from their own dreams.

The puzzled psychiatrist then sent the picture to some colleagues and since then over 2,000 claim to have seen him and there are a number of theories as to his recurring presence.

These range from one that it is an archetypal image of the collective unconscious, to the idea that this is what god looks like… oddly the site doesn't detail the more cynical theory that this is a marketing campaign for an as yet unknown product.