Some imagined situations create an urge to take avoidant action. For example, let's say you are in a queue of a rollercoaster, but you have a fear of them - you might imagine it getting stuck with you upside down, or you might imagine yourself falling out of the rollercoaster. These are bad futures, and they make you want to take behaviour to AVOID the rollercoaster (like don't get on it in the first place!). If you get out of the queue these scenarios will leave your mind.
In dreaming, the situations are ones where instead of making it obvious that you should avoid something, they make it obvious that you should confront something. Confront is a very delicate word to use, as obvious confrontation (e.g., arguing instead of being passive) is one form of it, but so is being boring if you fear that others will ignore you (by being boring you are confronting the fear that you will be ignored unless you perform).
For example, Curtly's dream from the paper:
> Curtly is in a shopping mall. A young child comes up to Curtly and demands his wallet and phone. Curtly does not want to hand over his possessions, but he does. The young child stands near Curtly with Curtly’s belongings in front of him (accessible to Curtly should he decide to try and take them back).
Having your possessions stolen warrants a confrontational response. This is especially so as the person doing the stealing is a child, as it will be safe to respond with confrontation (the child cannot beat you up!). You can see that, in the opposite way of anxious mind-wandering, this dream situation does not demand avoidant behaviour.
Does that make more sense?