Thread: Seeing people you've never met before in dreams?

Has anyone seen 'The Truman Show'? I had a dream exactly like that, I didn't appear in the dream, I was just the 'observer' seeing a lot of people I don't even know.

I've read on lots of different "fact" sites that the brain cannot invent faces and just pulls random faces you've seen fleetingly over the course of your life to use in your dream. Like a love interest in your dream could be a face you saw when you were ten at a grocery store with your mom.

However, the sites never actually link to any sources or studies done, so it all seems to be just hearsay. I'd love to see some actual studies done on the subject.

One person i dreamt about that i didn't 'know' in person was called....Sarah. She was a blond girl and actually looked a lot like this new friend i made in real life resently, actually! o-o;

Anyways, the whole dream was kinda interesting, I think it linked to one I had about pokemon the first movie and talking to a bunch of dreamers.....Also I told my mom about this person and then I learned from her about Saint Sarah, and maybe she went into a dream of mine and toke form as a girl with short blond hair o.O; (who looked NOTHING like how saint sarah is really ment to look lol)


I also used to see this little dark skinned girl who's favorite color was red in my dreams sometimes too. I still wonder if this one stop watch lady was her adult self.....my mom thinks she might be a spirit guide of mine as she said she's 'felt' her presence in the upstairs room with her one night a few years ago.

Its interesting.

You know, it's really weird because (textbook) psychology today will say that you can only dream about people you've seen - which means that yes, you would dream about people you know, but would also include all the random faces you see on a daily basis. I'm not sure what I feel about that - I mean, one theory for how dreams happen is that it's random electric activity when asleep XD so I wouldn't put too much stock into it. But I figure, if my brain can do such incredible things in dreams as we talk about here, and even waking I can imagine a face I've never known before, why can't our brains come up with people we don't know? I mean, heck, I come from a sadly undiverse town with lots of white people and not many black/asian/etc. people and even as a young child I had recurring dreams with a friend group of all different colors. Like a lot of people here, it's rare for me to meet people I DO know in my dreams

Originally Posted by Sierrala

You know, it's really weird because (textbook) psychology today will say that you can only dream about people you've seen - which means that yes, you would dream about people you know, but would also include all the random faces you see on a daily basis. I'm not sure what I feel about that - I mean, one theory for how dreams happen is that it's random electric activity when asleep XD so I wouldn't put too much stock into it. But I figure, if my brain can do such incredible things in dreams as we talk about here, and even waking I can imagine a face I've never known before, why can't our brains come up with people we don't know? I mean, heck, I come from a sadly undiverse town with lots of white people and not many black/asian/etc. people and even as a young child I had recurring dreams with a friend group of all different colors. Like a lot of people here, it's rare for me to meet people I DO know in my dreams

I'm starting to think that it's ridiculous to say "You only dream of people who you know or have seen in waking life"; I've met people in waking life that I never met before a given moment (And haven't most of us!), Why would I not be able to meet people in dreams who I've never even seen photographs of? It makes no sense. Try telling a man blind from birth what color is like and see how much he will express that he understands.

I’m new here, and created a profile just to post this since I think this is the right place for it.

I had a dream recently that was quite strong and also about someone I don’t know or have met (that I know of).

It was a girl I was dreaming about, and the dream has actually effected me.

I don’t remember so much about how she looked. Of course, she was attractive, which was the main reason why I went to talk to her in the dream. However, what I remember really strong is the personality and the chemistry between us. It was this funny, safe and mature challenging way between us, and basically I fell in love with this person. It was not a sexual dream, but more of a dream of love, basically. When I woke up, I had butterflies in my stomach and I basically felt extremely strong when I thought about this dream.

This is unusual for me, since I basically has not been in love since 2007. I’ve got a lot of friends that kind of want to find the special someone right now, and many of them have succeeded in just that. I however, have not had that and I’ve more focused on my studying and to study abroad, taking another master’s degree.

However, this dream has really made me realize something quite sad, and that is that I had actually forgot how it felt to be in love.

This dream probably shows that there is a longing after this feeling and that I probably want it even though I don’t think about it day to day.
I’ve been very lucky with my genes and with the family I’ve been in. The only thing that was missing was this drive for finding someone out there and someone to share my life with. Today I walked outside in the sun and I started thinking about this made-up person and I caught myself walking with the biggest smile. I then thought to myself; I want to fall in love again; I want to have something that I can call my own family.

My NDs seem to invent new people pretty often. xD; Probably because I still don't have a lot of friends irl...yet. But I want them.

Reading this post is interesting because i am working on a new dream journaling system that has a social component. Dream journaling has been around since we were capable of reading and writing, but using a new system hooked into our social fabric it should be possible to meet people who are having the same dream as you are. I suppose it would be less about meeting a specific person about which you are dreaming and more about creating connections based around personas, emotions, images, and events with some commonly recurring component or sensation. Assuming there is some sustained use, it could even be possible to pattern the correspondences between people's dreamspaces and demonstrate to a certain group how similar some deep desire or dream becomes.

I'd say that half of the people in my dreams aren't "real". I dream a lot about people I know, but I also dream a lot about people I don't know.

Oh, and I've never met anyone in real life that I had seen in a dream before.

I've had similar dreams, I actually have dreams I'm which I'm this guys girlfriend (he's always my boyfriend, no one else), but I can never see his face! I know he's tall and had brown hair but for some reason when I want to see his face I can't, either he turn around or I have to look somewhere else..it's frustrating to say the least
He's not only in romantic dreams, but I any random dream..it's like he's deciding where he wants to show up..anyone else ever had this happen to them??

One time, in a lucid dream, I met a guy who was also a lucid dreamer (or so I believed while in the dream). He gave me a small piece of paper with a symbol on it that represented his name. It looked sort of like a stylized sea turtle.
In waking life, I searched the web, but didn't find anything like it.

Now that you mention that I remembered that the guy in my dream gave me a paper with the name "James" on it, dreams are an enigma sometimes. Thanks (:

I have had a similar dream. It used to be that I just saw the guy was taller than me and had dark brown hair. But recently. I have begun to see his face. I am happy with this person- yet have never met them or anyone who looks like them in RL. If it is pre cognative- I wish it would be the right time to meet this person

I do this all the time. Whenever I dream there's always someone I used to know, I currently know, and someone I don't know. It's so odd because in real life I'll have senses of deja-vu all the time. Like we were watching a movie and it hadn't been out for very long and it was my first time seeing it, but the end of the movie the house had a hole in the roof and snow on the floor and it triggered like a memory of sorts and I felt like I'd already seen everything happen that happened after.

Also, I just had a dream today that tripped me out, because I saw a woman today whom I've never met in real life, but this is the second time I've seen her clear as day in my dream. I can never seem to remember what she looks like when I wake up, though. But the last time I saw her she was like a motherly figure, and was kind. This dream, she shows up before I have to battle something/someone that I can't remember, only vaguely, and she shows up out of the blue and gives me advice and like calms me down a little, mentions the other dream I have years ago, that I forgot, then she just disappears like she did in my last dream. It's really odd because I can't think of what it could possibly mean.

This site is cool as hell too. I didn't realize other people have had weird dream experiences as well.

Yes I have had dreams with someone I have never actually met I am still waiting to meet him. I know he exists I cant really explain I just felt him, his mind, his thoughts and feelings I have had 2 dreams with him one when we were little about 7 and then second one I had when I was 21 that was only a couple of years ago...also I had had other dreams with people I know I have never seen before but those weren't shared dreams, I remember as I began to wake that their face would change to faces I have seen.

there are times that i also experience this, then meet them in real life.

I had a dream last night where I was walking to school on a rainy day. And I was waving at a tour bus. Suddenly this girl (never seen her in my life) comes out of nowhere, waves at me and starts talking to me and she tells me "you were obviously waving to a girl, not to the people in the tour bus" (which I was) and she tells me something like 'she's the girl I'm looking for'later she comes and walks beside me tells me "Hey" and I reply with "sup" later she tells me "welcome, to a relationship " or something along these lines while holding my hand and all of a sudden it turned sunny. and I remember her father telling me "it's okay kid, I used to be shy like you " and her mother laughing after that statement and I still remember all their faces. Especially the girl's also she was wearing black shirt with light blue jeans and had black hair...unfortunately my dream lasted about 3 minutes cause I was gonna be late to school, but when I woke up I still felt her hand in mine. Does anyone know what that means I'm very curious. I forgot to mention that I kinda have a feeling I'm gonna meet her in real life..well I'm want to find her, I know she exists . Is that weird? I forget every dream the moment I wake up BUT I remember everything that happened in this one almost as if it happened in real life.

Edit: In my dream, the night before I was gonna go walking to school, I found out who the guy that works in front of my store is. In my dream he was my neighbor's son ...Here's the shocking part..in real life yesterday before I went home from work I found out he is my neighbor's son. crazy, isn't it?

Yeah I have I believe that we are linked and for moments at a time we connect through vast distances, some how we link up, some thing that could probably be traced back to a feeling in our brain, I believe causes us to connect. In two dreams I shared with someone else there was a common theme, we needed the others help we didn't want to do what we were doing on our own. Also yeah I have dreams with people I know I have never seen before but yet I know they are real there's some importance to their face I figure it's people that we have not yet met or may never meet...sometimes it's just a guy standing outside on the road staring, other times it's a person we meet up with as though that'd been played all along, I believe its our strong, innate need to connect with someone else on a deeper level, it seems to me that it's more about the feeling that we recieve and less about the person we meet.

Usually, you have "met" these people, but it's more so just seeing them. Any person you have seen in your life could be used as a character in a dream. Doesn't help that remembering dreams exactly as they were is a bit difficult, so you might remember a dream different that what actually happened.

I have dreamed a few times about people I never met. But within months I would actually meet these people or see them in my waking life. Those people lived in different parts of the world. After one particular dream I woke up and instantly knew or maybe even more accurate I strongly suspected the images were from my future. These dreams tend to leave a different impression and are also very different from my other dreams. Also people I do know show up in my dreams. Most of the times these dreams contain warnings or more insight about them personally. So far what I dreamed contained a lot of truth. I also dreamed about sexual encounters. Once about someone I didnt know and once about someone I did know. Both were 100% as in the dream. The dreams were just fragments, but the details were exactly so IRL. It was so weird I think these events happened within weeks after appearing in my dreamworld. I also have had premonitions a few times, but these were about events like within hours. I actually would go blank for a few seconds and than the image would appear in my mind.

I also have dreams of people who I don't know, they most of the time don't really have faces are just blurry. These dreams usually grasp something I lack in this life. I really think these dreams and preminitions are the best part of my life. To have experienced such strong and undeniable force and power of one's brain / soul .