Last night I dreamt that I bumped into an old flame. It was one of those vivid dreams where everything feels so real and intense. 

When I saw him I felt a rush of longing and love. We embraced, the kind of hug where you never want to let go of the other person. The feeling was obviously mutual and the words tumbled out - we loved each other, we missed each other, we never wanted to be apart again.

So here's the puzzling thing, over the years I've had this kind of dream about him several times. What's even stranger is that before I met him, I had a dream where I met The One and he looked a lot like my ex-lover.

In my dreams, being with him feels like I'm with the person who completes me. Being parted from him is painful and not just emotionally. Yet, in real life we were never in love, though we did have an intensely emotional relationship for a while. We parted as friends and kept in sporadic contact for a few years but I haven't spoken to him in a long time. I rarely think of him and I certainly don't miss him or think of him as my lost love.

However, my dream self appears to be madly in love with this man. I only have this kind of dream about him (apart from that one time I dreamt about Robert de Niro).

I wonder if anyone else has dreams like this that focus on a specific person.