dreaming about people you've never met

[basho]

... or aren't even sure exist. when you dream about someone you've never met or ever heard of/seen, do you think its actually a real person out there somewhere?

[Paraknight]

I used to think that, and that one day I'd meet them in RL, but since I don't really believe in an "astral plane" where people can share dreams I don't think it's likely.

[yumester]

I rarely see anyone i dont know, unless i am in a publiic place with lots of people. Then the mind kind of just makes up "extras" with random images of people. You probably have seen the people at some point in your life but your mind kind of just randomizes to create people

[sk8r4life7]

I have heard it is not possible to see people in dreams you havent seen before, as far as I can remember I never have. I have always seen the people in my dreams somewhere before. A lot of times my mind will mix places together in my dream like a mall and my school my house and my gym and just make them one place and it seems normal until I wake up.

[basho]

sometimes i have entire dreams where i don't recognize anyone! and there are all types of places that i've never been to but dreamt about anyway.

[ApocalipsticK]

Kind of... It's people you've met bu you don't remember them. It's happened to me a lot of times, I dream about a guy I think I've never seen and a couple of days later I meet him in the underground or whatever. It's likely to be people who live in your neighbourhood and you see them in the street and immediately forget them. But maybe they remain in your subconscious.

[Dreamviewer]

I've had that deja vu experience where you see things that are going to happen and in it I saw a kid I'd never met before and the next month he transferred to my school. I believe it's possible.

[Paraknight]

I've had that deja vu experience where you see things that are going to happen and in it I saw a kid I'd never met before and the next month he transferred to my school. I believe it's possible. *cough*coincidence*cough* Jk. Happened to me too. I dreamt I was in the park holding an hourglass. Next day I went to the park, I checked my pocket, and I swear to God there was a mini hourglass I had forgotten about. Kinda freaked me out. Still I only think it was either a coincidence or I had something buried in my subconscious. Or else my mind was screwing with me and I never really dreamt anything.

[LucidApprentice]

It's just simple chance, or your subconscious. Example: RL: "Today I went to a football game in my city, I walked through a crowd of people just to get in." *He passes by a man with same appearance as listed below but doesn't pay attention since he's passing tons of different faces* Dream: "I dreamed of talking with a man with brown hair, a mustache, and a distinct look." RL again: "I saw the same man in my dream at the grocery store! I must have super powers!" That's my theory. Your subconscious pays a ton more attention then you, therefore is always getting ideas to stick into your dreams. From what I've heard also, it sometimes makes guesses (which turn into precognitive dreams). It's basically like a very smart computer

[Dreamviewer]

But this kid had moved from a city an hour away from me and had never been to my school before.

[basho]

maybe you were (somehow) picking up on someone else's memory/thoughts of this kid. and the coincidence was that he popped into your dream just before he moved to your city.

[Paraknight]

maybe you were (somehow) picking up on someone else's memory/thoughts of this kid. and the coincidence was that he popped into your dream just before he moved to your city. I say it's completely not related. You brain mixes and matches parts from all the people you see every day, a nose from here and eyes from elsewhere etc., and you end up putting things together generating a random person. They, if by coincidence you see a person that vaguely resembles what you remember from a dream, your memory of that person solidifies, while the memory of the hundreds of other dream people fade. You thus think you dreamt of a person before you met them and cannot grasp the coincidence as the rest have faded from your subconscious. That's what I think anyway.

[Dreamviewer]

I think it's funny that this is a site dedicated to dreams and especially achieving lucidity in them, but you guys find it so hard to believe in meeting someone in your dreams you've never met before? Dream seeing is a very commonly reoccurring thing in a lot of different mythologies throughout the world. Even, for the Christian disbelievers, the Bible mentions dream gazers in the earlier books of the first testament.

[Paraknight]

I think it's funny that this is a site dedicated to dreams and especially achieving lucidity in them, but you guys find it so hard to believe in meeting someone in your dreams you've never met before? Dream seeing is a very commonly reoccurring thing in a lot of different mythologies throughout the world. Even, for the Christian disbelievers, the Bible mentions dream gazers in the earlier books of the first testament. There is nothing debatable about the validity of lucid dreaming. You and I know both what it is. It's an existing phenomenon that we have given a name. There's nothing mystical or magical about it and as far as I'm concerned, it's all in one's own brain. Meeting existing people in your dreams without seeing them beforehand, in my opinion, does not necessarily imply some higher connection. I also think that religion is a whole different ballgame (I do believe in God btw). And mythology is just as the name suggests; mythology. The way I see it, it is impossible to prove the existence of some meta-plane where consciousnesses can somehow intermingle. Remember when they discovered the crater on the moon that looked like a human face? And remember how everybody was all "Aliens" and "Intelligent design"? People simply see what they want to see and believe what seems nicest to believe. My limited knowledge of the human brain and general physics tells me that an idea like "dream seeing" is fallacious until proven otherwise. And as far as I can see, there is no proof for anything remotely in that direction. All I see is pure coincidence and self-delusion. Think of how many people you have met in your life. Think of how many dreams you have dreamt. Think of the percentage of those you didn't remember. Think of the degree of sharpness the images of those you remembered had. Think of how many randomly generated people you must have encountered in both the dreams you remember and the ones you don't. Think of the one person you met that happened to pull up and strengthen the memory of one of these dream people. Consider the ability your mind has to distort realities. If you chose rough estimates and attempt to calculate the probability of coincidence, I'm sure it would be very possible. There may be some other sort of explanations, but currently, it is unknown to me and will remain so until proven plausible. /endrant

[Loaf]

Its not hard for your mind to generate faces. Same way you can generate landscapes that you haven't been to before. Its just your mind mixing up old content to create something new. Take the hair of your mother, the nose of your sibling, the eyes of your own face. The ears of your father. The mouth of your teacher. The head shape of your uncle. What do you get? A brand new DC.

[basho]

Its not hard for your mind to generate faces. Same way you can generate landscapes that you haven't been to before. thats a really good point.

[Paraknight]

Its not hard for your mind to generate faces. Same way you can generate landscapes that you haven't been to before. Its just your mind mixing up old content to create something new. Take the hair of your mother, the nose of your sibling, the eyes of your own face. The ears of your father. The mouth of your teacher. The head shape of your uncle. What do you get? A brand new DC. Exactly my point! Seeing somebody in your dream doesn't immediately mean you have had to have seen them somewhere on the streets and "subconsciously" remembered them.

[quicksilver girl.]

i think it's possible. i think just about anything's possible.

[moondust]

It's just as possible as people having prophetic dreams. I've experienced it and ultimately this experience is what got me interested in dreams in the first place. =D

[louie54]

This reminds me of a house episode were he dreams up a guy he's never met and after he wakes up, he finds this guy laying in a hospital bed as a patient. House is all confused as to how he dreamed about someone he never met. It turns out, he has met him though. I heard it is impossible to dream up someone you've never met before. I just wonder how would we know that. Loaf did bring up a good point though, that we can dream about landscapes we've never been to/seen on t.v. Well... yeah!

[~Erin~]

Kind of... It's people you've met bu you don't remember them. It's happened to me a lot of times, I dream about a guy I think I've never seen and a couple of days later I meet him in the underground or whatever. It's likely to be people who live in your neighbourhood and you see them in the street and immediately forget them. But maybe they remain in your subconscious. Just a comment Apocalipstik.. you're avatar is bloody amazing.. Emilie autumn is brilliant! But anyway, I must admit I am still hopeful that it is true since I have met some very amazing people in my lucid dreams I remember listening to an interview with Stephen Laberge who answered a call of some people dreaming of each other and soon after saw themselves at the airport and actually recalled dreaming about each other in that exact same dream. Laberge mentioned it being finding your 'soul mate,' which is a whole different topic. I'm not sure. It is less likely, but I think would be amazing if it were! However, it could be like most people have mentioned people who you have already met or seen somewhere on the tv, internet and just don't recall.

[BigFan]

Just a comment Apocalipstik.. you're avatar is bloody amazing.. Emilie autumn is brilliant! But anyway, I must admit I am still hopeful that it is true since I have met some very amazing people in my lucid dreams I remember listening to an interview with Stephen Laberge who answered a call of some people dreaming of each other and soon after saw themselves at the airport and actually recalled dreaming about each other in that exact same dream. Laberge mentioned it being finding your 'soul mate,' which is a whole different topic. I'm not sure. It is less likely, but I think would be amazing if it were! However, it could be like most people have mentioned people who you have already met or seen somewhere on the tv, internet and just don't recall. Sounds like a shared dream in that case, check out beyond dreaming or deep dreaming for such situations, etc.... Anyways, to the OP, really hard to tell. I mean it could be a made up DC since your brain is capable of doing that or it could be some actual person. Paraknight did mention a good point about only remembering one dream and one DC from it in comparison to the thousands you have had that you don't along with all those people that you see at school, work, etc.... without interacting with them

[basho]

so what this is all adding up to is either a.) we can connect to each other somehow while dreaming, or b.) our memories are extremely powerful.

[Gamegrl]

It's just as possible as people having prophetic dreams. I've experienced it and ultimately this experience is what got me interested in dreams in the first place. =D Tell me - how did you know that your dream was prophetic? Or, how long after having the dream did you realize that the dream was prophetic? I am in the same position that you are in - I had a "spontaneous" lucid dream (which I've never had before or since). I think it may be portentous (forgive the spelling).

[Hephua]

I fell in love with that guy i met in my dream, he was saving me from the zombies, we were going to the hospital to find the antidote. He had e green jacket, and he was sick from hepatite spread by dirty needles while making himself a tattoo. Hey if you exist, pm me! hahaha Half of the ppl i met in my dreams were new to me, i guess it's possible to make a mix between different ppl u know which form a brand new dc, but also a had a couple of prophetic dreams, so that makes me think that it is also possible to dream unknown person, which exist IRL. For me its harder to beleave that i have seen these particular random ppl on the street, totally forgot about them and later they poped out from my subconscious.