Have I Ever Appeared in Your Dreams?

flash fiction by Katrine Persson

I have dreamt of the same man for four nights straight. He is a man I hardly know. The dreams are so intense, so vivid, that upon waking I feel that this man is in my life. (He isn’t. We have never exchanged so much as a text.) The dreams are so real that, during the day, about town, I expect to see him in the coffee shop, on the beach, anywhere. He lives in another country, and as far as I know would never have any reason to visit my town, but this does not stop me from looking for him in real life.

I guess what I mean is: the intensity of these dreams, paired with the consecutive nature, would lead me to interpret them as a sign, were I superstitious.

What to do when you dream so often and so intensely of an acquaintance that he becomes an actual character in your life, a person who seems known, yet isn’t?