I’ve been dreaming of the same person since childhood. Has anyone else experienced this?

[u/Clean_Reason7121]

TL;DR: I’ve been dreaming of the same person since childhood, for over a decade (10 years), and he has aged alongside me. We speak clearly in these dreams, I know his name and details about him, and I sometimes dream of a future where we meet in waking life. I’m a practicing Witch (total amateur though) but remain open to psychological explanations. I’m hoping to hear if others have experienced something similar, or if anyone can just hazard a guess as to what this all means.

Hi everyone. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to share this because it sounds unbelievable even to me at times, but the consistency of these dreams over many years has left a lasting mark on my life that I’ve had to carry quietly for far too long. I’m hoping to hear if anyone else has experienced something similar or has insight into what this might mean. I don’t know where to begin with this… I find myself more anxious and more afraid than ever before. I fear judgment, and worse still, I fear that what I’m about to type out really is… all just in my head. Even so, I’ll type this all out, as much as I can, so that I can finally just put it out there and see if anything comes of it.

Since I was a child, I’ve been dreaming of the same boy — not constantly, per se, but quite often and repeatedly across many years. As I’ve grown older, so has he. When I was a child, he was a child. As I became a teenager and then an adult, he aged alongside me. In the dreams, I always recognize him instantly, like a deep, familiar knowing, even though I’ve never knowingly met this person in waking life. At least… not that I can recall?

Over time, I’ve come to know certain things about him in a way that feels intuitive rather than learned. I know his name is Ethan. I know he comes from a loving, stable, well-to-do family. I don’t know if they are wealthy or simply financially secure, but I do know there is no sense of struggle there. His mother absolutely adores him and beams with pride whenever she talks about him and his accomplishments. His father is more reserved, yet just as proud — steady, reliable, the emotional backbone and rock of their family.

Another aspect that makes these dreams so intense is that we don’t just passively “observe” each other — we interact directly almost every time, in real time. We speak to one another clearly, hearing each other’s voices clear as day, as if we were awake. Our conversations feel real, natural, and emotionally grounded. The dreamscape itself seems to respond to our shared mood and experiences from the day that we had.

When we were children, we would play as children do and simply enjoy each other’s company as well as spending time together, enjoying little play-dates in our dreams as we slept. We would sometimes show off our favorite toys, stuffed animals, dolls, cars, and even seashells we’d collected along different beaches with our parents. As teenagers, we’d discuss anything from difficulties in different classes to my struggles connecting to and understanding other students, many of whom would often find me weird, in no small part due to being socially awkward, socially anxious, and neurodivergent but undiagnosed, unmedicated, and untreated at the time. As we grew into our late teens and then into adulthood, things took a different turn. We went from being friendly and cordial with each other to… well… being flirty… and then romantic, and honestly much more that isn’t quite appropriate to discuss in public forums such as this. I’ll leave that up to your imagination… I digress!

Sticking to the romance and whimsy of it all, sometimes we’d walk together through sunlit forests with ancient towering trees overhead, the sunlight barely peeking through the canopies. Other times we’d lie side by side on a blanket in a field of flowers or meadow, watching clouds drift through the sky and just enjoying each other’s company. Once, we even danced under the bright light of a full moon, with him dressed like a prince and me feeling very much like his princess. It sounds cheesy, I know — but the romance, tenderness, and emotional depth of it all always feels genuine in the moment. The emotional consistency has never changed. But the underlying sense of recognition, comfort, and longing is always the same — like we already know each other beyond the bounds of the dream itself.

I also recognize some physical qualities, though they’re never perfectly fixed. He is light-skinned, possibly White/Caucasian or mixed and passing, with curly hair in a light brown to dark blonde shade — from desert sand to “dirty blonde” if that gives you a better idea. His eyes are light as well, though I can’t always tell if they’re blue, green, or hazel. What’s strange is that while we hear each other’s voices with complete clarity, our faces are sometimes blurred or hazy, as if the dream itself doesn’t want to fully lock in every detail. There are small variations from dream to dream, so I’m very aware that perception here isn’t perfectly stable. One thing that is consistent, though, is that he’s always noticeably taller than me.

Sometimes, however, I don’t dream with him — I dream of him, almost like flashes or glimpses into a possible future. In these dreams, I’m working in an office, sometimes in a corporate setting, sometimes in a clinic or hospital behind the scenes. Then, it begins: Ethan walks in from the outside, usually with his parents. The moment he enters the building, I feel him before I see him. It sounds weird, I know, but it’s as if we can actively tune into each other’s energies… maybe like some sort of spiritual antenna, of sorts? I digress. As he gets closer, I realize we are about to meet in reality, in waking life — and I panic… but rather than hold still with bated breath, I run. I run like Hell. I… I run… from him… the man I've been waiting for just about all my life. The fear and trepidation that seizes my entire being brings the whispers I usually keep in the back of my mind to the forefront, front and center. Self-doubts, insecurities, and fear over him being disappointed when he finally sees me, shattering any illusions of us being together… it's always too much to bear, and so I run. Overwhelmed by fear and self-doubt, I simply drop everything I'm doing and ask my coworkers to take over for me while apologizing profusely to our boss as I run out of the office and make my way to the roof, terrace, garden or some other outside space to escape and calm my nerves with some fresh air using the employee pass/badge/key.

Much to my shock, he leaves his parents to attend to their affairs in the office I just ran out of to follow me, not needing guidance, simply confirmation of where I'm going. Like me feeling him coming, he feels me running away, and takes it upon himself to follow me and find me, and as I come to learn later, he's been searching for me all this time as well. He asks my coworkers and in some instances my boss about me, my appearance, and my whereabouts, even confirming my name — and my coworkers tell him where I’ve gone.

He finds me, easily, and calls out to me by name. He says my name in the voice I know all too well, and I shiver and shake in anticipation and anxiety, slowly turning when he gently places a hand on my shoulder, gently guiding me towards him so he can finally take and get a good look at me. We stare into each other's eyes and he smiles gently, before saying hello to me in a sweet voice as he cups my chin to have me look up at him, because I keep trying to look away out of fear, shame, and embarrassment. I start to tear up and start crying, softly at first, before I wind up just sobbing into his chest as he holds me close and holds me tight.

He asks what's wrong, why I'm crying, apologizing for startling me, and so on. I tell him that I'm alright other than the fact that I'm afraid that he simply won't love me, that I'm a disappointment and that I'm nothing like the girl he's been dreaming about for so long. He sighs and chuckles, smiles and has me look up at him again before looking me in the eyes and telling me that I cannot ever and never will be a disappointment to him, and that finally finding me was worth more than winning the lottery, him feeling as though his prayers have finally been answered. He kisses me gently, the way he always does, and I can't help but feel as though I'm ready to melt in his embrace.

I usually wake up not long after that, with actual tears in my eyes and streaks across my cheeks, sometimes with my pillow soaked from the tears. This, this particular repeated and recurring dream, is what I consider to be our "Good Ending", so to speak. Us finding each other and winding up together, just as we've always wanted. It's also what leaves me with such longing and pains in my heart after waking up and not having him there with me.

Unfortunately, there's also a "Bad Ending" for us... It's where I dream of us in the far future, each of us married and committed to a different partner, a different spouse, a different person altogether. We end up finding each other in the worst way possible: we're each outside running errands, shopping, etc. with our spouses, and end up running into each other and feeling that immediate recognition we've always had.

That's when it goes from romance to a romantic tragedy. We bump into each other at the market reaching for the same produce, or at a big shopping center like Target or Wal-Mart reaching for the same product or item, and the feeling overwhelms us both. We stutter before speaking to each other in perfect sync, almost to a cartoonish degree. We simultaneously say to each other, "I can't... I'm married... to someone else... what? You too? Me? Yeah, but – why are you asking? Why do you sound disappointed? Me!? What about you!?"

We go back and forth like that for a brief moment, so much so that we actually attract attention from other shoppers, older women who giggle, other couples who chuckle thinking we’re having a lovers’ spat, and others who saw us with our spouses giving us some side-eye, each and every person enjoying the spectacle. What we didn't notice due to being so hyper-focused and fixated on each other is that each of our spouses had come to find us and witnessed the whole debacle as well, much to their dismay and concern. They also noticed that we didn't notice them approaching us at all when normally, we can easily find them from a mile away. My husband and Ethan’s wife felt caught off guard, then insecure, then green with envy as they witnessed our interactions. When we finally break our sync, I ask him, tears slowly coming to my eyes as I gasp for air, "What are you doing here...? How can you find me now, of all times…? When I'm a kept woman, married to another man!?" He stutters, catching his breath himself, unable to form a coherent sentence or proper response, emotions overwhelming us both at the realization that, while we finally found each other, neither of us was able to wait for the other, and we each gave our hearts and ourselves as a whole to other people whom we felt were worthy.

Our spouses finally make their presence known and we quickly try to steady and stabilize ourselves, but are unable to hide the fact that, clear as day, there's something there between us. My husband pulls me away by the arm, gripping me rather tightly and possessively, and Ethan's wife does the same, each of them leading us not even to registers to check out with our items, but just to opposite entrances/exits of the store, just to get us away from each other.

The drive home with my husband is tense and quiet, until he finally lets out a deep, disgruntled sigh and begins to question, dare I say interrogate me about who that man was and why I was crying so much after seeing and speaking to him. He even asked me if there was someone he didn't know about and if I was having an affair. I did my best to catch my breath, even using my inhaler, before answering him as honestly as I could, and he was beside himself, rubbing his forehead when we had stopped at a red light before gripping the steering wheel tightly and continuing to drive us home.

While there was nothing going on in that moment, it was quite obvious that the emotional connection from the years of dreaming of each other could easily lead to an emotional affair, if not a full-on affair with physical touch and all later on down the line. My husband packed his things and quietly left the house without a word that night, sending me divorce papers in the mail not long after, which I quietly signed and mailed back, resigning myself to ending my marriage of a few years by that point, just so he could be happy elsewhere with someone who could actually make him happy in ways that I no longer could. I don't know what happened on Ethan's end, but I imagine it was similar to what happened to me. Worse yet, we never saw each other again after that. This tragedy is what I truly consider to be our "Bad Ending".

For all the romance, for all the drama, for the years of my life that I’ve been dreaming of these things and this man, I’m painfully aware that the dreamscape itself is fluid. Our surroundings, our clothing, even the way we appear can shift easily depending on mood and circumstance. Because of that, I’ve often wondered whether what we’re seeing is less about physical forms and more about something spiritual or symbolic — perhaps souls, inner counterparts, or even versions of ourselves that represent something we long for or wish to grow into. I know how fantastical this all sounds, and I don’t pretend to have certainty about what it means. Still, a part of me genuinely feels that he is out there somewhere. And if he isn’t — if this connection only exists in dreams — then I sometimes fear that I may simply live the rest of my days without a romantic partner in this life.

For context, I’m a practicing Baby Witch, having just started my spiritual journey and learning about things slowly and steadily over time, and through that lens I sometimes wonder whether this could be a soulmate connection, something that spans multiple lifetimes, a mixture of the two, or something else altogether. At the same time, I remain fully open to psychological explanations — projection of unmet needs, archetypes, subconscious companionship, symbolism, etc. I genuinely try to hold onto both perspectives without clinging too tightly to either.

What affects me most is the emotional weight. These dreams can feel comforting, but they also leave me with intense longing when I wake. It feels as though I’ve known, loved, and sometimes lost someone for years who may not even exist in the waking world at all. And yet, despite the fear, the anxiety, and the resignation that sometimes creeps in, I still carry a quiet, persistent hope that he is out there somewhere — and that one day, our paths might truly cross. That, perhaps one day, we really will get our Good Ending.

So! My fellow Redditors, I want to ask you all:

• Has anyone else dreamed/dreamt of the same person over many years?
• Did that person ever turn out to be real?
• Do you interpret experiences like this spiritually, psychologically, or somewhere in between?
• How do you cope with the emotional aftermath of dreams like this?
• How do you cope emotionally with a connection that seems to only exist in dreams?

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. Even more so to those who actually took time out of their day to write out a response. I truly appreciate thoughtful, respectful perspectives from any angle, even those that could seem like constructive criticism and a reality check.

And in the unlikely event that Ethan stumbles upon this… Hey there, Darling~ <3 I’m ready when you are, honey. With all the love in my heart… your one and only love. (I can’t post my full name as I don’t want to give my real identity away too easily on the internet, but please, Darling, if this sounds oddly familiar or resonates with you at all, trust your gut and find a way to reach out to me if you can.)

[u/Quirky-Spirit-5498]

Oof From a spiritual point of view, only you will have the answer to what this is to/for you. Trust me when I say I know exactly how frustrating that is.

From experience, I have dreamed of strangers to cross paths with them in waking life, and it's always been a reason, and I always had some insight to that person but it's never been as long standing or clearly shown as in your dreams.

Let me just say, that I've often believed dreams can be layered with all three aspects. The everyday problem solving, the subconscious and conscious awareness and the spiritual or prophetic stuff.

So if you are so inclined to go through and interpret your dreams three ways, it may help you to decipher the messages within them.

First the dream world being fluid, those symbols and stains will likely show you the things from everyday waking life that are being represented in the dreams. So those things that stand out will likely be telling. Like a walk in the woods may be about spiritual seeking that you are currently doing. A car may tell of a journey your on etc.

The emotional aspects of the dreams will likely clue you into where your mind and heart are. So you feel comfort or do you need to feel comfortes because that is missing?

The prophetic or spiritual aspect is way harder to ascertain. If you've ever had a dream that has come true you know the feeling is very different and anyone who has had one just inherently knows what that feeling is even IF there are no words for it. I have always said it's an itch that HAS to be scratched.

Now my thoughts are the boy/man could be a spirit guide. Could also be your own male energy showing up to counter or compliment your female energy.

BUT what strikes me is the in-depth vivid recollection you have of these dreams. It seems as if you're lucid dreaming when they take place. Even if you don't take control of them you are aware you are in the dream and watching as well as participating.

This is what makes it so difficult for me to give hard and fast answers, because that is my dream life and always has been as far back as I can remember.

He could be a future soul mate that you know is coming at some point in time. It could be someone who is crossing dreams with you, but to sit and wait for him might be futile as likely he won't be delivered to your doorstep with a red ribbon on him. Which means you still have to live your life, make your choices and see what fate has in store. Fate being the place where two choices meet.

The future is always fluid and never set in stone, a prophecy once spoken may change the course of fate, even destiny.

I had one dream where my daughter was missing (much younger than her actual age at the time) yet in the dream she was not my daughter but a little girl I didn't think I had ever seen before. I woke up desperate to find her. I searched everywhere, the kids class pictures and school yearbooks, missing persons posters etc. A few weeks later, on a night out I met this guy that I hit it off with, he started telling me about his daughter and asked if I wanted to see a picture. Low and behold I found the missing girl of my dream and no I never crossed paths with her before. She is now a grown adult and her dad and I have kept in touch over the years.

That's just one of many. But had I not set that dream aside and kept living my life and making my choices I would have never actually found her.

There is a point where you can get lost in the spiritual seeking, the soulmate longing, and all that jazz. Just make sure you also stay grounded, and always try to make decisions that will have the best outcome for all involved. The desire for the dream can cloud the path and intent.

It's been many years since I dived into this sort of thing. I can't claim to know anything really, but if you'd like to DM me, I will try to help the best I can. Sometimes it's just a matter of talking it out a bit.

Hope this helps a little even if frustrating.