That’s the plot behind Lorna Shore’s album “Pain Remains”: The narrator realises they’re lucid dreaming, takes control of the dreamscape, shapes an alternate reality to become lost in, crafts a lover for themselves… then at some point painfully realises that lover is nothing more than a mirage, fading away:

A wrinkle in time
Take what is left of my life
Before you go
Show me what it’s like to finally know
The face behind the silhouette
In this world I made to be infinite
But within the expanse, I finally see
A world without you isn’t meant for me

Where do you go when I close my eyes?
What do you see looking back at me?
Am I just a ghost just like you?
Caught between the seams of two intertwining melodies

At this point, the narrator remembers? understands? that it’s just a dream and they - the Ego of this dream - will disappear along with it, agonises over this existential crisis of their own unreality, the memory of that “life”, mourning the loss of that love and finally decides to destroy the dream-world along with themselves:

I’ll salt the earth in a crimson blaze
The world will burn in my fall from grace
Witness the death of God, hear the Devil’s choir
As I leave the stage in a sea of fire

It’s freaky waking up and seeing my wife next to me. Like, I didn’t choose to make those decisions.

I’ve had this happen twice and the effect is so profound, I still think about both of them from time to time.

For me, there are two types of terrible dreams:

a) The first is the obvious, nightmares where terrible things happen and I wake up literally sweating, heart racing, etc

b) The other is where there’s a happiness that is near-absolute, usually involving somebody who loves and accepts me completely. Those dreams are generally pretty simple, but waking up is like stepping out from a warm house into a cold night, and wishing I could go back only to find the door shut behind me.

Final Fantasy X

No, because I was so incredibly lucky to have found my perfect partner over a decade ago… no dream person can come close. I don’t, for a single day, take them for granted.

I had that dream when I wasn’t even a teenager.

A few decades later I still remember that dream clearly.

This morning I had a dream that was the exact opposite.

I woke up and the first words out of my mouth were “what the fuck was that? I do not want to go back there”

No, I can never get into a deep enough sleep to dream.

I dated a girl like that.

Well, to be clear, I thought it was on-again, off-again, and the realization I was a side piece was just one of many lies revealed at cruelest tempo.

Suffice it to say I dated someone completely made up in her mind and about which she invested surprisingly little.

I sent her postcards of condolence on the anniversary of the night we finally broke up, consoling her on the death of [pet name], for a few years. Until I realized I was still more invested in the bit than she was, and I learned she now has 4 kids with different surnames each.

An old story on Reddit, could have come from other sources, about the guy who had a whole life, career, wife, kids, and one night at a party or something he noticed a light was flickering wrong. Looked closer at it to figure it out, woke up.

Ah, the rot videogame from Rick and Morty

Used to then found them. Real version is more complex but definitely real and good. Worth sticking around for.

I think it’s a good idea, trying to find them. Just be aware that pursuing the new dream often entails giving up many that came before, then growing from scratch many new parts of your self, which is often difficult and painful.

It’s fine. I’ll see them in another life, when we’re both cats…

Dammit, I was just talking about this a few weeks ago on lemmy, and it was surprising how many other people have had this happen, and how hard it can be to grieve the loss of that dream life

You ever wonder if that other person was real too and they had the same dream somewhere else in the world?