Dreams I Never Dreamed

I never remembered my dreams.

Not one. Not ever.

People always talked about floating, flying, falling—meeting dead relatives, solving math problems, or waking up crying. But for me, sleep was just a black screen. Eight hours of silence, and then a new day.

At first, I thought it was just how I was wired. Some people dream. Some don’t. I didn’t feel like I was missing much—until I met Elias.

He showed up at the cafe where I worked. Quiet, bookish type. Wore the same grey coat every day and always ordered a mint tea, no sugar. He never smiled, but he was polite. There was something calming about him. Mysterious, but not in the romantic way—more like he belonged to some other timeline.

We started talking. It began with small things—weather, books, music. Then it got stranger.

One day, out of nowhere, Elias said,

“Do you dream?”

“No,” I replied. “Never. You?”

He looked up from his tea. “Only other people’s.”

I laughed, thinking he was joking. He didn’t laugh with me.

“I’m serious,” he said. “My own dreams faded years ago. Now, when I close my eyes, I see the lives of people I’ve never met. The dreams they never dreamed.”

I should’ve walked away right then. I should’ve smiled politely and chalked him up to eccentricity. But something about his voice, steady and sad, made me sit down across from him.

“What do you mean?”

Elias took a long sip of tea before answering.

“You know how people say we bury our real desires? Stuff we want so badly, we’re afraid to admit it—even to ourselves?”

I nodded.

“Well,” he said, “those dreams don’t just disappear. They float. Like radio signals. And sometimes, I catch them. I live them while their owners sleep soundlessly. And in the morning… they feel like something’s missing.”

That’s when it hit me.

The restless mornings. The hollow feeling I couldn’t name. The sense that my life was something I’d forgotten to pick up along the way.

He noticed the change in my expression.

“I’ve seen you,” he whispered.

I felt my skin prickle.

“I’ve stood on a stage in Paris with your voice. I’ve painted in a cabin in Iceland with your hands. I’ve held a daughter you never had.”

I couldn’t speak.

“I know it sounds crazy. But it’s real. You never let yourself want those things, so your dreams gave them away. And now I live them.”

The next day, I quit my job.

Not because I believed him completely, but because some part of me did.

I started sketching again. I bought an old notebook and wrote down the name “Ivy,” a name I didn’t recognize—but it made my heart ache. I booked a solo trip for the first time in my life. Something was pulling me forward. Or maybe back.

Over the weeks, Elias and I met more often. He told me things he couldn’t have known. A melody I hummed once in a childhood talent show. A path in the woods behind my grandmother’s house I’d never told anyone about.

And slowly, I began to remember things. Not dreams. But feelings from them. The way the sun looked on a mountain I’d never climbed. The sensation of warm, small fingers curling into mine. A crowded room clapping as I took a bow.

One day, I asked him, “Why me?”

He looked tired. “I think because you never claimed your dreams. So they found someone who would.”

I felt a quiet grief bloom in my chest.

“Can I get them back?”

He paused.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think… if you start living them, I’ll stop seeing them.”

That night, for the first time in my life, I had a dream.

It was faint and blurry—but I was painting, surrounded by cold air and northern lights. I was humming the same melody Elias once hummed to me. I wasn’t watching myself.

I was inside it.

It’s been a year since then.

I don’t see Elias anymore. He vanished as quietly as he arrived.

But I do dream now. Not every night. But often enough. I see flashes of a daughter I don’t have yet. A language I’m just beginning to learn. A room full of strangers who listen when I speak.

They don’t feel borrowed anymore.

They feel like mine.

Like dreams I never dared to dream—

until someone else showed me they were waiting.