The Stranger Who Knew My Dreams

The Stranger Who Knew My Dreams

It happened on the 4:45 train to nowhere in particular.

I had boarded out of habit more than need—a rainy Tuesday afternoon, my umbrella dripping at my feet, the scent of wet leather and old metal hanging heavy in the air. The city looked like it was falling asleep behind the fogged-up windows.

And that’s when he sat beside me.

A man in a gray coat, face worn by years, but eyes sharp—like he had seen too much and forgotten nothing. He gave me a quiet nod and turned his gaze to the window. I thought that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

A Sentence That Froze Me

Ten minutes passed in silence. Then, without turning his head, he spoke:

“You dream about the staircase again last night, didn’t you?”

I blinked.

My throat dried.

I hadn’t told anyone about that dream. Not my friends. Not even my therapist. The staircase—the old stone one that spiraled endlessly upward—had haunted my sleep for weeks.

“How did you…” I started.

He finally turned to look at me. “The dreams are never just dreams,” he said softly. “Not for you.”

He Spoke My Nightmares

The man went on to describe other things—details I had never voiced.

He spoke of the woman in red I sometimes saw at the top of the stairs. The door I could never reach. The sensation of falling, even when I was standing still. The feeling of waking up and carrying the dream into my day like a weight on my chest.

“You’re not losing your mind,” he said, almost kindly. “You’re remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

He didn’t answer.

The Letter

Before I could press him further, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. Yellowed. Soft from being opened too many times.

He handed it to me.

“You wrote this. You just haven’t yet.”

I opened it with trembling hands.

Inside was a poem. My poem. A dream I had jotted down three weeks ago in a journal I kept locked in a drawer at home. Word for word.

I looked up in panic.

But he was already standing. The train had reached the next stop.

Vanished

I chased him through the car, pushing past half-asleep passengers and swinging backpacks. But by the time I reached the doors, he was gone. Disappeared into the gray blur of the rain.

I never even saw him leave the train.

He didn’t come back the next day.

Or the day after that.

What Changed

But something shifted after that meeting.

My dreams stopped being nightmares.

The staircase turned into something else—an ascent, yes, but now with windows that showed moments from my past I had forgotten: my childhood room, the first book I ever loved, my mother’s voice humming on a Sunday afternoon.

I began to write again.

Poems, stories, scenes that felt like echoes of something just beyond memory.

And sometimes, when I ride the train late in the day, I carry that folded poem with me. Just in case.

In case the stranger returns.

Who Was He?

I still don’t know who he was.

Maybe he was me, from another life.

Maybe he was a dream walker, a soul who drifts between sleeping minds.

Or maybe—just maybe—he was someone who saw in me what I couldn’t see in myself.

That my dreams were more than just fiction.

They were messages.

And he was the first person who ever truly heard them.

Have you ever had a dream so vivid it felt like a memory—or met someone who seemed to know more about you than they should?

Share your story or your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear what your dreams are trying to tell you.