When I was a lonely teenager/young adult, I used to have intensely vivid dreams about meeting imaginary girls. I’d spend what felt like hours with them, maybe days, often falling in love over the duration of these dreams out on beautiful beaches or vistas, and really committing their faces to memory. Then I’d wake up, and all at once they’d be ripped away from me. I’d remember their face, their voice, the presence, but I’d be wholly alone again and confronted with this strange and bittersweet reality where I felt as though I had lost someone important who never even existed. Just this fabrication of my own mind that crushed me for maybe an hour before their memory slowly evaporated and ceased to matter, much like any other dream from the night before.

I haven’t experienced that since young adulthood, though. Can’t say that I’d want to, either. It’s wild that you experienced that scenario in person.