I'm not necessarily looking for advice here, as I'm not sure what kind of advice could actually be given, but I need to at least get this off my chest.

Last night I had a dream about my ex. At the time of writing this, it’s a few hours after I woke up, so memories are already quite hazy, but what I do remember is that we were in the same place and I discovered they were seeing someone new. It's not as if it was specifically pointed out to me, or rubbed in my face, it was just something I observed, and I remember feeling devastated. Of course, it's very probable that, in the years since we broke up, they have been seeing other people and may even be in a relationship now (we’re no longer in contact, so I don’t know). If they are, I'd obviously be happy for them, but I just don’t know if I could handle knowing. After this dream, I woke up (in the middle of the night), feeling tense, with my heart beating fast and needing to concentrate on my breathing to calm myself down.

The thing is, I'm not sure WHY I was dreaming about them/what prompted this. We broke up over 3 years ago, we haven't seen each other for over two years, we're no longer friends on social media (for 2+ years) and I don't recall them being mentioned in any social situations recently. What could have triggered me to dream about them? They moved away a year after we broke up and it wasn’t until after that year that I finally started to forget and (I thought) move on from them. I do wonder whether I actually did move on though. The fact that they moved away and I stopped seeing them all the time stopped me from going crazy, but I never really did anything to process the emotions. For clarification, we were together for over a year – I realise this isn’t a long time for a lot of people, but it’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had by far! There was also a period of over a year before we got together where we were good friends who obviously liked each other, but were both too awkward/scared to say/do anything about it. I felt my most intimate emotional connection to them and they’re the only person to whom I’ve ever said “I love you” without any pressure, hesitation or regret.

I’m just confused as to why I ended up dreaming about them at all and I don’t know what any of this means. If anyone has any thoughts, feel free to share them, but I just needed to get this out of my head.