RE: "Frequent dreams about people from my past with whom I have not been in touch for a long time; what does it mean?"

I am inclined to agree with you @nomad-magus. I could also give a similar perspective of your logical reason for this sort of happening. And mine is associated with when I smoke weed. So sometimes when I smoke weed, my thought process becomes extremely deeper, critical, intelligent and sometimes slower and UN-predictable. Like if were in some sort of intellectual conversation, my opinions will be genius minded. I will give you an example. I smoked weed one time and went for a law lecture. Whilst in the lecture, my lecturer asked a problem question. He said:

Suppose your client was driving and stopped by the police, asked for his driving particulars and upon a search into his trunk, the police officer found a human head and have sued him to court for murder, how would you defend your client?

The whole class had no clue. I mean how do u defend a guy who was found with a human head in his trunk? Well I lifted my hands up, and you wont believe what my answer was. I said:

"*I would ask the judge: Did anyone come to the Police Station to report a missing head or body that they found dead with a missing head? If not, then my client has no case to answer!"

Upon giving that answer, the whole class stood up to clap for me. Like although, in a real life scenario my client may not go Scot-free but then the mere fact that I could think about raising such a defense was genius minded.

Okay back to the topic, sorry I digressed a bit. But here is the point am trying to bring out in relation to someone dreaming and seeing people from their past. Sometimes those dreams are influenced by what I call "the state of mind" (although @nomad-magus calls it "personality aspects") whereby your mind links your state of mind to people who relate to that state of mind. For example the guy says he is 54 years old and Married. Assuming one night he went to a strip club and found girls dancing on the poles. Lets assume he drinks that night and goes home. Note that having looked at those strippers dancing, he must have gotten sexually aroused and as such he may dream about a lady sometime back in his life who danced prolly in his room and gave him great sex. Or he may dream about his high school crush dancing sexually.

This sort of thing has happened to me. In my case, it was a friday night and I wanted to go and see my girl friend. I tried to call her, the phone ranged severally but she didn't pick. Next time I tried it was switched off. I immediately entered a State of mind of insecurity so much that I dreamt that I shot some guy whom she had cheated on me with. But she wasn't even in the dream.
So basically that's my opinion- that such occurrences may accrue to one's state of mind.