Crossing a line

In the class I'm teaching this quarter we'll be talking about how human beings have relationships with fictional characters. Speaking for myself, I can't remember feeling personally engaged with a character as an adult (as a kid I had a crush on the Tin Woodsman, among others). But last week I had a dream in which a character from James Hynes's The Lecturer's Tale appeared in a minor role. She was the jargon-spouting feminist scholar, and best friend of the protagonist, who turns out literally to be a monster in the end. I've dreamed about celebrities before, but never fictional characters. Why this one? Why now? It's amazing that I had such a clear mental picture of her that I could embody her in my subconscious with no perceptual glitches.