Ok, let me clarify what I was saying. What you felt could have been very real. After all, it was a character your mind created specifically for you to have those feelings. What you shouldn’t be feeling is remorse. After all, if she was in your dreams that means she is in your mind and could be recreated at any time. There’s no reason to mourn for someone who isn’t… no, can’t be lost.
You really might want to look into the CALD technique. You find a person in your mind (in this case, your girl) and work toward giving them an independent personality. The point is for them to help you become lucid, but it can be comforting as well to know you have a friend anywhere you go. It’s up to you to decide how real you think they are, but it’s at least a good start. I do a bad job of explaining it, check it out here
@Don Anonymus: Ok, I’ll concede on the fact that the emotions can be just as real in a dream as in RL. What worries me is the fact that this is negatively impacting his waking life. It’s fine to enjoy, even love your dreams, but you can’t allow feelings for a DC to hurt you. Moreover, while dreams are great you can’t expect to be able to live your life with a DC as your one true love. You still need someone real, and you can’t let a DC get in the way of that.
I’ll say it again, I don’t think the OP has that problem. I wanted to clarify this for any other new dreamers who might get themselves in trouble. To quote the disclaimer we give in CALD:
"Do not blur the differentiation between physical, and non-realities-- Characters are not physical, and never can be.
While it is fine to let characters become highly developed to a point of realism, their existence should never come to a point where it will disrupt yours."