A dream experience

 I've often had the experience in waking life of seeing a stranger in a crowd and thinking I recognized him, then taking a second look and finding it was someone else.

Last night a similar occurrence happened in my dreams: only in my dreams, this figure I saw and recognized  really was the figure I saw; and then, when I took a second look, he really wasn't that figure I'd seen, having been replaced by a total stranger I didn't recognize.

Point is: in the dream, the figure didn't seem to be one person then another; rather, he was one person then another. This happened to have been a deceased friend.