I've had things like this happen to me. I had a student this year whose last name was Shams. It's an Arabic name, probably originally was Al-Shams. I thought nothing of it. It didn't sound familiar. Soon after my first class, I had a vivid dream about the poet Rumi. I thought that was strange and felt that my dream had something to do with this student. I had read a little bit about Rumi's life 20 years ago but was not particularly informed. Bingo: Shams had been Rumi's soul mate. Having met my student, my brain reminded me of the connection and expressed it in a dream. Or?? magic. No I think we have all kinds of bits in our brains...much more than we know.some part of my brain whispered to me when I was looking through my bookshelf for something to read last week, and said "pick that one"
You read this before in your 20s. Part of your brain remembered it and led you to pick up the book out of all the possible books.