formula that refers to a lookup field appears garbled as numbers

formula that refers to a lookup field appears garbled as numbers

I have a lookup field that I want to access in another form as a lookup field. Directly this is not supported. 

So in the original form I added a Formula field that refers to the lookup field from the same form. Now I can indeed refer to it in the second form.

But there seem to be numbers appearing instead of the names that are visible. i,e, A lookup field simply referred to by a formula appears as some internal number. 

Thoughts?