Dreams of Celebrities

I’m not immune to the allure of celebrity. Is there a part of me that hopes you are perhaps reading this in a handsome leather bound special edition that was signed by me and is one of your most cherished possessions and also made me a ton of money? Yes, of course. Is it a very large part of me? Enormous.

However, I had a recent experience that made me call into question my desire to be rich and famous. Well, maybe just my desire to be famous. I think being rich would still probably be pretty great.

The other night I had a weird dream about a celebrity. In full transparency, multiple celebrities showed up in the dream, but for one celebrity in particular, the dream was quite harrowing. I won’t describe the dream or say who was in it because I don’t want to freak out said celebrity, especially if they are the owners of the aforementioned handsome leather bound special edition that was signed by me and is one of their most cherished possessions. That being said I can assure you that the dream teetered into nightmare territory and if I was in the celebrity’s shoes in the dream I would have bolted out of bed in a cold sweat.

Truth be told, I myself was a bit rattled after I woke up from the dream, but after the fear died down, I mainly felt guilty. My brain had created a facsimile of this celebrity, who I have never met, and then concocted this scenario in which they were potentially in mortal danger. I mean it’s bad enough that I might have a scary dream about someone I know, but for me to do it to a complete stranger just seems downright rude!

This led me to realize that I have probably shown up in the occasional nightmare of people I know. They likely had the discretion not to tell me about the dream or at least the common courtesy to forget the dream entirely when they woke up, but knowing that some imagined version of me is experiencing untold horrors in the night is a bit troubling. Wouldn’t you be the least bit put off if you found out that your coworker had a dream about you falling into an active volcano?

(No, the dream I had about the celebrity did not involve an active volcano and that is the most amount of detail you will be getting about the dream, thank you very much. I’m embarrassed enough that I had the dream in the first place.)

After I thoroughly chastised my unconscious mind for putting this poor celebrity through this terrible dream ordeal, it occurred to me that I am by no means the only person who had a dream about a celebrity, let alone a nightmare. This is when I started to have doubts about being famous. Imagine right now that a person you’ve never met just had a dream about you. That’s even more disconcerting than finding out your coworkers are dreaming of you, right? Now imagine several strangers had a dream about you in the same night. I don’t know about you, but that’s giving me the very heebiest of jeebies.

To further illustrate this point, please consider the following: in 2024, recording superstar Usher performed during halftime of the Super Bowl with 123.7 million worldwide viewers. I feel very confident that at least .5% of the people watching the Super Bowl had a dream that night in which Usher made an appearance. That’s 618,000 people dreaming about Usher at roughly the same time. If I were Usher, I would be seriously weirded out.

Now, I know you’re probably going to say something like “But my dream about Usher was a goooood dream” and then make a lot of lewd noises and lascivious gestures to imply that you had a sex dream about Usher. Then you might further suggest that unlike a certain author’s recent nightmare (and no it wasn’t about Usher, quit asking), Usher was treated very well in your dream. Then you might even say “very well” and give me an exaggerated wink and make further lewd gestures and lascivious noises that I promise you are wildly unnecessary.

Now, I can’t speculate on how Usher feels about being in a bunch of sex dreams of random strangers, but I will admit that the idea of it sounds a bit flattering. However, I think in practice it’s still unsettling. Imagine having to explain this dream you had to Usher in person without ever having spoken to him before. Uncomfortable right? Now imagine you are Usher in this scenario and some complete rando has come up to you to describe a Super Bowl halftime show inspired sex dream starring you. I don’t care how attractive the person is, I’m certain you are going to start making eye contact with your bodyguards within the first 10 seconds of hearing this dream.

And let’s be honest, there’s no way that your sexy dream was sexy all the way through. Some really wacky stuff probably happened along the way like your 3rd grade teacher showed up and sang “Burn” with a weird, distorted, deep voice while Usher was flagged for an illegal block in the back by an actual zebra. If Usher was actually in your dream, he’d probably be too distracted from all the dream shenanigans to really focus on the sexy stuff.

Speaking of distracted, I can tell that you are also too distracted thinking about what my dream was and who it was about to properly focus on the moral here, which is that being famous can be weird in ways you haven’t thought of and maybe you should just focus on becoming rich… or leading a healthy and fulfilling life or whatever. So, I’m just going to tell you about my damn dream even though it could potentially ruin my own chances of being famous, let alone rich.

It was New Year’s Eve and I was celebrating outdoors with several notable late night chat show hosts, including Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy’s Kimmel and Fallon, and John Oliver. Jon Stewart might have also been there. It was very snowy and after the countdown we went walking into a field because John Oliver was very excited for “graelles” which is not an actual word, but in my dream it was the name for a small pond that forms in a field from melting snow. So, we find a graelle and there was a fish swimming in it. It looks like a normal fish but then its mouth got supernaturally large and latched onto John Oliver and tried to eat him, so I had to beat the fish to death with a folding chair.

Are you happy now? I bet John Oliver isn’t now that he’s read about my dream in the handsome leather bound special edition that was signed by me and USED to be his most prized possession. He’s probably reconsidering his whole career and fame now. He might go into seclusion after this just to stop appearing in people’s dreams, but not after telling everyone to return every version of my collected works, leather bound or not. I’m going to be ruined and all because you just couldn’t help yourself. I hope Usher has a nightmare about you tonight.