Like We Need More Celebrity Air Time

How many dreams have celebrities appeared in? Do they get residuals?

I'm gonna do what you’re never supposed to do on a date - tell you about my dream.

US presidents are probably the most common guest stars in my dreams. I’ve had appearances from Barack, George Jr., Billy C and The Orange Guy.

Here’s the most recent one.

Dream Fugue:
Who’s Afraid to Assassinate Joe Biden

Sometime in the evening of May 20th, 2023

The setting was on the roof of a vaguely industrial NYC building, like you'd see in a Jason Bourne movie.

Kinda looked like this

A very slender, hot-shot Major League pitcher was chosen to fire baseballs at the back of Joe Biden's head from 10 feet away.

Joe waited patiently like he was about to be executed. I half expected to see a cigarette hanging out of his mouth with his aviator sunglasses on (but I think I’m just making that up in the retelling of it).

The pitcher hurled Pitch #1: a direct hit right at the dome of Biden's head. Instead of a baseball, it landed like a splattered cherry tomato.

Pitch #2 - another flattened paintball tomato an inch away from the first one.

Joe was getting visibly nervous awaiting Pitch #3.

"Joe," I called out to him, "do you need a stand in? Maybe I should pop in there…take your place?"

He cracked back, "actually what I really need is for you to shut the fuck up, Gabe."

Rude

“Jesus, Joe, I'm just trying to help” I muttered under my dream breath.

-=And then the scene shifted.=- 

A female spy operative, basically the IRA lady from Patriot Games, appeared and explained that this was a test run to prepare for a known assassination attempt “orchestrated by your girlfriend's mother."

I watched this movie the day before this dream fugue

"Amy?"

“Oh yeah, we've been following her for years now. Your girlfriend is in on it too."

"What?!"

"Oh yeah, she's been lying to you."

-=New scene shift=-

I confronted Monty (my girlfriend) directly. She was very defensive.

-=WAKE=-

Dreaming is like reading a book

In the Fugues podcast a “fugue” is a moment of focused attention on something.

It can be a few seconds- like a “trying-to-remember-what-Charlie-Kaufman-movie-Brian-Cox-was-in” fugue (it’s Adaptation).

Or longer, like a “reading-a-few-chapters-of-All-the-Light-We-Cannot-See” fugue.

The state we’re in during a dream feels similar to a book-reading fugue.

Unless you have aphantasia, a well-written book has you seeing the faces of characters, hearing their voices, and sensing the landscape.

Dreams are similar. You’re almost totally immersed and your brain is doing most of the work to create the “environment.”

Celebrities are the new gods

Speaking of characters, celebrities always make a cameo at some point. Unless of course you have zero exposure to them.

To be clear, I’m not obsessed with celebrities. I mean, I have my heroes like anyone - Bruce Lee in my 20s, Thom Yorke in my 30s, PJ Harvey in my 40s, Prince…over the course of my entire life.

But it’s a weird time to be famous. Celebrities are 21st century gods now and I doubt it’s good for their mental health (or ours?).

It must be surreal, probably disturbing, to know you take up residence in the dreams of millions of people. Every night, someone is dreaming about you.

Coming soon…

Brian Cox made it into a significant dream recently that became the main focus of the next Fugues episode.

While I’m still working on integrating Grant Zubritksy’s wickedly inventive music, I figured I’d share my most memorable celebrity dream fugues.

Stay tuned for Kurt Cobain and Ted Cruz.

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