As creatives and creative entrepreneurs, we all want to be celebrities. We want to be recognized for who we are and what we do.
For creatives, celebrities act as cultural icons. We love hearing stories like J.K.Rowling’s—you know, the one where she submitted her manuscript hundreds of times, receiving rejection after rejection only to finally hit it big. Those stories give us hope and courage that someday our work will gain the recognition and success it deserves.
Probably because of this, celebrities show up frequently in our dreams, and, as I’ve discovered in my work for PEOPLE Country monthly magazine, even celebrities dream of celebrities.
But why do we dream of celebrities like Elvis Presley, Queen Elizabeth, Pierce Brosnan, or even President Obama? Usually for one (possibly more) of three reasons:
Celebrity as Muse or messenger.
The very first dream I provided feedback on for PEOPLE Country (May 2011) was for country singer, Rodney Atkins. He dreamed repeatedly about being at a MacDonald’s with internationally known country singer, Loretta Lynn. Talk about cultural icons! In the dream, Loretta is giving Rodney lyrics to a song, which he is writing down on a napkin. When he wakes from the dream, usually in the middle of the night, he thinks he’s already written the words down, so doesn’t record what he remembers. Then, when morning arrives, he’s lost the song.
I suggested that he keep pen and paper by the bed, because Loretta was, indeed, serving as his Muse. Not just once, but repeatedly.
If you dream about a celebrity who is trying to give you advice, information, ideas and inspiration, if your dream were my dream, I’d PAY ATTENTION!
Celebrity as role player.
You might dream of a celebrity whose behavior in the dream is one you don’t like or are uncomfortable with. And they may continue the behavior even after your warnings or advice or request to stop. In this type of dream, the celebrity is a stand in for someone in your life who is behaving similarly. The dream and the celebrity give you the perspective to see your waking situation in a new light.
For example, if you dream you’re in a relationship with Pierce Brosnan in his James Bond persona, you might not like the fact that he keeps taking risks. Worse, you don’t like that he keeps disappearing for days on end because, he tells you, he has an important job to do, i.e. save the world. Meanwhile, you end up carrying his personal responsibilities and yours, so that you don’t have time for your own creative work.
If your dream were my dream, I might wonder if there was someone in my life who believes that his or her work is much more important, significant and exciting than mine, and therefore, I am expected to provide support, pick up the slack, and suffer in silence, to the detriment of my creative work.
Celebrity as embodiment of desired traits.
Probably the most frequent celebrity dream is the one where the celebrity enters our dreams to remind us of who and what we want to be and do.
In the most recent issue of PEOPLE Country, country singer, Eric Church shared that he dreamed of eating pizza in a Brooklyn pizza parlor with comedian , writer and actor, Ray Romano.
My feedback for Church? “If I like and admire Romano, how he’s achieved success and made his mark in the entertainment industry [which Church is also part of as a singer] then I might think about achieving success in the same way.” For Romano, that was by being himself in his field, by telling his personal stories with humor. If I were Eric, as I suggest in the magazine, I might also think that a little humor would prove valuable in my creative work and my life.
The next time you dream about a celebrity, don’t discount it or think it’s silly. Instead, check to see if your Muse is talking to you in the guise of someone you admire and respect in your field, or see if there is someone in your environment who embodies the role of that celebrity and determine whether that person is there to help you or sabotage you creatively, or, finally, see if that celebrity embodies qualities and characteristics that you might want to adopt or change.
Bright dreams!