Celebrity Nightmares! October 28th, 2008
Since this is the week of all things scary, I thought we could have some fun and delve into the nightmares some of our favorite celebrtits have had. I recently did an interview with the Daily Blabber at ivillage.com where we talked about what haunts the dreams of Madonna, Rihanna and more…
Halloween Special: Celebrity Nightmares
What better time to talk about celebrity nightmares than on Halloween? I interviewed Cracking The Dream Code author Lauri Loewenberg, who has analyzed the dreams of many famous Hollywood folks, and she spills their nightmare secrets…
Which celebrities have you worked with and is there one that sticks out as being the most memorable?
Lauri: I’ve talked with Diane Sawyer, Star Jones, Desperate Housewives‘ James Denton, Anderson Cooper, Rihanna, Alice Cooper, and Dustin Diamond. And, no — not a sex dream… thank God!
The most memorable celebrity interaction was with Rihanna. She had a nightmare about watching a plane crash into a building and pieces of it landing on her brother. Naturally, she had no idea why she had this dream and worried it might be telling her something bad was going to happen to her brother. I told her the plane represents her career and how it’s “taking off.” It crashes in her dream because she fears her career might come crashing down before she reaches her career goal. (Plane crash dreams are very common with celebrities, by the way.) I asked her how her relationship with her brother is and she said they are very close and she misses him very much. That made me realize that she’s concerned her rising celebrity — that has her jetting all over the place — might harm the close relationship she had built with her brother, the building representing that relationship. She got pretty emotional at this realization. She obviously loves her little bro a great deal.
Did you ever have to tell a celebrity that something they were dreaming about was a dire warning that their subconscious was communicating to them?
Lauri: Thankfully no. Well, not yet!
Let’s have you decode some of recurring nightmares that celebrities have. Madonna has said that she has a nightmare that she’s being attacked by a dwarf with a knife. Do Lourdes, Rocco and David have to worry about their mum’s safety?
Lauri: No, no! Certainly not. I love Madonna’s nightmare because it reveals so much about her. Madonna is a huge celebrity. She keeps getting this nightmare because her big fear is to diminish — or be “dwarfed” — in the public eye. That knife is significant too because it represents wounding and cutting remarks — criticism. This nightmare shows us that Madonna, despite her hordes of fans and accomplishments, really lets criticism “bring her down.” I wonder if she’s been having this dream since she returned from Malawi.
Back in 1997, Whitney Houston had recurring dreams of trying to cross the George Washington Bridge as it started to break apart. Do you think that was a premonition about her marriage going south all these years later?
Lauri: If only she had heeded that warning! Actually, bridges in dreams are all about transitions, our ability to get from one point in life to the next. I don’t think this dream was foretelling of the demise of her marriage to Bobby Brown, but it does show us that she’s not the most stable individual. She doesn’t have confidence in her ability to make it through tough situations or transitions. This may be why she turned to drugs. Godspeed, Whitney! We believe in you.
Star Jones told you that she dreams over and over that she’s drowning. Is a membership at the Y out of the question?
Lauri: [Laughs] That might not be a bad idea. She also told me she doesn’t know how to swim, so that could play a role in her drowning dreams, but I believe it goes deeper than that. We’ll dream of drowning when we are overwhelmed, when we are in over our head in responsibilities. At the time, she was co-hosting The View, was the spokesperson for Payless Shoes, an E! correspondent and planning a little wedding you may have heard about to a guy named Al. Yeah, I’d say she was definitely in over her head.
Winona Ryder has said that she has a nightmare about being on a beach and seeing kids about to fall off a cliff. But she wasn’t able to run in the sand, so she couldn’t save them in time. What in the world does this mean… and does it have anything to do with trying to outrun security at Saks.
Lauri: Now behave, young lady! Actually, Winona says she used to have this dream all the time and it really bothered her. At the time of these dreams, Winona was worried that something precious to her — symbolized by the children — was falling away. Perhaps she was worried about falling out of someone’s graces, a “young” relationship falling away, losing a part she really wanted… or maybe she feared the idea of growing up, in which case the children would represent her childhood. Whatever the case, the dreams stopped indicating that Winona overcame the issue.
Lastly, I keep having dreams about celebrities. The other night I was hanging out with K-Fed. Matthew McConaughey tried to set me up with his friend. Does this mean I’m going crazy… or am I just working too much?
Lauri: As Freud once said, “Sometimes a cigar’s just a cigar!” …or maybe that was Monica Lewinsky. Anyhoo, you need a vacation, sister!