What do these dreams mean
May 31, 2022 9:17 AM Subscribe
Twice now in the past month I’ve had a dream where I’m 1) a famous person 2) at an awards show 3) futzing with my makeup last minute before I have to be “on” 4) the makeup is going terrible 5) I just kind of roll with it. I can get the generic idea but was hoping for some deep reads.
Emma Stone / Oscars; Billie Eilish / Junos (Canadian Grammy) (note I’ve heard of her but could not identify a song of hers; nor am I a huge Emma stone fan but I do like her)
The makeup in question is usually eyeshadow just going full raccoon onto my cheeks in disastrous Tammy Faye / met gala ridiculousness and at some point I’m like welp gotta just pull this off I guess and for the most part I kind of like that it’s a disaster as though some part of me intended to go Bold
At which point “I” leave the back prep area and go on stage to accept my award feeling totally at peace with having the entire crowd look at me (Emma) or walk to find my seat even though I’m late and the show has started so I’m just walking confidently around the crowd in an also crazy outfit and here Stromae makes an appearance (Billie)
Some small part of me knows I’m cosplaying these famous people but for the most part especially when looking in the mirror I just accept that I’m them.
Thoughts? Why these two people?
Delete if too chat filter / keep it whimsical enough for a Tuesday.
Emma Stone / Oscars; Billie Eilish / Junos (Canadian Grammy) (note I’ve heard of her but could not identify a song of hers; nor am I a huge Emma stone fan but I do like her)
The makeup in question is usually eyeshadow just going full raccoon onto my cheeks in disastrous Tammy Faye / met gala ridiculousness and at some point I’m like welp gotta just pull this off I guess and for the most part I kind of like that it’s a disaster as though some part of me intended to go Bold
At which point “I” leave the back prep area and go on stage to accept my award feeling totally at peace with having the entire crowd look at me (Emma) or walk to find my seat even though I’m late and the show has started so I’m just walking confidently around the crowd in an also crazy outfit and here Stromae makes an appearance (Billie)
Some small part of me knows I’m cosplaying these famous people but for the most part especially when looking in the mirror I just accept that I’m them.
Thoughts? Why these two people?
Delete if too chat filter / keep it whimsical enough for a Tuesday.
Ah, found the post:
I’m not given to a lot of Freudian dream interpretation. But I had one professor explain it to me really well; she said, you don’t need to be trained to interpret dreams. You just ask a person, “How did this make you feel?” and when they tell you, you ask them, “What else in your life makes you feel this way?” And voila, you now know what that thing in the dream represented. If you want to know why a certain figure or event was chosen in your brain to represent a real figure or event, often it’s because your subconscious will pick less frightening things to mask the more frightening ones you aren’t able to confront.posted by brainwane at 10:36 AM on May 31, 2022 [14 favorites]
Best answer: Jungian dream analysis suggests that all characters in a dream should be interpreted as aspects of the dreamer's Self, and in this case you're already basically there. It's interesting to me that while both Emma Stone and Billie Eilish are famous, they perform celebrity in very different ways: Emma Stone is pretty "transparent," in the sense that she's mostly known for her acting and her personal life doesn't seem to intrude on that too significantly (she gives off 'normal person' vibes) whereas Billie Eilish has a real artistic "persona" -- her personal weirdnesses and her creativity are very publicly linked. It would genuinely be unexpected for Emma Stone to go onstage in dramatically messy make-up, where Billie Eilish dressing or acting in a way that makes people go WTF is just another Tuesday.
Maybe you don't know them well enough for this to be part of what your subconscious is telling you, but I'd say these are both dreams about authenticity: in them, you're not you, you're someone else, but the person you 'are' in the dream is also performing -- awards shows are pitched as real but are also 'shows,' - an unexpected mistake that could result in shame and exposure instead becomes, itself, par of the performance.
So, I think having two of these dreams in a row suggests that you are thinking about your own relationship between public and private. I wonder if there's something that you normally think of as personal or even shameful that might instead get integrated more openly into a public self. This could be done in an Emma Stone way, where you're just like "Yep, I'm human and I make mistakes and that makes me relatable" or a more in-your-face Billie Eilish way, where you're like, "I'm Weird and that's what you love about me," but either way, it's about chasing that feeling of ownership of yourself and your choices despite the risk of public humiliation, and turning that risk into triumph.
(I am not a professional dream interpreter and I just made that all up.)
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 10:42 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
Maybe you don't know them well enough for this to be part of what your subconscious is telling you, but I'd say these are both dreams about authenticity: in them, you're not you, you're someone else, but the person you 'are' in the dream is also performing -- awards shows are pitched as real but are also 'shows,' - an unexpected mistake that could result in shame and exposure instead becomes, itself, par of the performance.
So, I think having two of these dreams in a row suggests that you are thinking about your own relationship between public and private. I wonder if there's something that you normally think of as personal or even shameful that might instead get integrated more openly into a public self. This could be done in an Emma Stone way, where you're just like "Yep, I'm human and I make mistakes and that makes me relatable" or a more in-your-face Billie Eilish way, where you're like, "I'm Weird and that's what you love about me," but either way, it's about chasing that feeling of ownership of yourself and your choices despite the risk of public humiliation, and turning that risk into triumph.
(I am not a professional dream interpreter and I just made that all up.)
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 10:42 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
When you dream about celebrities or people you don't know well or haven't seen for a long time, there is often a significance to their names. Is there another Emma or Billie in your life? Something about stones? It sounds weird, but I have almost always been able to trace it back to something meaningful.
posted by tangosnail at 10:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by tangosnail at 10:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Brainwane Those two questions were great.
Merricat you might not be a professional dream interpreter but maybe you should be… that was… deeply insightful. Thank you !!
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:48 PM on May 31, 2022
Merricat you might not be a professional dream interpreter but maybe you should be… that was… deeply insightful. Thank you !!
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:48 PM on May 31, 2022
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How did the dream make you feel?
What in your life is making you feel this way?
posted by brainwane at 9:59 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]