I don’t always dream about dead people.
In my most recent post, I wrote about how two people I love who have passed away got me to reconsider ending an important friendship that had become a disappointment. But most of my dreams aren’t about the dead. In fact, I don’t even remember most of my dreams.
I had one dream where I actually died in a nuclear war, and two happier ones where I returned to Greeley, Colorado, one of the few places I lived that I actually loved.
Lately I have had a new sorts of dream, at least for me. I have had several dreams about celebrities. In a way, they’ve been sort of random in that they weren’t celebrities I think about all that much.
In one dream, I was much younger and covering a generic NCAA Final Four. I covered two — 1985 in Kentucky and 1986 in Dallas — and they were high points in my sportswriting career. In this one, I met Sissy Spacek — she was younger too — and had dinner with her.
The strange part of it is that she was never an actress I fantasized about, although I always kind of liked her.
Dreams are weird.
Another celebrity who popped up in a dream recently was Bill Cosby. He was someone whose standup comedy I enjoyed from all the way back when my friend Gary Oleson gave me one of his albums as a present at my 13th birthday party.
I actually saw him in person at Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia, in the basement of E.J. Korvette’s in the early ’70s when he was promoting another album.
In the dream, I don’t remember many of the specifics except that he was sitting behind a desk and I asked him several questions. I asked him if he regretted some of the things he had done, but he didn’t answer. I asked him if he remembered my former sister-in-law, who he met and dated briefly in the late ’70s in Lake Tahoe.
Again, no answer. Maybe it was partly because I have no idea what he would have said in real life. Still, the weird part was that — just like Spacek — I dreamed about him or her at all.
At least they’re both still alive.