Jen Sonstein Maidenberg

I woke up recently with a dream starring Erica Kane, the fictional diva-like character from the long-running, American soap opera All My Children. I searched up my dream notes from the last several years, certain I must have dreamed of Erica Kane before, and indeed I had mentioned her a few times in the last couple of years of dream reports. This most recent dream, however, was the richest in imagery of all of them, and as a result, offered me more to work with than the previous few.

Working with celebrity dreams is no different than working with dreams featuring people you know in waking life or people who seem familiar in the dream, but whom you can’t name or place. I worked this dream on my own as I would with any one of my dreamwork clients. 

It occurred to me that it might be helpful to share some brief guidance on how to work with “celebrity dreams” on your own so that you may gain some insight into your own dreams featuring characters from TV, films, books, video games, or social media or well-known actors, politicians, athletes, etc. 

First of all: know that it’s quite common to dream of famous people or fictional characters. Doing so doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about you as a person, though it could… depending on how often you dream of fictional characters or celebrities, and how those dreams impact you. As with all dreams, there’s no generalizing. It’s really dependent on the individual. I just want to reassure you that it’s common.

People often wake up from dreams with celebrities with strong feelings, however. Sometimes pleasurable feelings. Sometimes quite the opposite — they feel aversion or repulsion. Sometimes dreamers simply report confusion, claiming they have no strong association with or connection to a particular character or celebrity — why am I dreaming about going to college with Jack from Lost? What’s this Tiger Woods sex dream all about? How come I’m always dreaming my family is the Norris Nuts?

Erica Kane for me is not such a surprise. I literally grew up ingesting All My Children. It was my mother’s favorite soap even before I was born, debuting in January 1970 on ABC. Erica Kane (portrayed by Susan Lucci) was there from the beginning, as well. So you could also say I grew up with Erica Kane as a central figure in my extended household. She was there almost daily on the television in a series of living rooms during my childhood in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Susan Lucci is around the same age as my mother, and therefore, so was Erica Kane. Erica Kane, however, was very unlike my mother. Erica was hungry for fame and status … and men. She was self-centered, flashy, demanding, and constantly seeking attention. She often got it, for good and for bad. No matter what happened to Erica, though, she always seemed to find her way out and back up.

My mother, at least as I related to her as a child, was quite different; a stay-at-home-mom, seemingly content to lead my Brownies troop and chaperone class trips, married for many years at that time to my dad, living a typical suburban NJ life. She was not an Erica Kane.

So already we can see that Erica Kane is a dream figure with a strong association for me. There is a link between Erica Kane and my childhood, living at home with my family of origin. I stopped watching All My Children after college and in my dream Erica Kane looked like she would have in my high school or college years in the 90s. So it’s useful for me to notice that.

Perhaps your dream is bringing you the celebrity or fictional character to drop you into a particular time of life for you.

If you have some connection to this character, is there a time of life you associate them with? When did you watch that TV show or read that book series? How old were you? When was that person someone you became aware of? Note for yourself if that character is connected to a particular time period or phase of life for you. Note, too, if there is any strong association for you with that time period. 

Next, let’s get a little closer to the character themselves.

In my case, Erica Kane has a very obvious association with my mother, and mothers in general. I watched the show with my mother sometimes when I was a girl. We talked and bonded about the show later when I was old enough to watch it on my own. In fact, one time my mother won a raffle in which we were given the opportunity to visit the set of All My Children in New York City. It was very exciting! And relevant, perhaps, to the dream because one of the actors on set that day was Sarah Michelle Gellar, who at the time was portraying the daughter Erica Kane gave up for adoption after being raped at 14.

So there’s something there for me in this dream about mothers, mothering (I am a mother now to my own daughter), or my mother. Already we are getting somewhere.

For your dream, take a moment to write up some notes about the celebrity or fictional character. How would you describe them to someone who doesn’t know them? How do you relate to them? Be very honest! Do you like them? Are they someone you admire? Would you enjoy being in a room with them and with the opportunity to connect one-on-one? Or the opposite? Do you revile them? Are you repelled by the dream you dreamt with them in it? I have worked quite a few dreams of my own and with clients where there were close, intimate encounters with certain politicians who in waking life the dreamer finds abhorrent. Interesting to note that, too.

So now you hopefully have some atmosphere, connecting both to time and memory and to how the character makes you feel. The dream with this celebrity or character may have some more depth. Often times, dreamers focus heavily on the narrative of the dream without situating themselves in their senses or feelings. This can lead us to a very flat experience of a dream.

What you want to do with your celebrity dream is slow it down and sink more deeply if you can into a more multi-dimensional experience. 

Now once you are aware of some of your own associations with this dream character, consider the specifics of the dream itself. Where does it take place? Look around.

In my dream, Erica Kane and I were alone in a very industrial type room, with cold, undecorated cement walls,  dim yellow florescent lighting, and the only noticeable object in the room was a ceiling-to-wall gate or fence. I didn’t notice this in the dream, but upon waking it sure seemed possible we were inside a kind of prison or jail cell or cage. There was nothing beautiful about the room, save for Erica Kane, who showed up as her well-coiffed and stylishly dressed self.

I then get to ask myself, how does it feel to be in this stark, industrial-like room with Erica Kane? Even though I was not attuned to that in the dream, I can close my eyes now and re-imagine myself there. I might take a few moments to do that and write down some notes. You can do that with your dream character and environment.

Does the dream have more depth to you now? Just notice. It may or may not.

Lastly, what does the dream character do or say in the dream? For this question, try to drop the assumptions you have brought into the dream about the set-up or narrative. What does the character themselves do or say? What do you see or hear? Be as precise as you can about what happened in the dream, not what you think about it.

In my case, Erica Kane says, “I have forgotten my daughter’s name.” Now, in the dream, I had a quick reaction to this. I did a very typical Jen thing. I started trying to help her remember her daughter’s name.

I had some sense this woman was not actually Erica Kane, but rather the actress who plays Erica (though I didn’t overtly relate to her as Susan Lucci), and so I engaged in this with her on that level. I told her how I was a huge fan back in the day, and I really didn’t like Erica, nor her daughter. She seemed sad about that. I was a little defensive, responding with, “Oh come on! Those are personas! We are meant to not like them.”

I told her I didn’t like her daughter either and struggled to remember her name. Something with a K… Oh right! Kendall! “Kendall was your daughter’s name!” 

But Erica Kane shook her head No. I insisted. “Yes, I remember well. It was Kendall!” I told her all about how I watched All My Children in college when the character of Kendall appeared, yadda yadda.

So in the dream, I got very caught up in a kind of mode I can get caught up in both waking life and dreams. Let’s call it “figuring it out” mode. You could also call it “know-it-all” mode.

In the morning, awake and in a different state, I chose to return to the dream and be with Erica Kane outside of this mode.

I close my eyes and I remember hearing Erica Kane say “I forget the name of my daughter.” I really take her in. I hear her say it again, “I forget the name of my daughter.”

You can do this with a dream: return to an image or an encounter and take it in more deeply or slowly.

What is it like for me now to hear this woman (who I think is Erica Kane-like) say, “I forget the name of my daughter?” How do I feel when I stop to really listen to her and look at her before automatically going into “figure it out” mode?

Wow. Now that’s something different entirely.

I feel very sad. It’s a very sad feeling to hear her say that. I feel sorry for her. I feel compassion for her.

How does it feel for you to return to the dream and hear or see whatever the character is doing? If you had an emotion arise in the dream, I suggest you sit with the encounter a little longer. Very often our first emotion in the dream may be a reactive one, and beneath it there is a deeper feeling. Staying longer with the dream character in that now multi-dimensional dream space may evoke a different feeling for you. Take some time.

Write down any new feelings that arise for you.

Lastly, you may try switching places with the celebrity or fictional character. What would it be like to be them in the dream?

I tried this with Erica Kane. I imagined being Erica Kane, in this stark, somewhat depressing cage-like environment, having forgotten the name of my daughter.

Whoa… now that really landed for me; painfully so. I felt a whole host of feelings that are a little too personal to share here, but let’s just say — it was effective to imagine myself as her in the dream.

It’s important you go in the order I list above because sometimes trying to transit into a dream character before you’ve situated yourself more deeply into the dream environment is not effective. You really want to take time to slowly re-enter the dream with your senses first and then the reactions or feelings you are aware of. Only after presencing yourself in the dream with your senses and feelings (as opposed to your analytical mind) does this really end up proving useful.

At the end of working with the celebrity or fictional character dream, how do you feel about the dream now? 

If this is a practice you try for yourself, feel free to contact me and let me know how it went for you. 

This may not provide you with a “meaning” or an “answer” to why you dreamt the dream with this character, but it will likely evoke unexpected feelings that likely relate to something you are knowingly or unknowingly facing in your life right now.