Dream Dump!

Tegan tests the limits of people she knows sharing her dreams, and diving into theirs!

Hey Loners!

Starting this Tuesday I’m launching a new video series here on our Substack called DREAM DUMP!

The concept for Dream Dump came to me in the middle of the night about a month ago. I’ve been dealing with long stretches of sleeplessness around 3am, but the upside is that I actually do some of my best thinking and brainstorming laying in the dark. I try really hard not to think about work or anything I’m worried about. Sofia, my partner of ten years, has actually been encouraging me this year to write down the things I’m anxious about so they’re out of my head—and it’s been working. It’s freed up a lot of space in my brain for creative thinking in the middle of the night.

So the other night I was lying there thinking about dreams. One of the benefits of waking up for long stretches in the middle of the night is that I remember my dreams really vividly—and I often just lie there thinking about them.

And somehow my brain jumped to the fact that when we are on tour, one of my favourite things is getting into the van in the morning—or waking up on the bus and going to the front lounge while everyone is having coffee—and telling people about my dreams.

Now, I’m aware that nobody enjoys hearing other people’s dreams. I get that. But I feel compulsive about it. Sometimes I just feel like I have to tell someone. When I’m traveling with Sara and I start telling her my dreams, I can literally see the look on her face that says, “Please, Lord, no.” If she had an ejection button, she would absolutely use it and launch me out of the car. And Sofia and I get up at different times in the morning, so she’s not really available to hear my dreams. She’s jokingly suggested that I tell Georgia, our dog, which I do sometimes when I’m making the bed.

But over the years, I’ve kind of developed this love language—and my love language is telling you when I’ve had a dream about you. A lot of my close friends don’t live in the same city as me. A lot of people who are really important to me live far away. After two decades of touring, I’m often physically very far from the people I love. So if I have a particularly interesting dream—or if I haven’t talked to someone in a long time and they show up in a dream—I’m very likely to reach out and say, “Oh my God, I had a dream about you.” And I never just say that. I always tell them the dream. One, to prove that I legitimately dreamed about them. But two, because I think dreams probably do have some kind of subconscious meaning and I like working that out by sharing.

Sofia wants me to say publicly a second time that I am 100% aware that nobody actually wants to hear another person’s dreams. They’re nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness, and often boring. I KNOW!

Still, there I was in the middle of the night thinking: it might actually be kind of funny—especially on Substack—to tell my dreams to my friends. Specifically other musicians and artists, because we have similar lifestyles. We’re traveling, sleeping in different beds, on buses, in hotels, away from the people we love a lot. And I started wondering: is there any symmetry between the way we dream? Do we dream about the same kinds of things? Would they be up for listening to my dreams?

So I created this Dream Dump to find out.

Feel free to share your dreams in the comments, and also let me know if there are questions you’d like me to ask my guests.

So far I’ve been asking things like:

• Do you ever dream about anyone famous?

• Do you dream about the same person over and over?

• Do you tell people when you dream about them?

• What kind of sleep hygiene do you have?

• Do your dreams change on the road?

• Do you dream about being an artist, making music, performing?

And if there are people you’d love to see on Dream Dump—let me know in the comments.

Sweet dreams.

Tegan

Ps

There was an early version of this where I was just going to call Sara once a week and give myself the amount of time it takes her to change one of Rudy’s diapers to tell her my dream. But as it turns out, co-ordinating this has proven to be nearly impossible. I guess raising a toddler and a newborn means Sara is too busy to hear my dreams?

But I do hope to get her on Dream Dump at some point.