The Julian McMahon Thing

Okay, I'm going to write about the thing I don't talk about too much.

Why don't I talk about it too much?

It's weird and embarrassing.

Why am I now writing about it on a public blog?

Because I'm running out of things to talk about and I'm getting desperate.

So here you go.

In late 2004, I became haunted by an Australian actor (Julian McMahon) in my dreams. It wasn't the first time I dreamed about him. I had infrequent McMahon dreams in the years prior to that. And those dreams had led me to have a small crush on him which in turn led me to give more attention to his TV shows. Charmed and Nip/Tuck.

The logical explanation was my brain saw him during the day and at night I dreamed about him.

But that doesn't usually happen to me. I don't have much of a correlation between my daytime thoughts and my nighttime dreams.

For example, we watch McLeod's Daughters every single day. Jack and I play McLeod's Daughters every single day. We listen to McLeod's Daughters music everyday. We have discussions about McLeod's Daughters every single day.

I don't think I've had one dream about McLeod's Daughters or any of the characters.

Anyway, back to my living ghost.

The dreams were very frequent, weird, and vivid. Often lucid as well. In some of the dreams I was with him and in some of the dreams I was frantically searching for him--as if my life depended on it.

It was extremely weird and it wouldn't stop.

I began to think it all meant something and/or that there was something supernatural going on.

Did I know him in a past life?

Do celebrities go into people's dreams to promote their movies? Hey, I wouldn't normally see a stupid movie like Fantastic 4, but since I keep dreaming about one of the stars, let's go see it! (but actually I never did)

Did I have a spirit guide who liked to dress up as a hot Australian actor? It might be kind of like V. Maybe my spirit guide looks like a reptile and he thought that would scare me. But if he knew me well enough (as a spirit guide should!) he'd know I totally love lizards!

Well.....anyway.

I became obsessed with trying to figure out the answers.

At one point, I thought maybe the name Julian McMahon was was an anagram for something. I thought of being like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby--laying the letters of his name out and switching them around until I got something shocking and scary.

Eventually, an Australian connection began. The first thing was in one of the vivid lucid dreams. I visited this place I call the Dream City. It's a place I dream about every so often. It has dorm rooms and offices. The place reminds me of some kind of funky metaphysical college campus.

Anyway, in the dream I was given a gift that was supposed to be from McMahon. It was a shampoo bottle with Australian animals. I thought it was so sweet, but did bring up the fact that I can't exactly take things out of my dreams.

I really didn't know if they were trying to push an Australian agenda, or if they were trying to tell me I need to do a better job washing my hair.

For the next few years, I found myself more and more attracted to Australia and still having weird dreams about an actor. I began to believe I might have some spiritual connection to Australia--not just because of the celebrity haunting my dreams, but for other reasons too. I'll get into that another day.

In August 2007 we bought the plane tickets to Australia and my mild interest in a country-not-my-own became a total obsession. Meanwhile, the McMahon dreams greatly decreased in frequency.

I don't know what to believe.

I prefer to believe that I was meant to go to Australia--that it was my destiny. So, to push the cause....my spirit guides sent an image of Julian McMahon to my dreams. Kind of like a commercial. Or it could be not my spirit guides and just the ghosts of former employees of the Australian Department of Tourism. Well, the Vegemite and kangaroos aren't luring them in enough. Let's mess with their dreams!

When we were in Australia, I thought wouldn't it be nuts if we spent all this money, and forced our child to endure a fourteen hour plane ride, just because I had a crush on an actor and mistook it for some kind of spiritual thing?

But then I thought. Oh well. Beaches are nice. People are friendly. We're all having fun. No harm done.

One weird coincidence: Last Spring I decided to try and rewrite one of my novels that I had written in high school. It was called The Dream Games. In the novel a young woman starts having weird dreams about an actor. She begins to think it's all more than just a simple dream.

The funny thing is when I started having the dreams, I never stopped and said "This is kind of like that novel I wrote fifteen years ago."

You'd think I'd make a connection--well, even though the novel had much more fantasy, excitement, and romance than my real life situation.

The inspiration for the original draft of the novel came from a very vivid dream I had about Kiefer Sutherland. I had a crush on him--thanks to The Lost Boys.

Later, I found out Sutherland is the grandson of a Canadian Premier. McMahon is the son of an Australian Prime Minister.

So, I don't just have vivid dreams about ordinary actors. I have vivid dreams about actors who are the descendants of politicians.