Sex Dreams I’ve Sabotaged

I’ve got an annoying habit of having elaborate dreams that feature incredibly attractive men (usually celebrities) who want nothing to do with me. This makes no sense because theoretically, since it is MY dream, I could make any number of adult scenarios happen with these hot dudes. Yet sadly things never seem to work out the way I think they should. Here are the three most memorable times that my brain has cockblocked me.

Gael Garcia Bernal in “The Very Bad Dinner Party”

Years ago, I guess after I’d seen him in “Y Tu Mamá También,” I developed a major crush on Gael Garcia Bernal, because come on…those eyes, that Mexican accent. (This was before I realized he was way too short for me, which proved fatal to the crush.) Yeah, anyway, I found out that a friend of mine’s sister was friends with him, which must have tricked my subconscious into thinking I had a chance of actually getting together with him.

So one night I drifted off into dreamland and found myself at a restaurant with a big group of people, including my friend, her sister, and Gael Garcia Bernal. Being the good person that she is, my pal made sure that Gael and I were seated next to each other at the table. I introduced myself at the beginning of the meal, and he was nice enough. I kept trying to chat him up, but he seemed more interested in talking to the other people around us. Fair enough, I thought, he knows them, and I’m just a random stranger. But then as dinner wore on, and I kept trying to make inroads with him, he became more aggressive about blowing me off. My friend even hopped in and tried to jumpstart a conversation between us, but no luck. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. He even did a little eye-roll in my direction at one point, and then finally during dessert he got up and moved to a different seat. Ouch.

Tim Riggins in “This Rodeo Isn’t Going to Run Itself”

I had a dream in which I was in charge of organizing a big rodeo. It took place in a huge arena, and there were hundreds of people competing in it. I had to manage all the cowboys and animals, and also all these logistical details. It was really boring and stressful. That is until Tim Riggins from “Friday Night Lights” randomly showed up and offered to help me. Now we’re talking! Sorting all of the rodeo entry forms was about to get a lot more sexually tense, right? Well, kind of… He and I sat in an office and literally filed hundreds of pieces of paper together for what felt like hours. We had a surprisingly good conversation, given that Tim is normally a man of few words. At one point, I had to leave the room to get something, and he was standing by the door. As I passed him, he reached out and kind of grabbed my hip, but then instead of taking it to a lusty place, he said, “Be careful not to hit yourself on the doorframe.” Which was actually sweet, since in real life I’m very clumsy and walk into doorframes pretty regularly. Anyway, eventually he said he had to go. (Maybe he had football practice!) I said that was cool because I had to go down and make sure all the cows had arrived (which probably didn’t bode well for the rest of the rodeo since I’m pretty sure cows aren’t in rodeos?). And that was that.

Barack Obama in “Dreams from my Mother”

The dream opened with me and my mom together in a church. (Always a good sign!) We were in charge of organizing a Barack Obama speech in the church’s massive sanctuary. Weirdly, the seating area was extremely narrow, only taking up half of the room, and the pews were arranged in stadium-style seating that went up at an insanely steep angle. So basically the people sitting in the back rows were up near the ceiling.

Even though the event wasn’t for a few hours, the entire audience had already been seated in the pews. My mom and I were standing at the front of the church when Barack Obama himself arrived way ahead of schedule. He had on jeans, but they were cut well, unlike those dad jeans he wears in real life. We were introduced, and he gave me a nice firm handshake and a bit of a coy smile. Well hello, Mr. President. He asked me to run through the program with him. I pointed out where he was going to be speaking (extra weird because the audience was watching all this happen), and then I walked him up the incredibly steep aisle that ran up between the pews to this place about halfway up where you could go through a small wooden door into an apartment. For some reason, I knew that it had belonged to the priest but was now used as a storage space. It was beautiful, all covered in wood panels and with sunlight streaming in through stained glass windows. Barack and I stood in there chatting for a while — we were really hitting it off. He was super laid back, and we had an easy, jokey rapport. And, I’ll be honest, things got pretty flirty. (In my defense, while he was the same President Barack Obama from real life, the first family didn’t make it into my dream. He wasn’t even wearing a wedding ring, and I know because I surreptitiously checked at one point.)

We wandered around the apartment a bit and discovered that there was a big open space cut into one wall that allowed you to look down over the sanctuary. We were making fun of people in the audience when we noticed an ornately carved wooden track that extended out from where we were standing. It was about a foot wide and must have been several hundred feet long — long enough to wind around the whole sanctuary, making its way from the ceiling, over the audience, then down to the floor. Someone had built an insert that formed a smaller track inside the original wider track. The insert had a groove running down the middle and was made from a bunch of smaller pieces that interlocked, like those kids’ train track sets. We were trying to figure out what the whole set-up was for when he accidentally knocked part of the insert loose. Because they were all locked together it dislodged a whole length of track, and the entire thing started to tumble out of the wider track and rain down on the audience. Since it was all made from wood, and there was perfect silence in the sanctuary, it made a crazy loud racket. The audience started to freak out and chaos erupted.

We ducked down behind the apartment wall to hide from the audience. We were hunched up, howling like maniacs except also trying to stay quiet so nobody knew we were up there. We were laughing so hard that Barack kept saying, “Oh man, I’m going to pee my pants!!!” (That seemed sexier in the dream?) Anyway, our conspiratorial giggling lasted for a while, and our faces got VERY close together. I think he wanted to kiss me, but he just kept looking right into my eyes (which kind of still undoes me when I think about it) and never made the move. Of course, since it was my dream you’d think I could have worked up the nerve to kiss him. But no — I was too shy. And then before I knew it my mom found us up in the apartment and told him he had to come down and give his speech. On the way out, he grabbed my hand and gave it a little squeeze, and then I woke up.

Oddly, this set off a series of subsequent dreams in which we’ve been strictly platonic buds. We hang out and do mischievous things — like last time we pranked a Secret Service guy. We always end up laughing really hard, and he always tells me he’s going to pee his pants. Good times.