The “I Dream Of” Genie
I ran across an interesting little article in the latest New Yorker this evening, about a Canadian 
woman named Sheila Heti who became interested in what people were dreaming about the presidential frontrunners. She has created a website, The Metaphysical Poll, explaining her project and linking to archives of the dreams she has collected so far. From her website:
The question we’re asking here is: what role do Barack and Hillary and John play in the collective unconscious? What can that tell us about where they might lead us — and which one does more coke when we sleep?
You can sign up for her weekly newsletter analyzing the dreams she’s received, or visit one of
the three different blogs filled with dream reports: I Dream of Barack, I Dream of Hillary, and I Dream of McCain. The dreams are fascinating to read, especially because their titles give a brief description of the people who submitted them: Tech Start-Up Geek from California, A Liberal Feminist in Kansas, A Kickball Player from Florida, A 42-Year-Old Man With No Discernable Politics.
Dreams bring out the shadow projections we have of public figures. I don’t know whether conclusions can be drawn from this aggregation of dreams, but just knowing that someone is out there collecting them makes me feel fairly certain that I am going to start having dreams about the candidates. Oh joy. But my unconscious is highly suggestible. Is yours?
March 11th, 2008 at 1:58 am
How fascinating! I just love this idea, and may have to sign up for the newsletter. Got to be more interesting than the regular polls.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
How fantastic!!!! This is ever so much more interesting to me than reading articles about the election in TIME or Newsweek! I am so for it. And, of course, now I too will eventually have a dream. Hopefully not of Ralph Nader. That would be disturbing.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Thanks for covering the site. It’s been my observation that people are *very* suggestible. I’ll have friends tell me that they’d never dream about the candidates, and the next morning they realize they have. And from the emails I’ve received — just reading about the fact that people are dreaming about the candidates seem to make more people dream about them. How strange.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Last night I dreamt, not of any of the three candidates mentioned, but of George W. Bush. It was the day of his leaving office, the very moment of walking out the door. He stood in the foyer of a generic sort of public building alone, empty-handed, looking about as demoralized as a man can look. It occured to me to go hold the door open for him - so as to be able to say I was there right at the end - but I stopped to tie my shoe first, and when I stood up he had already opened the door, and I heard the sounds of mixed applause and jeering from the crowd gathered outside.
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Aquari, thank you for posting that amazing dream. I’ll bet this is a common theme in GWB dreams in the months to come, versions of the Dying King myth in some ways. And Sheila, thanks so much for stopping by here at the Gnosis Café.
I spent my whole hour-long radio show last week reading dreams from your site and talking about them. Trends I noticed: Obama dreams seemed to have more of a disillusionment quality to them; I chalk it up to the problems with projecting such an inspiring image of change—everyone’s hopes are raised to a fever-pitch level, from which they can only come down.
With Hillary’s dreams, it was interesting how many described some coming-to-terms, or positive shift in association with her. My hunch was that those people were integrating some internal messages about women (or the inner feminine) and leadership in a new way.
I am emphatically not a prognosticator—don’t even rely on me to choose the shortest line at the check-out stand—but this growing collection of dreams has me engaged in the presidential race in a whole new, fun way.
April 5th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
The only time that I ever dreamed of a president, it was Jimmy Carter — after he was out of office.
He and I were fighting Communist Chinese spies together.
Go figure.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Well, you should check out this John McCain dream of an Alberta oilpatch worker. Definitely shades of The Manchurian Candidate.