A Celebrity Reassured Me Things Would Be Okay, the Same Night He Died

The unlikely tale of an unlikely connection.

Advice from Lady Gaga? A shared eyeroll with Eminem? A flying lesson with Dakota Fanning?

A celebrity turning up in your dream is always a treat. You could have Nicole Kidman admiring your outfit, just as you’re about to give a speech to a group of venture capitalists, in your old school hall. Or, Dax Shephard advising you to mind the rip, as you stare out to sea.

How else are we to meet a celebrity, if not for having them drop into our dreams while we sleep?

A few decades ago, I experienced this celebrity-dream cameo in a way that felt profound. It’s a story I share now and then, and one that is greeted with either shared astonishment, or an indulging grin, (possibly even an eye roll, if you’re that way inclined).

Let’s see where you fall.

Setting the scene: the year is 1998 and I am very ill. I’ve dropped out of school and can barely leave my bed. Meanwhile my friends have all moved on with their lives and being so young, essentially forgotten about me. While I often process this grief while dreaming at night, this one stands out in particular:

I enter a bar and see my two best friends; they are having a drink, fully engaged in each other’s company. They may or may not see me. Either way, I am not important to them. Sitting at the other side of the bar, I order a drink, while watching them, and feeling all the misery of my exclusion; it hurts. A lot.

Enter a familiar looking man, making his way through the space. He has a kind face and a warm presence. In fact I ‘know’ him: it is the actor Lloyd Bridges. Goodness knows what Lloyd’s doing in a bar on my side of the world, or even in my dream for that matter, but I’m glad he is.

As Lloyd Bridges passes slowly on his way through the bar, our eyes meet. He gives me a deeply reassuring smile and a secret wink.

“You are not alone kiddo, keep your chin up,” is what he seems to be saying, and in that moment I feel deep gratitude come over me.

Honestly? LLoyd bridges is a pretty random celebrity as far as I’m concerned. I don’t follow his career, I barely know a movie he is in and frankly the most noteworthy thing about him before this dream, is that I quite like his sons, actors Jeff and Beau Bridges (though particularly Jeff, as he is quite hot and I really liked him in Fearless).

Overall though, just another random dream with an obscure celebrity cameo.

End of story, really.

Except it isn’t the end of the story! As I get up out of bed, and turn on the radio to hear the news, there it is. The first story up? Lloyd Bridges, Hollywood actor, died overnight.

I know, right?

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. It’s a co-incidence.

And maybe you’re right.

Even though I cannot think of any kind of backstory where this actor meant something to me, such as I’m the the founding member of the Lloyd Bridges fan club, or I secretly had a series of scrap books devoted to all his movies, hidden under my bed. None of that.

But the the other possibility?

Maybe, Lloyd was just a great guy, the kind that took the opportunity, even while passing on through to the next world, to offer consolation to a stranger who needed it.

And to that possibility, I just want to say thanks.

Thanks Lloyd, for stopping by — at what was obviously a significant moment for yourself (dying and all) — to reassure a sad, lonely kid.

At the time, it meant a lot to me.