Dream Dump with Leisha Hailey!

Hello Loners!

Faked you out last week by sending this episode early. WHOOPS!

I hope you didn’t have too difficult a week waiting for it. That being said, it’s worth the wait!

This week on Dream Dump, I sat down with Leisha Hailey for a conversation that starts with dreams and quickly wanders into just about everything else. We talk about recurring performance anxiety dreams, getting older as artists, finding community after life on tour, creativity, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves about aging. Along the way we unpack dream journals, gratitude practices, cult dreams, Aritzia dressing rooms, and somehow end up pitching a mushroom edition of Dream Dump.

I first met Leisha when Sara and I guest starred on The L Word in the season three episode Last Dance, where Dana Fairbanks takes LSD with Shane McCutcheon before heading to a Tegan and Sara concert. The funny thing is, I hadn’t actually watched much of The L Word when the show first aired in Vancouver. Then my mom gave me the DVD box set for Christmas, I binged the entire first season in a weekend, and became completely obsessed.

I’d already known Leisha from her band The Murmurs, which Sara and I absolutely loved in high school. But after devouring The L Word, I desperately wanted to be friends with Leisha and Kate. There was something about both their characters—and what little I knew about them as people—that made me think, these are my kind of people.

So when we showed up on set, I was incredibly nervous. Thankfully, they couldn’t have been kinder. They welcomed us immediately, and when season four rolled around I started hanging out with them IRL! When I moved to Los Angeles in 2008, they were some of the first people who helped me find my footing in a brand new city.

Then, eleven years ago, I started dating Sofia... and discovered she lived on Leisha’s property. It felt like the universe had decided our lives were just going to keep intersecting. Even now, although we all live in different places, our paths somehow keep crossing. Leisha has been in Vancouver shooting a new series, she’s still close with Sofia, and we’ve been lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time together lately. It’s been such a gift.

I was absolutely thrilled when she agreed to come on Dream Dump.

This episode runs just over an hour, and I honestly think it’s one of the funniest conversations I’ve had on Dream Dump so far. I’ve been laughing about it ever since we recorded it, repeatedly trying to retell my favourite moments to Sofia, who eventually said, “Can you please stop spoiling it? I’ll just listen when it comes out.”

Here’s one of my fave bits.

Thanks!

And sweet dreams!

Tegan