Chery McLemore was recently enjoying watching a parade of cows and bulls at a cattle auction with actor Matthew McConaughey. Then he started climbing atop the small pet llama she had brought, and she had to raise her voice to tell him to stop.
“Fine, you can stay with your llama, I’m leaving!” Mr. McConaughey screamed before storming off.
Then...
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Chery McLemore was recently enjoying watching a parade of cows and bulls at a cattle auction with actor Matthew McConaughey. Then he started climbing atop the small pet llama she had brought, and she had to raise her voice to tell him to stop.
“Fine, you can stay with your llama, I’m leaving!” Mr. McConaughey screamed before storming off.
Then Ms. McLemore woke up.
Her trip to a cattle auction with one of Hollywood’s leading men was one of the dreams Ms. McLemore has had since February, when she began taking one of the powerful, new weight-loss drugs that have become viral sensations in recent months.
Ozempic and other similar medications are doing more than helping people tighten belts and fit into old outfits. Many users are reporting bizarre, vivid and eerily realistic night visions that bear no resemblance to their past dreams.
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The Ozempic dreams they have been reporting are downright wacky. Among the plots people have posted on social-media groups: joining the cast of “The Golden Girls” and preparing to rob a museum with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.
“I am carrying your baby,” one dreamer recalled telling Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who she thought, judging by his reaction, was open to blending their families.
The overnight spectacles are a side effect of drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy from Novo Nordisk A/S and Mounjaro from Eli Lilly & Co.
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The companies originally developed the drugs, which require weekly injections, to treat diabetes, only to discover they were much better than older diet drugs at helping people lose weight, with manageable risks.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved Wegovy for losing weight, while diabetes treatment Mounjaro is under review for that use. Ozempic, which has the same main ingredient as Wegovy, is approved to treat diabetes but is widely used for weight loss.
Fueled by celebrity endorsements, use has taken off. On Facebook and other social-media platforms, thousands have traded tips about where to find scarce supplies and how to manage side effects, including sulfur-tasting burps. They also have celebrated “non-scale victories” such as buckling a seat belt more easily.
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Strange dreams are another hot topic, prompting some users to start social-media groups dedicated to recalling the strange, colorful details.
The TikTok account “ozempicdreams” posts brief videos of text describing dreams submitted by followers, setting them to music to match the mood. “Spent the night at Home Depot ordering new cabinets and appliances for my kitchen. My salesman, Clint Eastwood, helped me pick out everything I would need,” read one, accompanied by a sped-up version of the song “Escapism,” by the singers Raye and 070 Shake.
Ms. McLemore’s Facebook post about her cattle-auction dream drew more than 160 comments, including several admonishing her dream self for not letting the imaginary Mr. McConaughey sit on the little llama in the first place.
Celebrities star in many of the reported dreams. In one woman’s, according to a Facebook post, actor Jonah Hill waited tables on a cruise, divulged to the diners that he had changed his name to “Sundaze” and planned to quit film acting for a cabaret career.
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Oprah Winfrey rode in a go-kart to rescue an Ozempic user who was playing in a baseball game before a hostile crowd, according to a Facebook post. Another Ozempic dreamer was about to give birth in a bar and wanted actor Will Ferrell, standing nearby, to deliver the baby.
A Novo Nordisk spokeswoman said the company has received reports of abnormal dreams among users of Ozempic and Wegovy, but it doesn’t have enough information to establish whether the drugs are causing the dreams.
An Eli Lilly spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports of strange dreams among Mounjaro users.
Dr. Caroline Apovian, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of a weight-loss center at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, suspects the dreams are related to how the drugs work promoting production of a gut hormone that has receptors in the brain.
The drugs might also increase a user’s energy expenditure during sleep, which could contribute to vivid dreams, she said.
It also is possible the drugs are helping users’ recall dreams they would have had normally but used to forget, said Deirdre Leigh Barrett, a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School and author of “Pandemic Dreams.”
As for those celebrity guest appearances, Dr. Barrett said, those are unlikely to be specific to the drugs. She said posts on social media about celebrities in strange dreams might be prompting others to respond with similar recollections.
Other medicines have been known to cause strange or vivid dreams. Antidepressants including Paxil and smoking-cessation drug Chantix are associated with abnormal dreams. The drugs’ labels advise doctors to consider adjusting the dose if patients experience strange dreams.
Arnetrice Knight, a beauty consultant from Oxon Hill, Md., who has been taking Ozempic for diabetes since January, said she told her doctor about her recent dreams, but the doctor told her it wasn’t a problem unless she starts sleepwalking.
Often her dreams involve taking a peaceful drive on a sunny day and having a conversation with her passenger. “None of it made sense, but it was OK because we were driving and it was nice outside,” she said.
One night, however, she dreamed she was sitting in a dark house watching TV when the doors disappeared. A creepy figure lurked in the shadows, and she tried to escape. “It was Stephen King scary,” Ms. Knight said.
The dreams have been so lifelike, she said, that she wakes up still thinking she is in the dream, before she realizes she’s in bed next to her sleeping husband.
Ms. McLemore, a mother of two from Amarillo, Texas, who takes Wegovy, said she typically used to dream about her family, but since taking Wegovy has had slumber meetups with celebrities.
In addition to attending the cattle auction with Mr. McConaughey, she has shopped for shoes with “Jurassic Park” actor Jeff Goldblum, seen an eye doctor with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp and toured North Korea with Minnie Pearl of “Hee Haw” fame.
On a camping trip in Yellowstone National Park, Ms. McLemore couldn’t agree with her celebrity dream partner on how to set up the tent. “I hate you, Kathie Lee Gifford!” she recalled screaming.
Write to Peter Loftus at Peter.Loftus@wsj.com