On September 26, 2011, Mikey Welsh wrote on Twitter that he had dreamed of dying in Chicago the following weekend. In the message, he mentioned having a heart attack in his sleep and said he should write his will. That same day, he corrected the timeline: it wouldn’t be the following weekend, but the one after that. Twelve days later, he would die in Chicago, exactly as he had written.
Welsh had been Weezer’s bassist between 1998 and 2001 and later pursued a career as a painter. He traveled to Chicago to attend the band’s performance at RiotFest and reunite with his former bandmates. On October 8, he failed to show up at the scheduled time to check out of his room and was found dead in a hotel, at the age of 40.
When his death was reported, the cause had not yet been determined: toxicology tests were still pending, and police considered drugs a possible factor. There was no indication of foul play. What made his death an especially unsettling story was the coincidence between the strange dream he had shared publicly and the circumstances in which he was eventually found dead.