Strange, isn’t it? If you’ve worked on the air in radio for apparently any length of time, you may be experiencing something that can only be described as a surreal, communal, shared experience.
Like the school dream. Most of us have probably had that dream – or nightmare. It is somehow finals week or the day of a big test, and in our dream, we don’t remember having ever gone to class. I’ve talked to many people who’ve had this dream, or a variant, so it seems to affect pretty much anyone who’s ever gone to school. (Do kids who are home schooled have it, too?)
As a former smoker, I’ve also had “the cigarette dream.” That one’s crazy because even if you haven’t smoked in decades, it can sneak up on you. In the dream, you think you’ve started smoking again. Crazy, right?
But then there’s “the radio dream,” something I was reminded of yesterday after reading this Kelly Hammer post on Facebook:
So, in Kelly’s case, it’s an on-air CD or a cart that’s running down, and you can’t find the elusive one you’re supposed to play next. There’s a rack or shelves of CDs nearby, but you somehow can’t get your gears moving to retrieve it. And all the while, the dream clock is ticking, and you’re fighting against the perils of DEAD AIR.
In my version of this dream, there’s floor to ceiling albums against the back wall of the studio, the record is running down, and I somehow can’t put my hands on the album I want to play next.
I wonder if today’s version of the nightmare is a blue screen on the main computer in the studio. Or is it a mouse that somehow won’t work? Or some kind of software glitch?
The weird thing is that my time as a DJ was limited to campus radio and a few odd shifts here and there, filling in for my airstaff. And yet, I have “the dream” every couple of years or so.
Based on Kelly’s post and anecdotal conversations with radio people, I’m betting that many of you do, too. And if that’s the case, can we surmise that anyone who’s been on the air at a music station for any length of time has had “the dream?” And maybe it keeps recurring for all of us in some form of weird dream rotation (hopefully, it’s not a “power”).
And that would also mean that Bob Pittman has “the dream.” And Scott Shannon, And Jarl Mohn. Whether you’re a corporate exec in New York or a weekender in Anchorage, chances are the one thing we all have in common in radio is “the dream.” It’s a strange and unusual bond to be sure, but I’m thinking it’s shared by thousands of former and current radio people.
They say that radio isn’t brain surgery. But it would probably require the expertise of a neurologist to explain this phenomenon – how an entire group of people in the same industry can have virtually the same nocturnal dream experience. Then again, I wonder what dream brain surgeons share. It’s very likely a lot scarier than that Bob Seger record running out.
Pleasant dreams.
To see how pervasive this is, leave a comment below with your version of “the dream” or acknowledge you have it. I’ve also posted “the dream” on my Facebook page as well as Twitter, so you can post a comment there as well.
Thanks for the reminder, Kelly.
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Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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I’ve not been on the air in almost 20 years. Still have the dream.
Like a curse, right, Adam?
Thanks, Adam.
I’m not a radio dj, but a mobile dj, and I have reoccurring dreams that I can’t find any songs that I know the current crowd will keep dancing to. It is so scary as I’m living it in my dreams.
At least once a month “for over 40 years!” The dee-jay curse.
Crazy, right?
You can’t get away from it. Could be a hot topic at MSBC. Actually, maybe not.
My dream is a variation of falling into a bottomless hole. There is :05 left on a song. As I reach for the console to make the segue into the next sweeper or song, the board itself recedes from my grasp…I continue to reach; it continues to recede. I end up running after the controls, which are always just an inch or so from my fingers, but I never get there. The only good news: the song never ends and there is no dead air – so there’s that!
That’s because even in your dreams, you know you’re a great jock!
I have it all the time. No record that fits the format anywhere around and all the carts are dated.. I call it PTDAS. Post Traumatic Dead Air Syndrome. Odd thing, I don’t have the dream with today’s technology, just the old days equipment..
Strange, isn’t it? It’s probably in a setting much like when you started. Thanks, Rick.
Rick, that’s the same exact scenario in my dead air dreams! No songs that fit the format. I haven’t been on the air in 15+ years and I have the dream once a month or so. Uncanny!
I am so glad to read this. I thought it might have just been me. This is incredible and so true for me. Sometimes for days in a row…but often and consistent. A slow period might be 3-4 times a month. worst is almost everyday in a week. Oddly mostly records for me as my on air included 8 years at Alternative 102.1 CFNY (Edge) Toronto in the 80’s where we picked our own music – as much fun as that was – you can see where the stress can enter with so much choice. I do find – as a PD now – the dream happens more when I get behind keeping up with workload. The dream is very much alive. great story
I think your comment about picking your own music is on point, Scot. As much as today’s DJs may think they’d love to do that, there’s a lot of pressure involved – even when you’re awake! Thanks for commenting.
Yeah me too…The song is running out and though I’ve lived through the digital conversion…It’s usually a cd…It’s not that I can’t fire the next element but rather that I can’t find the pot for the mic in a studio that for some reason I’ve never seen before. So I can’t do the very important break…loll.
Fascinating. A little variant on the theme.
“THE DJ Dream” is caused by RF over-exposure. LOL. Seriously, what if the record runs out on our industry…. because folks keep trying to play the same one? Clark, Boston. http://www.broadcastideas.com
Now you’re getting existential on us, Clark. Have a great weekend.
Had the dream just last week. In it I was invited back to the Top 40 station where I had huge success in the 80s to be a guest DJ. The songs are running out and I grab a cart and it is a 70s country song. Can’t play that… Then there is a crowd of people in the studio just wanting to talk and say “Hi” while I am trying to find the next song on the log, creating an even bigger mess. Crazy
An interesting variation, Joel. Thanks.
Oh, gosh YES. The Dead Air Dream typically comes when I’m feeling unprepared for something in real life. Same with the haven’t-been-to-class-all-semester dream….and the can’t-remember-my-locker-combination dream. Surely a psychiatrist somewhere can explain the commonality of these dreams?
*As an aside, anyone who operates a strange new automation system for the first time has the opportunity to bring their dead-air dreams to life! 🙂
Beverlee, how right you are! Thanks.
I recounted the cooking while on the air dream on your facebook page. Here’s another one. I dreamed I was running the board for a local talk show. I was in the control room and the host and her guests were in the studio. She had about 6 guests on the air with her and the studio, hallway and control were filled with people milling around. The host looked at me through the window and motioned for me to come see her. I pushed through the crowd of people and she met me in the hallway and told me she was sick, had to go to the bathroom and wanted me to take over for her. I ran into the studio, but someone else had taken her seat, which was right next to a small mixing board where the host could control the mics for each guest. I couldn’t reach the mixing board. And the crowd that had gathered in the room started talking to each other very loudly, like they were in a bar. One of the guests was talking and I was trying to gesture to the other people to be quiet but they were ignoring me. I got mad and yelled “Will you people please shut up!!”, which of course went out on the air in the middle of the talk show.
I also had a dream where I had to do a 24 hour shift so the engineer installed a switch on the side of a bed so I could wake myself up every so often to do a segueway without getting out of bed. That failed miserably. I’ve also had multiple dreams where an engineer is working on the equipment while I’m trying to do a show. Very stressful.
Wow, this is intense! Thanks, Abby.
Talk about the role of an Engineer… For 20 years, I worked at a daytime-only AM station. Sign-on was 6am in the spring/summer months. I hosted a 1-hour morning music program from 6am to 7am on weekdays during that time. One morning (early 90’s) I got to the station, and something didn’t seem right… I went up to the transmitter building (which was “attached” to the studio building) and opened the door, planning to switch-on the filaments (Old tube transmitter) so it could “warm up”… BUT IT WAS ALL TAKEN APART! (You’d think this was a dream! NO! IT WAS REAL LIFE!!) 😮 He had been working on something inside it, and had to “run out to get a part”… and so he left the front panel all taken apart! 😮 Well, we never made it for 6am sign-on that morning! Listener calls started to trickle in, and I had to explain why we weren’t on the air, yet. 😉 Of course, I HAVE had VARIOUS forms of the “Dead Air Dreams” along the way, I can share some of them, below. 🙂
Definitely have had and still have that dream of dead air. Sometimes it doesn’t happen for a while, but when it returns it’s vivid. Song. Running Out. Can’t. Reach. CD’s….
Scary, when the “radio dream” feels like real life. Thanks, Ken.
Now that it’s been brought back up into our conscious mind, I think many of us will be desperately looking for that cart or CD tonight. Sweet dreams!
Kelly, sleep well and thanks for inspiring a great Friday post!
I haven’t cracked a mic in 6 years but I still have it a couple of times a week. It’s very similar to the one you described; I’m always in an old-school studio with either records or carts and CDs running out.
I had the dream come true once. I was working on a Saturday midday shift (probably the second weekend shift I had done there as a part-timer),and the guy on before me left via the back door, setting the alarm. The very elderly owner of the station was in town and walked in the unlocked front door, setting off the alarm. At that precise moment, the on-air computer crashed (we were still early in that technology in the mid 90s). I went to turn the alarm off, and the code I had been given didn’t work. The police show up, the General Manager shows up. At least he could kill the alarm. I finally got us back on the air and amazingly, wasn’t fired (not that this was my fault).
My wife is a school bus driver (talk about stress!) and she has her own version of the dream, which usually involves being lost, losing a kid or having an accident.
A couple times a week! Holy cow, Brad. But at least it’s better than the “school bus driver dream!”
Every few months, like clockwork, I see a question about the ‘Dead Air Dream’ pop up in a Facebook group of current and former DJs. “Hey, does anybody else have this dream where…?”
I’ve found that the cause of dead air depends on the age of the DJ. For older broadcasters, the turntable needles are missing. For younger DJs, the computer freezes. I’m in the middle, so for me, the CD players won’t fire.
I love this. Thanks, Seth.
Reading this blog reminded me of a dream that came true. A cup of coffee and a packet of cheese-peanut butter crackers while the hits were playing. I stuff three crackers into my face and notice one song (vinyl) is ending and my mental plan is to segue into a jingle and then the next song. I fire up the jingle and glance to my right to realize that there’s nothing on that turntable. All I can do is crack the mic and try to talk-with a mouth full of crackers. It’s a very scary dream-only this one was very real. It was hard to hide this one on a station that had a 75 share in teens (1968).
Dave, a fascinating variation on the theme. Thanks!
Don’t get the “dead air dream” as often as I used to, even though I’m still on the air occasionally. My wife, though, she hasn’t been behind the Mic for 30 years, still has it come up from time to time.
Thanks, Kurt.
My heart rate has jumped considerably just thinking about it. In my dream, rarely do I even get the benefit of the song fading. The dead air is in progress. Showing my age, I’m searching endlessly for the correct “45” in those generic green sleeves. As that effort starts to look like a no win situation I begin the search for commercial carts to play. But, I haven’t pulled the carts for that hour yet! Now I’m looking for a jingle. They aren’t in the carousel where they are supposed to be! In some of those dreams I have eventually gotten a song on the air. But, it is always WAYYY outside the format. It’s also very short and I’m still frantically trying to get back on track and find the next element that actually fits the format. I probably have “the dream” a half dozen times a year. And yes, I probably need professional help. 🙂
Perfect! Pleasant dreams, Mark.
I have the, can’t find the album on time version of the dream and the, don’t know what to say variant. I also have the cigarette dream and the cocaine dream and once in a while the, can’t find the classroom dream.
Count me in on having had this nightmare. My variations:
1. Go to the record library on the wall. Instead of LPs all the shelves have books.
2. Backtime to network news. Pot up the network and nothing there; look at the clock and it’s five minutes later.
3. Manage to find a LP in the nick of time but now the turntables have disappeared.
4. Get a record cued up but the board no longer has a pot assigned to it.
5. All of the music I can find in the control room is obscure stuff that fits no format (artist names I never heard of, gibberish for titles, etc.)
Thankfully I only seem to have those once or twice a year now.
Interesting variants on the theme, K.M. Amazing how the basics are the same, but the details tend to be unique to the person. Thanks.
You certainly touched a nerve, Fred. Some great responses. Mine is like yours but with one add-on. Since I was an on-air PD for part of my career the pressures of the song’s running out and not being able to find something to play next is compounded by my GM and Sales Manager in the studio demanding I resolve an issue in immediately! Talk about night sweats!
Scary stuff. Thanks, Dave.
I’m still on the air, currently on Year 37, but when I have the DJ Dream, it still involves spinning vinyl. Usually lots of country records, but they’re all old and I’ve never heard of them.
Variation… I have the Game Day dream… I get to the stadium and can’t find the press box, or there’s no phone drop, or the press box for the football stadium is UNDER the stands, or in the gym…
Not surprised about the vinyl dream. Reading these comments and more than 100 on Facebook, it would seem the dream is based on the format (vinyl, CD) when you first started on the air. Thanks, Dennis.
Because I’ve always been Ace with the news, it’s not the record running out but rather the weekend jock not putting paper in at least one of the constantly-spewing wire machines/washing machines. These days? I fret about our future. Have things always been this crazy? I’d never been called “the enemy” before. Then again, there was Nixon. Then I’m wonder if it’s all just a human cycle — kinda like rings on a tree. Some wider than others too.
It’s somehow comforting that even the Ace Young has his own version of “the dream.” Great to hear form you, and yes, it’s a cycle.
Can’t wait to share this with my team and see if/how it happens with each of them. I’ve had it with both the carts running out and the computer freezing.
I’ve also had a lot of dreams where I go back to an early station (WRZE 1994) but in current times. Everyone is excited that I’m back but then I mess up on air and the station goes off air because I don’t know the new equipment! Then I’m fired… lol.
I usually get the dead air dream soon after starting somewhere new… over 2 years in Chicago now and still getting out!
Thanks for the great blog!
And the story continues. Thanks, Steve, for sharing yours. And thanks for reading our blog.
Crazy the stress of a job that almost all of us at the beginning of our careers did for free (or almost free) just because it was fun. (And we got free albums.)
I have had the dream many times with different scenarios leading to the dreaded dead air, but one night I figured “I’m a Morning Guy” so I’ll just talk my way out of it. So I crack the mic prepared to say something witty, I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out!!!!
Holy crap! No matter what I do, I can’t talk!
Another fascinating – and scary – variation on the theme. Thanks, Matthew.
Twenty seconds of copy to fill a three minute newscast! Still having that dream after 18 years on the air.
Sorry to hear, Kaye, but not surprised.
It’s an extreme version of an anxiety dream. The variation seems to depend on what you prided yourself on being able to do either well or well enough to keep your job. I spent 50 plus years in radio and more were in management than on air. Yet my dream is always about running a board and trying to ad lib my way out of a series of impossible technical, time and system obstacles. I always have a live mike and think I am pulling it off until the number of issues and elapsed time causes me to realize that I am babbling and listeners and others I want to respect me will have caught me being trite and not clever at all.
Jack, thanks for that memory. Several others (me included) worked very little on the air, but still have “the dream.”
I must have had a million radio nightmares – like reaching for something, ANYTHING to put on the air – but only finding bags of sliced salad veggies in the cart racks. The funniest one I remember was being out on the road with the car radio on – hearing static (dead air) and realizing I was supposed to be back at the station doing my shift. I floored it to get to the building where the station was. Then I couldn’t find the FLOOR it was on. Finally found the station and a security guard I never saw before wouldn’t let me in. I finally convinced him I needed to be in the studio NOW! When I got there – you guessed it – couldn’t find ANYTHING to throw in a cart or CD player. When I woke up I found myself tossing and turning trying to bury myself in the pillow – just like in a sitcom nightmare.
Then there are the dreams when the boss is in the studio with you, judging how you do a break and the weather forecast is written in something like Egyptian sanskrit. HAH!
Another version of “the dream.” Thanks, Peter.
30 years since I’ve been on the air. I have the dream at regular intervals throughout life. I’m at the controls and frozen. I know the record will run out and the cart isn’t cued. The CD won’t function and I can’t find the mic pot. What does it mean?
I have no idea what it means, but the crazy thing is that a LOT of people who worked in radio have pretty much the same dream. Crazy, right?
I have a “radio dream” three or four times a year even though I haven’t been in the business for a couple of decades. The main theme is always Dead Air, but the details change from dream to dream. Sometimes the microphone is missing, but there have also been several times that I couldn’t find any cd’s. One time I had to sing the songs that were on the playlist. Another time I had to find pictures of the artists I had to play, fold up the pictures and then put them in a cd player. I also dreamed the cd’s were hidden around the station and I had to find them (looking under couch pillows and in the microwave) before my shift started. In my most recent dream, I was alone at the station and had to take calls and welcome visitors to a real estate office that was across the hall. My favorite radio dream was the one where I put on one song and decided to go shopping. I was in my car listening to the station as I headed to the mail and couldn’t understand why there was so much dead air. Thanks for the great column!
I’ve found there is the DJ version and a news anchor version of The Dream because I have had both. The DJ dream has already been described. But my news anchor dream is of waking up and discovering you are 5 minutes away from a network newscast and no copy has been written yet. Anyone else?
Fascinating, Steve. Now you’re got dueling nightmares!
Hi Fred,
I’ve wondered for almost forty years whether I was the only one having the “radio stress dream”. I heard Don Dainard CHFI Toronto mention it on air one morning, so I knew that I wasn’t alone. My variations are:
Music carts aren’t rewound, so no music to play; don’t know the board; am working at the other radio station in town & say the wrong call letters; can’t follow the log and am behind anyway!
I’ve been out of radio since 1986, but still get The Dream whenever life is stressful.
BTW, I once saw a play when living in Winnipeg, about school stress dreams. It was so funny, as they included almost every variation of content.
Student:”Miss Smith, I can’t read this pop quiz–it’s in Chinese.”
Teacher: “Remember how I said you were responsible for making up work you missed?”
Student: “Yes, and I was off sick on Tuesday.”
Teacher:”Well, the class learned Chinese that day.”
All the best.
Tom
It’s universal, Tom. But I guess we’d need a neurologist or maybe a psychic to explain it. Thanks for the comment.
I’ve always referred to that Dream as my “Occupational Nightmare!”
And I’ve had it more times than I can count!
I just hope now that I don’t start dreaming that I read this article.
Again.
And again.
And never getting to the ending and having to start all over!
Again.
Whew!
Chuck Buell
I hope the post didn’t plant the seed. Get a good night’s sleep, Chuck!
Even though I’ve been off the air for nearly two decades I still periodically have The Dream. Mine always involves 45s. Either I can’t find any, or I have only 2 or 3 scratchy, beat up records of bad songs that don’t fit the format. I end up with dead air, or babbling something senseless trying to fill time while I search for something – ANYTHING – to put on the air. Reading some of the comments here makes me realize the setting in my dreams often involves a studio which resembles the FM side of my first commercial station (I was on the AM side.) Funny thing, though, is I usually wake up realizing it was a dream, but happy that at least I was back on the air!
Thanks, Fred, for the chance to talk about my version of The Dream.
Best,
Vince Brooks
a/k/a “Boppin’ Vinnie B”!
I hope you’re feeling better now, Vince. 🙂 It IS amazing how many people who have out of radio or off the years still have “the dream.” Thanks for telling your story.
I just ran across your blog and had to share. I have been off the air a good 20 years, but I still have radio dreams. Back in the day, I had one where every record I pulled out of the sleeve had a piece broken out of it; one where the lights went out (my college station was deep in a basement) and I couldn’t see the board to change the record; and several where I couldn’t find anything good or anything I’d ever heard of to play. I never worried about breaking the format, LOL. Once I worked about 40 miles from home and the commute was a hassle, so I had a lot of dreams about being late. My bike got stolen, I was caught in a flood, etc. Nowadays, I sometimes have good dreams about station reunions or having fun on the air again, just feeling like I belonged.
I also had the one where you finally find a song to play but it is really short, so you’re back under pressure again.
Karen, thanks for sharing your “dead air dream” story.
Back in the early ’90s when I had a regular column in Radio World newspaper, I did a two-parter on “Dead Air Dreams” (those old issues are on a shelf out in my garage somewhere, turning yellow and slowly disintegrating…I have got to find them).
My own horror: I’m suddenly in a studio I’ve never seen before, playing a record I never heard of (yes, a record). There’s only about 10 seconds left, all that’s in the record cabinet are Sunday religious shows on vinyl — all the “good” music is in a locked closet down the hall. The hall is filled with sand and I’m running down there in lead-weighted swim fins. The hotline is ringing off the hook and everyone is screaming at me to get something on the air.
I first had that dream in my college radio days. Its always the same one and I still get it.
Records for me, too, Al. Thanks for the story & hope all’s well.
THIS IS THE ONE I REMEMBER READING!!! LOL!! 😀 I was just recounting to a friend who had a “D.A.D.” last night, and I mentioned having read an article about this subject… lo and behold! I find the author! 🙂 Thanks for writing that article! I have had some doozy-whoppers in my days! Earlier in this blog, I shared one that was ACTUAL REAL LIFE, but the scenario absolutely resembles a nightmare! 😉
OK, time for me to share some of my doozy-whooper Dead Air Dreams! 😉
The most vivid one I remember, dates back to probably 1988, when I was fairly new at WFIF, a local daytime only AM. (Thankfully, still there, same owner, same format all these years later!) In that dream, I arrive for work and go downstairs to the studio… only it isn’t there! 😮 So I run up to ask the secretary “What happened to the studio?!” she says that the moved it, and I should have known about it… so I hop into the car, and head down I-95 to get to the McDonald’s I worked at as a teen! 😉 The studio was at the back of the building… OUTSIDE!!! 😮 As I get to it, I see that the “Focus on the Family” cassette is just about to end! As I’m frantically looking for the cassettes & carts for the programs to follow… NOTHING! Just a few printed PSA’s and a weather forecast! The show ends, and I open the mike. Read the PSA’s, then the weather. Then apologize to the listeners for some “technical difficulties” as I again try to find ANYTHING to put on the air… then I say something like “We apologize for the inconvenience, but we will need to sign-off temporarily…” that’s where that dream ended. 😉
Another dream, involving the same station, (in the proper studio, this time!) I was working a sign-off shift. (It was mid 90’s, and in real life, I had been moved from sign-on to sign-off.) So, I am doing my shift, and notice that there’s nothing else on the log! So… I started playing records, and tried to fill the time, all while trying to figure out or find out why the log was suddenly empty! About 45 minutes into that “strange shift”… it dawns on my WHY the log was empty! I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SIGNED OFF!! So, I quickly say the legal ID, and say we’re signing off now… good night! I run upstairs to the transmitter building, only to find the Engineer had taken it apart… we were already off the air! (This scene was inspired by a REAL LIFE incident, I mentioned in an earlier comment, here.) So I asked him, “Terry! What happened?” and he said something like, “Oh, I figured you lost track, so I just signed it off at the right time.” LOL! Those are just two… I have had others. 😉
Willie, you have got to stop eating lasagna just before bed. This makes my DODs mild by comparison. Thanks for sharing them (I think!).
LOL! 😀 Nope, no lasagna before bed time! 😉 I know better. 😉
I was in radio for five years out of college — more than 30 years ago. And I still have the dead air dream a couple of times per year. Of course, mine still involves cart machines and hand-written weather forecasts I cannot find lol.
It is amazing how that dream synchs up with the technology of when you worked in the business. For me, cart machines and turntables. Thanks, Steve.
Did evenings/MD in Detroit and St. Louis for 10 years. Also a club jock and touring DJ. I haven’t opened a mic in 10 years and still have “The Dream” every other month. Sometimes in the club DJ booth and can’t find the next 12-inch. Sometimes on-the-air and can’t find the next cart – and the previous cart/record is always running out and my boss is always behind me looking over my shoulder. I wake up in a cold sweat every time!
Ah, the dream. It never goes away.
I’ve been having this dream for 11 years, at least twice a week. No mixing board, and a large number of different players. I’m playing mostly vinyl, which I started out with. The boss is behind me while I’m scrambling to find the next song, and most of the albums were void of the record.
I did very well in my career, and these dreams continue to haunt me with thoughts of incompetence.
You’re in good commpany, Paul. Now, get some sleep!