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PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION AC Insider Your New Late Night Dream Team By Mike Kinosian You probably do it at least once every night. Some experiences are memorable, however the majority are usually quickly forgotten. I’m talking, of course, about dreams. Business Is About To Pick Up AC programmers for -- as Billy Joel would say -- “the longest time” would simply close their eyes and grimace about the subject of nighttime programming. They’d hope a Love Songs-type show would draw enough interest to post, at least, respectable numbers. In 19 of 20 cases, AC PDs knew there was virtually no chance of mirroring at night what their listen-at-work stations would do during midday and afternoon drive hours. Then seemingly like magic, Delilah came along and solved many AC stations’ evening woes and concerns. John Tesh is now literally days away from getting into the latenight fray, promising an interesting head-to-head battle in the format’s once abandoned daypart. But it won’t be a two-way contest. After success on Cox-owned
ACs WFLC/Miami, WSB-FM/Atlanta, and WWRM/Tampa and Cox Hot ACs KSMG/San
Antonio and KRAV/Tulsa, Cox Radio Syndication is rolling out the Dream
Doctor Show, featuring dream expert Charles McPhee. “This show makes
nighttime radio relevant again,” declares Cox Radio Syndication Managing
Director Paul Douglas. It’s actually
estimated that 50% of us have lucid dreams at one time or another. “It’s
a skill that can be cultivated by keeping a dream journal and putting
attention to it,” remarks McPhee, who is writing a soon-to-be published
Random House book. “You’ve probably had a dream where something
so crazy or frightening happened that -- just before you woke up -- you
thought this can’t be real. That’s the introduction of consciousness
into the dreamscape. But it gets better from there, because you can learn
how to prolong it.” Sweet Dreams The show’s genesis can be traced to Santa Barbara, CA, where McPhee hosted a public access television show about dream interpretations. “I did man-on-the-street interviews; the show was on every two weeks.” A caller to Hot AC KRUZ/Santa Barbara’s morning show said he had a funny dream and talked about it on the air. McPhee picks up the rest of the story. “[Another person] who watched the TV show called in and said that person should [contact] me and ask what the dream meant. I did the morning show and was doing nights five months later.” KRUZ’s nighttime ratings skyrocketed and McPhee felt the next step should be to take the show into national syndication. “Cox received our promo kit last August and it made it all the way up to [Cox Radio President/CEO] Bob Neil. Westwood One was also
interested, but we thought Cox was a great place to grow the show. That’s
proven to be our experience. We’re delighted to be here and feel
we have a very good group of people. It’s a lot of fun. It seems
the show always evolves and changes. We have a good sense of community
with our audience.” Separating Fact From Fiction I admit that I was one of those who’d bought into the theory that, if you die in your dream, you actually die. It was explained to me that your heart couldn’t survive the stress. But as McPhee points out, “That’s absolutely false -- totally bogus. People die in their dreams all the time. It’s a scary metaphor, but it’s a common symbol in dreams.” Anxiety causes us to awake just before reaching a wicked end. “The dream is actually getting so powerful and vivid that it startles us out of sleep. You can’t distinguish a dreaming brain from an `awake’ brain. It lets you know how much activity is going on in the brain when we dream. It’s sort of a miracle. The body does a lot of things to keep us asleep during a dream.” Some people try to forget what happened in a dream and others just don’t care. But another significant group of people take dream journaling quite seriously. “Women talk more openly about their feelings,” says McPhee, who is developing a dream-related product line with Hasbro. “Dreams are emotional and leave you with an emotional hangover or curiosity. It’s my experience that women value their dreams more than men and talk about them more openly.” Estimating that callers to his nightly program tend to be 65% women/35% men, McPhee says demos for the Dream Doctor Show run the gamut. “I’m very pleased that we regularly get 10-year olds calling. Mothers are giving kids the cell phone in the car to talk about their dreams. We’ve created enough security for parents to trust us to handle calls about a dream with their child. Great-grandmothers, doctors and lawyers also call. We talk with every spectrum of society, which is one of the charms of the show.” People can voyeuristically look and listen to people’s lives and, as McPhee notes, “It’s also a reflection that we all share dreams in common.” But some people have strange beliefs about their dreams. “You wonder what happens to intelligent, educated people. They’re concerned that, if their teeth fall out in a dream, someone close to them will die in 10 years. They can’t possibly believe something like that.” Many consider it a no-no to touch a dead person in a dream, but McPhee disagrees. “That’s a way of closure for people who know someone who dies suddenly. People also experience frustration that they can’t touch people.” Fantasy Versus Reality Coming from a clinical background, McPhee’s goal is to de-mystify dreams. “This show is much more about reality than fantasy. I try to bring some superstitious beliefs down to a more practical level so we can understand what’s going on. Dreams of the deceased are normal. The informative part [of the show] is to figure out why and what emotions that may not be fully conscious are being expressed by the dream.” Recurring dreams are also very common and, in certain cases, it’s a reflection of unresolved emotional situations in the dreamer’s life. “A very common dream is of test-taking,” McPhee says. “You’re back in college or high school and you’re unprepared to take a test. That just reflects ongoing feelings in your waking life that you’re being challenged and you don’t know whether you’re going to make the grade or graduate to the next level. The current situation is reminding you of how we used to feel when we were very nervous.” A “Top 10” list of most frequently asked Dream Doctor Show questions doesn’t yet exist. One topic, however, worthy enough of prompting many people to call is death. “They want to know if they’re going to die or if a dream can be pre-cognitive. It may be losing control of a car or being in car with no brakes. Dreams of pregnancy are very common and relatively normal, but also very perplexing when literal concerns aren’t on your mind.” Also typical are dreams of water and tidal waves. “They signify large waves of emotion,” remarks McPhee. “If you experience a lot of tidal wave dreams, it’s a tumultuous period in your life emotionally. You feel overwhelmed and that you may not survive.” Conversely, sex isn’t a big topic. “It does come up, but I’m pleased that the show isn’t shock radio,” McPhee remarks. “Many radio and TV shows use that as a crutch, but we don’t. I find that’s a very refreshing aspect of the show. The Sci-Fi Channel did a show on dreams and completely blew it. They missed the whole intrinsic value of dreams. I’m glad that we’re succeeding without pandering.” Many have attempted to make dream interpretation somewhat mystical. But McPhee stresses, “I’ve been careful to separate the show from astrology and horoscopes. I’m an expert in sleep disorders at a clinical level. What we’re doing is very new and grounded in a clinical background and is much more compelling." Ready For The Battle McPhee says he “absolutely” views Delilah as a competitor. “I like our show because we’re more reality-based. Our listeners want help with reality.”
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