The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Hey ex-radio types...do you still get "the dream"?

**Posted by BowmanvilleBob** March 25, 2025 7:52 am

Although it's been two decades since I was last on the air in a professional capacity, I still have dreams about my radio days.

This article, while a little flowery at times in its description, puts a bit of perspective on this phenomenon for ex-radio types.

https://radioink.com/2025/03/24/steve-allan-rdi-the-radio-dream/

**Posted by RadioActive** March 25, 2025 9:28 am

Yes, I've had that dream a lot, although not for many years. My version was I was in the station alone on a night shift and nothing worked - not the mic, not the computers, not the back-up turntables, not the carts (both of which they had in those days), nothing.

All I could hear was the hum of dead air and no way to fill it.

Oddly, I never had a dream about TV, although I spent more years in that medium than in radio.

**Posted by turkeytop** March 25, 2025 10:48 pm

It's a real thing. I never worked in broadcating, but I still have dreams about the profession from which I retired fifteen years ago.

**Posted by Marsden** March 25, 2025 10:54 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Yes, I've had that dream a lot, although not for many years. My version was I was in the station alone on a night shift and nothing worked - not the mic, not the computers, not the back-up turntables, not the carts (both of which they had in those days), nothing.

All I could hear was the hum of dead air and no way to fill it.

Oddly, I never had a dream about TV, although I spent more years in that medium than in radio.

Dream? :-)

Last edited by Marsden (March 25, 2025 10:54 pm)

**Posted by Buzzy Krumhunger** March 26, 2025 7:22 am

Dreams? Nope.
Nightmares? Hugh Betcha.
For some reason I’m wandering the hallways, years after I left the station, and is pulled into the studio and told to start doing the show as nobody else in the building is able. Touchscreens? Sliders not pots? Why are spots on a different touchscreen? Where’s the paper log?
I didn’t even know where the microphone on/off button was located. Not that I had anything interesting to say.
The only saving grace was that the nightmare didn’t sound all that different from what’s being broadcast over the station these days.

**Posted by JohnWJones** March 26, 2025 8:59 am

At least once a month... I'm always in the control rooms at either CFNY or CHFI.

**Posted by betaylored** March 26, 2025 2:02 pm

I regularly have the dream where I'm in a familiar booth and only have the two albums to fill an entire show. The wall unit of multiple wooden squares that is usually overflowing with vinyl is bare.

The other dream I started having a few years ago when I was playing around with the idea of getting into voiceover again. I'm standing in a small booth in front of the mic with the copy on the stand and wearing headphones, feeling confident and ready to go. I open my mouth to start the read and realize I have an entire mouthful of sickenly sweet bubblegum. I pull a huge string of the pink stuff out of my mouth but even though I keep pulling out more and more gum I can't get it all out. Weird....

**Posted by newsguy1** March 26, 2025 2:05 pm

I have had the radio anxiety dream or dreams for many years.
I'm in a radio station and am about 20 minutes away from news time.
I have nothing written and I can't find a proper work station with a keyboard.
Even paper is non existent.
I keep looking at the clock and it is edging closer to the top of the hour and I realize I can't make it.
If there are people in the room nobody can help me.
There are numerous variations of this scenario.
On a related REM experience, I am back in university and I realize I never graduated.
Plus I have no idea what classes I am taking or where they are supposed to be.
I also have the dream of being back in high school, except as the age that I am now.
But nobody seems to notice.
Also when I try to go to a class the room is always full with no seats left., so I end up wandering around.
There is also a dream where I find I have joined the military, usually the Navy, and I have no idea why I did that, and start trying to figure out how to get out of it.
I must be really messed up.

**Posted by paterson1** March 26, 2025 2:28 pm

I still do quite often. Either I am on air, song is coming to an end, nothing cued up ready to go and I wing it while trying to put the commercials in the cart machine. Or I am trying to cue up the next record while doing the weather.

In sales it is always forgetting about a big presentation for a new client which happens in about an hour and I have nothing prepared.

**Posted by Paul Jeffries** **Online!** March 26, 2025 6:56 pm

I have the dream too, where I'm in the on-air studio and the record is running out and I don't have another one cued up, so I turn on the microphone and start blabbering away to fill up space (kind of like my real-life radio persona...lol). I furiously cue up the next record, hoping I've got the needle in the right spot.

Which is rather unusual, because during my tenure in radio, CD cart machines were in wide use by then and anything that was only available on vinyl was generally dubbed to tape carts.

PJ

**Posted by mic'em** March 27, 2025 6:37 am

Yes, I have had those nightmarish dreams as well. But , then I wake up and realize reality is even worse.

**Posted by jon** March 29, 2025 4:20 pm

In December, I celebrated 50 years since my last "air shift". And I still get "The Dream".