Have You Ever Had a Job Related Nightmare

I'm pretty sure that job related nightmares are not restricted to folks in the radio industry. I've often wondered if people in other professions have nightmares about their jobs. For example, do attorneys dream that they have an important case, but they show up in court with nothing at all prepared? Do carpenters dream that they finish a big project and the whole thing is off by a few inches? Well, let me tell you about a very common nightmare among radio people.

The first thing you need to know to understand this nightmare is the term "dead air." Sort of sounds like a nightmare itself, and it can be. "Dead air" is when there is silence on the air. No talk, no music, nothing. It's a real no-no in the radio industry. In fact, I've talked with several people in the industry and the shared nightmare involves dead air.

Several times I've dreamed that I was on the air doing a show when, suddenly, I realized the song playing was about to end. The song has only a few seconds left to play when I realize that I don't have another song ready and I can't think of anything to say to fill the time. That's when the dream get really weird.

I go searching for another song to play and either I can't find any music at all or all of the music in the control room consists of CD's by people I've never even heard of. Once I dreamed that the control room was in one location and the music was in a completely different part of the building. Now, it doesn't sound so bad in writing, but in the middle of a dream, it's guaranteed that you'll wake up in a panic.

I also have appeared in quite a few plays and the common nightmare related to that is showing up for what you think is a rehearsal only to find out that it's not a rehearsal at all, it's opening night! You not only don't know your lines, you're not real sure what the play is even about.

In the dream, I go in search of a script (like I'm going to learn all my lines before the curtain goes up), but no one has a copy of the script since they all know their lines and are all set to go. Just as someone calls, "places everybody" you finally wake up in a panic.

So, do you have nightmares about nothing going right in your job? I think it would be interesting to do a study on job related nightmares. Share yours with us.