#weirddreams — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

The radio DJ dream is a well-known phenomenon (at least in radio DJ circles). Typically, it involves some variation of the song playing only having 10 seconds left and you have nothing cued up, or the audio console has turned into bread, or coin-operated access devices have been added to the turntables and you don't have any loose change to operate them, etc. Typical worker-bee anxiety fare, only modified for the specifics of the industry.

Two nights ago, I had one which didn't involve DJ-ing per se, but definitely centered around broadcasting themes, so I'm granting it a hall pass for the purpose of this discussion.

I had been hired in some capacity at the big NPR affiliate station in Philadelphia. Upon arrival on my first day, I checked in at the reception desk where I was told to wait for my supervisor, whom we'll call "Jerry".

Jerry appears as per the prophecy. He is dressed like a dork from a lowbrow 1980s screwball comedy. He motions for me to follow him to my new office, so I pick up the trail as he leads me past various offices, studios, and production rooms. Soon, however, the environment changes to a dark warren of dungeon-like stone corridors, with tiny workspaces carved from the rock, each containing a solitary employee either typing furiously on a laptop or recording with a basic mic/audio console rig.

The labyrinthine stone corridors become increasingly narrow, and I find myself having to turn sideways in order to squeeze through them to keep pace with Jerry. In his pursuit, I am frequently forced to climb down rickety ladders or hoist myself up to new platforms, all covered in the same damp residue typically found deep underground.

At one such platform, I pull myself up, but realize there's no way my head is going to squeeze through the natural ingress created by two stone ledges. I express this concern aloud, and Jerry advises that I simply turn my head sideways. I follow his instruction and get my head through the opening, only to discover that my shoulders now face a similar challenge and that I'm unable to twist as required due to the tight squeeze. I attempt to back myself out, but have no success. I am trapped inside of a dark passageway which has cleaved a narrow opening from which I am unable to dislodge my head.

At this point in the story, I should point out that while I've never actually visited the studios of Philly's big NPR affiliate station, I was real-life employed for several years at New York City's equivalent, and getting one's head stuck in a cave was never a routine occurrence, even on bad days.

Jerry is nowhere to be found. I can't see or hear anyone. There's no room for an emergency crew to chisel a wider opening that would allow me to extract myself. As such, I panic to a degree that wakes me up from the dream and I spend the next 40 minutes awake with my heart racing, frantically reassuring myself that I have NOT actually accepted a job in Philadelphia where I will die of exposure / hunger / a heart attack on my first day.

#radio #weirddreams #wnyc #whyy