Charles McPhee
Encyclopedia
Charles Lambert McPhee was a nationally syndicated talk radio host on the CBS Radio Network
. On his call-in program, “The Dream Doctor Show,” which began in 2000, he interpreted dreams for people.
and sleep patterns. He graduated from Princeton University
in 1985. He also held a master’s degree in communication management from the University of Southern California
(1990). He received his board certification to perform polysomnographic
testing for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders in 1992. His dream interpretations and other writings have appeared on the AOL homepage, the Ladies Room and Predictions section of supanet.com, the UK's leading online source for news and information services, and Trader Magazine.
Known as the Dream Doctor, he was the author of three books, an online column, and a magazine column. He hosted the nationally syndicated Dream Doctor Radio Show from 2000–2006. His books included Stop Sleeping Through Your Dreams: A Guide to Awakening Consciousness During Dream Sleep (Henry Holt and Co.
, NY, 1996) and Ask the Dream Doctor: An A to Z Guide to Deciphering the Hidden Symbols of Your Dreams, (Random House
, NY, 2002).
McPhee had been the Director of the Sleep Apnea Patient Treatment Program at the Sleep Disorders Center of Santa Barbara, California
. He had also worked as a coordinator of the Sleep Disorders Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
in Los Angeles
, California, and sleep research laboratory at the National Institute of Mental Health
in Bethesda, Maryland.
He also suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
.
McPhee has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles about dreams and dream interpretation, including The New York Times
and The Wall Street Journal
. In addition to appearing as a dream expert on CNN, he was the host of the popular Dream Doctor Radio Show, heard weeknights for six years across the country, during which he interpreted thousands of dreams.
signed McPhee and moved the show to Atlanta. The show, featuring adult contemporary (AC) music
and four dream interpretations per hour, was expanded to five hours every weeknight. Emanating from flagship WSB-FM (Soft AC), the show was picked up by FM AC music stations in major markets, including Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and Tampa. Cox made was among the first syndicators to provide a customizable FTP version of the show for stations that wanted to play their own music and format the show with more dream interpretations.
The radio stations that ran more dream interpretations did markedly better than those that did not. The show did well, but audience research revealed that there was a problem with the show. The audience far preferred listening to McPhee and his dream interpretations than to the music. In 1994, McPhee's manager, George Oliva, started a radio syndication company, Springhill Syndication, to distribute a version of the show without music. He moved McPhee back to California and launched the new three hour talk show on November 11, 2004. The program was picked up by newstalk, talk, and even music stations in markets that included Houston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, West Palm Beach, Monterrey, and Hartford. A one-minute feature devoted to the meaning of the most common dream symbols played in a number of markets, including New York and Los Angeles. A weekend show expanded the reach of the Dream Doctor to markets that included San Francisco and Hartford.
In March 2006, McPhee became aware of problems with his voice. After a number of tests, he was diagnosed with probable amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
(Lou Gehrig's disease) in June 2006. After the diagnosis was confirmed in August 2006, McPhee announced the news to his audience that he had Bulbar ALS, a severe form of the disease. The final Dream Doctor Radio Show was broadcast on October 20, 2006.
Due to his illness and its increasingly severe physical limitations, McPhee focused his professional efforts on his web site. In August 2009, the site was upgraded. In addition to thousands of free pages of information about dreams and sleep, it now gives users access to audio and video clips of McPhee as well as a unique dream interpretation tool called the Dream Wizard.
CBS Radio Network
The CBS Radio Network provides news, sports and other programming to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by CBS Corporation, and operated by CBS Radio ....
. On his call-in program, “The Dream Doctor Show,” which began in 2000, he interpreted dreams for people.
Life and career
McPhee had worked in the dream and sleep disorder fields for over 25 years. He spent his career studying dreamsDream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
and sleep patterns. He graduated from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in 1985. He also held a master’s degree in communication management from the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
(1990). He received his board certification to perform polysomnographic
Polysomnography
Polysomnography , also known as a sleep study, is a multi-parametric test used in the study of sleep and as a diagnostic tool in sleep medicine. The test result is called a polysomnogram, also abbreviated PSG...
testing for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders in 1992. His dream interpretations and other writings have appeared on the AOL homepage, the Ladies Room and Predictions section of supanet.com, the UK's leading online source for news and information services, and Trader Magazine.
Known as the Dream Doctor, he was the author of three books, an online column, and a magazine column. He hosted the nationally syndicated Dream Doctor Radio Show from 2000–2006. His books included Stop Sleeping Through Your Dreams: A Guide to Awakening Consciousness During Dream Sleep (Henry Holt and Co.
Henry Holt and Company
Henry Holt and Company is an American book publishing company. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt...
, NY, 1996) and Ask the Dream Doctor: An A to Z Guide to Deciphering the Hidden Symbols of Your Dreams, (Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
, NY, 2002).
McPhee had been the Director of the Sleep Apnea Patient Treatment Program at the Sleep Disorders Center of Santa Barbara, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He had also worked as a coordinator of the Sleep Disorders Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Originally established as Kaspare Cohn Hospital in 1902, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a non-profit, tertiary 958-bed hospital and multi-specialty academic health science centre located in Los Angeles, California, US. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California, and sleep research laboratory at the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
in Bethesda, Maryland.
He also suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
.
McPhee has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles about dreams and dream interpretation, including The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
. In addition to appearing as a dream expert on CNN, he was the host of the popular Dream Doctor Radio Show, heard weeknights for six years across the country, during which he interpreted thousands of dreams.
Publications
- Stop Sleeping Through Your Dreams: A Guide to Awakening Consciousness During Dream Sleep (Random House, New York, NY: 2002)
- Ask the Dream Doctor: An A to Z Guide to Deciphering the Hidden Symbols of Your Dreams (Henry Holt and Co., New York, NY: 1996)
- The Dream Doctor Dream Diary (Springhill Syndication LLC, Encino, CA: 2004)
Radio show
McPhee hosted the popular Dream Doctor Radio Show for six years. The show started on KRUZ-FM (HOT AC) in Santa Barbara, California, in 2000. In two years, the show became the #1 show in the market for its time slot for adults aged 25–54. In October 2002, Cox RadioCox Radio
Cox Radio, Inc. is a division of Cox Enterprises that holds a number of radio stations. Cox Radio is headquartered at 6205 Peachtree Dunwoody Road in Sandy Springs, Georgia....
signed McPhee and moved the show to Atlanta. The show, featuring adult contemporary (AC) music
Adult contemporary music
Adult contemporary music is a broad style of popular music that ranges from lush 1950s and 1960s vocal music to predominantly ballad-heavy music with varying degrees of rock influence, as well as a radio format that plays such music....
and four dream interpretations per hour, was expanded to five hours every weeknight. Emanating from flagship WSB-FM (Soft AC), the show was picked up by FM AC music stations in major markets, including Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and Tampa. Cox made was among the first syndicators to provide a customizable FTP version of the show for stations that wanted to play their own music and format the show with more dream interpretations.
The radio stations that ran more dream interpretations did markedly better than those that did not. The show did well, but audience research revealed that there was a problem with the show. The audience far preferred listening to McPhee and his dream interpretations than to the music. In 1994, McPhee's manager, George Oliva, started a radio syndication company, Springhill Syndication, to distribute a version of the show without music. He moved McPhee back to California and launched the new three hour talk show on November 11, 2004. The program was picked up by newstalk, talk, and even music stations in markets that included Houston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, West Palm Beach, Monterrey, and Hartford. A one-minute feature devoted to the meaning of the most common dream symbols played in a number of markets, including New York and Los Angeles. A weekend show expanded the reach of the Dream Doctor to markets that included San Francisco and Hartford.
In March 2006, McPhee became aware of problems with his voice. After a number of tests, he was diagnosed with probable amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
(Lou Gehrig's disease) in June 2006. After the diagnosis was confirmed in August 2006, McPhee announced the news to his audience that he had Bulbar ALS, a severe form of the disease. The final Dream Doctor Radio Show was broadcast on October 20, 2006.
Web site
McPhee launched www.dreamdoctor.com in 1997. It was among the first sites on the Internet devoted entirely to providing credible information about dreams and sleep. Through it, he had amassed the largest database of dreams in the world. With it, he broke their code. Taking a scientific approach to dream interpretation and understanding, he used the database to arrive at his findings about dreams, all of which are evidenced in his writings, radio show, and web site. He concluded that everyone dreams in the same language of dream symbols, regardless of age, gender, geography, culture, religion, or native language. As all languages evolve and are influenced by contextual realities ranging from personal experience to regionalisms, so, contended McPhee, does the language of dreams. He added that what makes every dream unique and specific to the dreamer is the waking life background that generated the dream.Due to his illness and its increasingly severe physical limitations, McPhee focused his professional efforts on his web site. In August 2009, the site was upgraded. In addition to thousands of free pages of information about dreams and sleep, it now gives users access to audio and video clips of McPhee as well as a unique dream interpretation tool called the Dream Wizard.
Awards and reviews
- InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
Top Ten Site (June 19, 1998) - "What's New ... On the Web" Yahoo pick of the Day (June 4, 1998)
- Cool Stuff on the Net Award (June 14, 1998)
- Eye on the Web's Daily Top Site (June 19, 1998)
- Dummies Daily, Web after Five (June 29, 1998)
- ZDTV Internet Tonight (October 8, 1998)