Charles McPhee
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Charles Lambert McPhee (April 24, 1962 – May 8, 2011) was a researcher, author, and nationally syndicated talk radio host. On his call-in program, "The Dream Doctor Show", which began in 2000, he interpreted dreams for people. He was a nephew of best-selling author
John McPhee John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American author. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourt ...
.


Life and career

McPhee had worked in the dream and sleep disorder fields for over 25 years. He spent his career studying
dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensation (psychology), sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around ...
s and sleep patterns. He graduated from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
in 1985. He also held a
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...
in
communication management Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization and between organizations. It also includes the organization and dissemination of new commun ...
from the
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
(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 A radio program, radio programme, or radio show is a segment of content intended for broadcast on radio. It may be a one-time production, or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode. Radio netw ...
from 2000 to 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 Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
, NY, 2002). He also had two daughters, Celia and Ella McPhee. McPhee had been the Director of the Sleep Apnea Patient Treatment Program at the Sleep Disorders Center of Santa Barbara,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. He had also worked as a coordinator of the Sleep Disorders Center at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a non-profit, Tertiary referral hospital, tertiary, 915-bed teaching hospital and multi-specialty academic health science centre, academic health science center located in Los Angeles, California. Part of the Cedars ...
in
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, California, and sleep research laboratory at the
National Institute of Mental Health The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primar ...
in Bethesda, Maryland. McPhee died at the age of forty nine, about five years after being diagnosed with
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, Terminal illness, terminal neurodegenerative disease, neurodegenerative disorder that results i ...
."Radio’s ‘Dream Doctor’ in a Nightmare Illness"
'' The New York Times '' Article on 2nd October 2006, accessed December 31, 2010. McPhee has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles about dreams and dream interpretation, including ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' and ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
''. 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 Radio CMG Media Corporation (doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company p ...
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 2004, 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.


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

*
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
Top Ten Site (June 19, 1998) * "What's New ... On the Web"
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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 TechTV was an American cable television channel with a focus on technology. It was launched as ZDTV on May 11, 1998, by computer magazine publisher Ziff-Davis following two short-lived technology-based programs by the company. Initially target ...
Internet Tonight (October 8, 1998)


References


External links


Dream Doctor Website










* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090819115713/http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msnbc&fg=email&vid=e18b4d12-749a-4e48-9bdd-85f4cb7e09fe&from=00 Charles McPhee featured on The Today Show, NBC {{DEFAULTSORT:McPhee, Charles Lambert 1962 births 2011 deaths American psychology writers American male non-fiction writers American talk radio hosts Deaths from motor neuron disease in California