I don’t know how many people listen to Dreamland on a weekly basis, even myself I don’t always get around to listening every week, but I do have a great appreciation of Dreamland and the Unknown Country site.

In fact it was the Unknown Country site that inspired my blog. I always have made a daily stop there in my strange news search. It would sometimes irritate me that the stories weren’t updated daily and when they were it was still only a couple of news stories, so I decided to make a site that was updated daily and had more stories.

I have heard many people complain about having to subscribe and pay for certain things on unknown country. I think they are a bunch of whiners. A lot of the content on unknown country is completely free. Dreamland is free to anyone who wants to listen and the shows are available for a full month. There are special subscriber only interviews and a few other things that you get only with a subscription. Nobody is forcing anyone to subscribe, but if someone really feels ripped off by not being able to access the subscribers area then it only makes sense that they should feel it is worth paying for. While it would be nice if everything on the internet was free, it wouldn’t create much incentive for someone to run a website like unknown country. Also, I think many people are under the misconception that websites are free. They are free as long as you don’t need a site that thousands of people can visit without it crashing it and are willing to do everything yourself without hiring a webmaster. Also, there is the space issue of keeping hundreds of mp3 on your site.

For those of you new to c2c and Dreamland you may not realize that Dreamland was once Art Bell’s weekend show. It started out with Art and George Knapp hosting. If I remember correctly Knapp didn’t stick around long and Whitley filled in after that. When Art left radio the first time Whitley completely took over the show, but people had a hard time adjusting to life without Art so Dreamland didn’t stay around on the radio for long. Most people would have just given up on Dreamland, but not Whitley he has kept it going all these years.

Like c2c, Dreamland has certain guests who I guess could be described as “favorites” and they are on more often than other guests. These include Jim Marrs, Lawrence Gardner, William Henry and Steven Sora. Recently, Jim Marrs and William Henry have become hosts of Dreamland and they fill in when Whitley is not available.

There are certain people who should not listen to Dreamland because it serves only to make them angry and write hateful things about Whitley on boards all over the internet. For the most part they are what can be referred to as bible thumpers. Bible thumpers have always had a hatred of Whitley because he gives people like Gardner, Henry and Sora a forum to express their views. Their hatred was increased tremendously when Whitley went on c2c with Art one weekend a few months ago and announced that he felt President Bush and crew were misguided Christians trying to bring about the rapture. He also pretty much stated that he didn’t believe in the rapture. Except for Art’s 9/11 show where he dismissed everyone who is involved in the “truth movement” as “wingnuts“, I do not recall a c2c episode causing more of a stir than Whitley did that night. I felt the shockwave on every mailing list I belong to along with every message board I visited. I heard Whitley called everything from snake oil salesman to pawn of Satan. I often wonder why bible thumpers even listen to c2c, let alone Dreamland. After all, there isn’t very much that is discussed that would fit into their fundamentalist view of the world, so I would imagine that many of the shows just end up making them angry.

I became familiar with Whitley not through his alien books or Dreamland, but through his great fiction books such as “The Hunger.” It was years after “Communion” came out that I even knew about that side of him. Whitley still occupies a place in my top ten list of Dark Fantasy (horror if you prefer) writers.

The much hated Whitley as far as I can tell is a nice, intelligent man. Sure he isn’t necessarily what most people would term “normal” because he claims to have been abducted by aliens and has some different views of the world, but that is what makes him interesting. Whitley in my opinion is a great host. He always seems to have really done his homework on whatever topic is being discussed. Many times he seems to know as much about the subject as the actual guest. Also, sometimes Whitley says things that I can’t imagine any other host saying. A while back he made a comment about anal probing that had me ROTFL. It was not something I could ever imagine Noory or even Art saying.

Another good thing about Dreamland is Linda Moulton Howe’s weekly update. Linda cover a vast array of things from crop circles to cancer breakthroughs. I sometimes wish she would summarize what was said rather than run taped interviews, but I guess she wants to make sure everyone knows what the interviewee actually said and that it isn’t just something she made up.

If there was something I could change about Dreamland I would probably make certain shows longer. I mean if Whitley has a really good interview going I don’t see any reason to stop it given that he has unlimited time since he isn’t time slotted on the radio. I know there are probably certain guests who are paid for a certain amount of time, but others I am sure would be willing to talk longer.

Really Dreamland is a show with a lot going for it, a great host, cool guests and it is free. So if you haven’t tuned in yet and you aren’t a fundamentalist Christian, give it a listen you might be pleasantly surprised by what you have been missing.