Two dimmers (for two separate lights) in one junction box where there's only White, Black and Red coming out of the wall
I think you have mis-identified the "hot" wire. Do you have a multimeter? Assuming your box is actually grounded, carefully measure the voltage between the red, black and white wires to the box. If only one has 120 volts on it, then that is your hot wire. If 2 wires have 120 volts, then someone did a bad thing and wired the switches to break the neutral.

Another way to identify which wire is hot is to pull down the light fixtures and examine the wiring. Don't disconnect anything without taking notes about how it was hooked up first!