Behind the Scenes of Ba Dum Tess: My sleep paralysis demon is your twin!
Okay. To be honest, the scariest episode we ever recorded was ‘Dreams.’ First of all, it’s easy to bore people with talk of dreams. They are such a personal experience, and we all know the feeling of having to listen to a person telling you about their dream and “there were people from my past I could barely remember, they were wearing green which is weird because I’ve been thinking about the color green a lot recently…”
You get it. It’s like, I’m sure that’s interesting to you, the dreamer, but dreaming is already such a luxurious use of time in a world where we have to be working and grinding. It’s like, what am I gonna gain from a conversation about your personal dreams? And I hate that mindset, I really do. I would love to live, constantly, in a dream-like state; always open to hearing about others’ nighttime wanderings, seeing the world through a rosy lens. Unfortunately, it is unreasonable in this economy. Lucky for you, you can spend an hour in the dream world with the third episode of the Ba Dum Tess Podcast.
Any idiot can dream. But it takes a really brave “hero type” to make a podcast episode about them.
This episode is good for dreamers, for nondreamers, for aspiring dreamers. It’s also for people who are fans of Kristina (so everyone) and want to hear about her dreams and help them come true (also everyone).
What’s great about Kristina as a guest for this particular episode is that she has dreams of all kinds. She has goals, she has aspirations, and she also sleeps so she has that kind of dream as well.
We marvel. How can one person do it all so well? Shorty runs the GOLD community. Shorty runs the open mic game in Boston. I really debated for which episode we wanted Kristina because I felt she could bring a lot to any subject matter and I’ve never not laughed when interacting with her.
In the hopes of not spiraling down to back and forth sharing our dreams, we addressed the elephant in the room with a segment we like to call, “Let’s get blunt, weed does not put you into REM sleep.” Everybody knows that weed affects your sleep and your dreams, but nobody was brave enough to talk about it, until Ba Dum Tess. Kristina, the resident fearful little lady of GOLD, shares first-person accounts of the dreams that tend to arise when she has to take a ‘T-break.’ (Here we must acknowledge that Trina did not know what a T-break was because we’re cutie little innocents in this crazy world. <3)
I am personally fascinated with dreams because they are so informative to the waking world. I get a little dissociated sometimes you know? It makes life feel a little scary just in the sense that you can’t tell what is real and why anything matters. (lol)
So it’s like…as I said…we didn’t want this episode to feel like Trina and me just sharing our dreams back and forth…but we did have access to a dream interpreter, so we couldn’t pass up that opportunity.
Oak Red is a theater friend of Kristina’s, (see how beautiful the GOLD community is?) and they really bring dreams to reality. Like, literally. They weave dream catchers.
When I heard that I personally screamed inside I was like, “AH! Did we just make the perfect podcast episode?” Throughout the episode, you can hear Oak’s bangles and bracelets shaking. Some may think this is a hit to our “sound” “quality” but we think it’s a hit FOR our “soul” “quality.” Oak is like the concept of dreams became a person. Their voice is so soft and wispy – if you needed an episode to fall asleep to, this would be it. (Although the next day you should relisten while awake so you don’t miss a moment.)
So anyway, we ask Oak what our dreams are all about, and I won’t give any spoilers here, but let’s just say I’m gonna be in therapy for the next few years.
Oak says that “Dreams are a form of language.” That really speaks to me. I do believe that dreams are trying to tell you things, even if it’s just an alternate point of view or something you’ve never considered. It’s hard to give dreams attention because we have a lot going on in reality. But perhaps if people gave a little more time to their nightly wanderings, they would feel different about their waking life. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.
P.S.
In the wise words of Trina, “We’re all here to listen to podcasts for the tangents.” Tangents in this episode include (but are not limited to):
- the Great Molasses Flood of 1919
- Trina’s favorite classical musician
- my dreams impregnated Rhianna
