Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories - Bedtime in the Antique Toy Store

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Starting point is 00:01:27 and sign up, follow the link for Get Sleepy Premium in the show notes, or you can subscribe directly with in Apple podcasts. Thanks so much for your support. Welcome to Get Sleepy, where we listen, we relax and we get sleepy. My name is Tom and I'm your host, thanks for tuning in. Tonight's story is about a charming old toy shop where visitors can play, be creative, and of course, dream. This is a place you may have heard of before, the antique toy store from one of our previous episodes. But no worries if you haven't listened to that one, you'll be able to enjoy this in its own right. From the outside, the antique toy store doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary, but spend some time inside, and you'll soon realize that this shop is sprinkled with magic and enchanting surprises wait for you on every shelf and behind

Starting point is 00:02:49 every door. Now then, let's take some time to warm wind and calm the body and mind. As you lay in bed, just begin with a few deep breaths in your own time. And just watch the airflow, the way the body moves with the breath, and any subtle change in the way you feel after each exhale. Hopefully a gradual sense of calm and stillness will begin to flow through your body is calm and relaxed, pay attention to your thoughts. I want you to imagine that each of your thoughts is a brightly coloured marble. Pick up one marble. Look at it for a moment. Then place it into a velvet bag.

Starting point is 00:04:19 There, you've put that thought away for the night. Now, pick up the next marble and do the same thing again. One marble, after another, collect all your thoughts and place them gently into the back. Then place the bag on a wooden shelf. Now your mind is clear and the thoughts of your day have been stowed safely away. As you step back from the shelf you notice that it holds many more things beside your bag of marbles. You can see old teddy bears with shiny buttons for eyes, tin wind up toys, a dull dressed like a ballerina, red and yellow striped spinning tops, bright toy steam trains, and a tiny fuzzy family of toy mice. This shelf is filled with wonderful old toys. You step slowly back. You see that this shelf is just one shelf in an entire wall that is covered from floor to ceiling with shelves of toys. And this wall is just

Starting point is 00:06:50 one small section in a maze of hallways and rooms that together make up an old toy store. store. Every way you look, you see toys. Outside the store's wide glass windows, you see a cobbled street lined with charming old buildings. At the front of the shop stands a sign. Through the glass you can just make out its elegant gold letters. They read Dreamland. The shop is filled with people, young and old. In fact, it is quite crowded, but crowded in a cheerful way. Everyone is pointing, laughing and exclaiming over the beautifully made toys that fill the shop.

Starting point is 00:08:07 There are all the toys you might expect to see in a place like this. Teddy bears and tin soldiers, model aeroplanes and miniature cars, stuffed animals of every sort, from elephants to zebras, and dolls dressed in frilly, lacy frogs. But there are other toys too, the likes of which you have never seen before. In among the shelves, you spy clockwork lions and tigers, and even clockwork chimpanzees, holding Tim bananas in their hands. You open a music box, expecting to find a spinning doll inside. But instead, you find an entire underwater scene, with slippery clockwork whales and fish and eels, all swimming in a tiny ocean. You see wooden rocking horses, and beside them are heard of rocking unicorns

Starting point is 00:09:32 with tails that sparkle and horns carved from shiny gold. You come across one barrel labeled simply magic eggs. When you peer inside, you see eggs of all shapes and sizes. Some are speckled, some are sparkly, and some are wobbling too and fro as if they are about to hatch. Another box is filled with spectacles in every kind of colour. You place a pair on your nose and gasp. These are kaleidoscope spectacles, and when you look through them, you see the toy store through a swirling lens of colours and patterns. You pull on another pair. These take all of the colour out of the shop and make you feel like you're in an old fashioned black and white movie.

Starting point is 00:10:55 The air is filled with toys as well. When you look up, you see clockwork dragons that breathe little puffs of fire and toy hot air balloons and brightly coloured mechanical parrots and even a floating model of the solar system. Here and there, the maze of shelves is interrupted by a wonderful display. A giant toy lily pond is filled with toy orange fish. Mechanical green frogs bounce from lily pad to lily pad. You see an enormous toad stall with fairy doles and stuffed deer and foxes, picnicking under the shade of its red filled with doles. Some baking cakes in the toy kitchen, others pruning the roses in the garden, and there are doles reading books in the toy library.

Starting point is 00:12:29 You could stay in this wonderful store forever, you think, and never run out of things to see, or toys to play with. But suddenly, the tinkling sound of a bell fills the shop. The customers begin to gather their bags and make their final selections. It is nearly closing time. One by one, the customers line up at the counter. You watch as a grandmother buys a rocking unicorn for her granddaughter. Two boys buy a doll dressed as a witch.

Starting point is 00:13:21 One child buys a toy elephant that is twice as big as they are. Another child purchases a clockwork ladybird, so small that it's almost invisible. Soon, you are the last person left in the store. You make your way slowly to the door, sorry to leave. But as your hand is on the door knob, the man behind the counter calls to you in a soft, gentle voice. He asks if you'd like to stay for a while. Yes, you say excitedly, you would. The man tells you his name is Adam. You follow him through the store as he dusts the shelves and dims the lights and returns all the stray toys to their proper places. As he packs away the store,

Starting point is 00:14:40 Adam tells you about his life. His mother and father and his grandparents before them, and even his great-grandmother and great-grandfather were toy makers, he says. In fact, his family have always been toy makers. Adam grew up watching his loved ones make beautiful toys. His first memories are of sitting in the toy workshop watching long, curlicues of sawdust float down to the floor while his father carved a wooden doll. As he grew up, he learned how to create his own toys.

Starting point is 00:15:35 Soon he delighted in making toys so wonderful, so fantastical that some of his customers wondered if he was a magician. Adam reaches into his waistcoat and pulls out an old-fashioned pocket watch. His mouth falls open. He tells you he was caught up in conversation and hadn't realized quite how late it was. He has tickets to see the orchestra and he must leave now or he won't make it to the concert in time. But there's one very important job that still needs to be done in the toy store. He looks at you and lifts an eyebrow. Would you be able to do this job for him? You not agreeingly. You're happy to help Adam. He leads you to the counter and takes

Starting point is 00:16:53 a heavy brass key from behind the till. He opens a padlocked drawer and pulls out a sack tied with a ribbon. Stenciled letters across the front of the sack read sleep dust. Every night explains Adam. He sprinkles sleep dust over the toys to put them to bed. If they don't get enough sleep, the toys won't wake up bright and shiny, already for the children to come and play with them tomorrow. All you need to do says Adam is sprinkle a tiny bit of sleep dust into your open palm and gently blow it over the toys. Within seconds they will be fast asleep. Adam thanks you for doing this job for him, then leaves you holding the sack of sleep dust.

Starting point is 00:18:12 On his way out the door, he turns to you with a wink and says that before you put the toys to bed, you're welcome to play with anything in the shop. Then he sets off to the concert. You hear him walk down the street, humming a few bars of classical music. The humming grows fainter and fainter. You turn around, taking in every corner of the darkened And for tonight you have it all to yourself. You place the sleep dust safely back in the drawer. There is plenty of time to put the toys to bed. Adam won't be back from the orchestra until after midnight.

Starting point is 00:19:26 For now, you want to explore. First, you try on some more, and others make everything sparkle. Another pair makes the scene around you look very long and squiggly, like you are looking in a carnival mirror, which is very funny because it makes you feel a little dizzy. You take them off and instead begin to look through the magic eggs. You pick out an egg that is speckled blue and green. It feels nice and heavy in your palm and it twitches a little, like it's about to hatch. You watch it carefully for a while, but nothing happens.

Starting point is 00:20:42 And in the meantime meantime you see frogs splashing and fish jumping in the toy lily pond. So you put the egg safely in your pocket and run to the pond, you copy the frogs, leaping from lily pad to lily pad. You try and jump the highest, but the frogs always leap just a little bit higher than you do. At last, you come to a stop on the biggest lily pad of all. This one has a flower bud tightly closed at its centre. As you sit there, you notice the bud is slowly starting to unfoul. You watch as pale pink petal after pale pink petal, a beautiful clockwork water lily unfoul you wander over to the rocking horses. First you ride a rocking horse, then a rocking zebra, and finally you take a turn on one of

Starting point is 00:22:21 the sparkly, rocking unicorns. You sway back and forth, faster and faster, until you feel almost like you aren't just rocking back and forth anymore, but galloping through the store with a breeze ruffling through your hair. You look around, toys fly past on the shelves. You realize your unicorn has freed itself from its rocker. It is cantering around the store with you on its back. Past the dolls in their house, and the wooden chest filled with teddy bears. Past the toy pirate ship with a jolly Roger flag fluttering between its sails. And past a basket of toy kittens, each with a silver bell hung round its neck on a velvet

Starting point is 00:23:35 ribbon. When you ride past the giant toad stall, one of the bears picnicking beneath invites you to join them. You stumble off the unicorn in surprise. You didn't know bears could talk. All toys can, says the bear, whose name is Augustus. At least all the toys in this shop can. But they can only talk at night, after the shop is closed and the lights are dimmed. You go and sit beside Augustus, joining a merry group of fairy dolls, teddy bears, and gnomes in fuzzy red hats. They pass plates and tea cups between them, all empty of course, because toys only eat pretend food and share stories.

Starting point is 00:24:50 They talk about all the customers that came in that day and discuss which toys were chosen to have a home of their own away from the store. They remember stories their grandparents and great-grandparents told them about the children they had once lived with at long ago times in faraway lands. They recall stories about Adam too. They tell you how he bakes birthday cakes for every toy in the shop, and sometimes takes a toy out into the town in his pocket for a special adventure. And about the time he built an enormous magical castle in his workshop for all the toys in the store to play with. You love hearing all the stories about Adam, but eating all this pretend food is making you feel a little hungry.

Starting point is 00:26:11 is making you feel a little hungry. Orgustus hears your stomach rumbling. Why don't you visit the gingerbread house, he asks. He leads you through the labyrinth of shelves until you come to a miniature forest made of carved wooden trees with painted leaves. You wander through the forest until you come to a cottage. The cottage is made of dark crumbly gingerbread. It's doors and windows are drawn on with a zingy lemon icing. And for decoration, it is covered with all your favourite sweets. You break off a piece of gingerbread. It is soft and chewy with just the right amount of spice. You eat slowly, savoring the rich dark taste of the gingerbread and the tangy sweet icing. Every now and then, you choose a piece of candy and crunch it beneath your teeth. Everything tastes delicious. You are feeling nice and full when you hear the chime of a koku clock. You drop the peppermint stick you

Starting point is 00:27:49 are crunching on and disappearing back into his clock. The time is 11pm and all the toys still need to be put to bed before Adam returns at midnight. You hurry back to the counter and find the bag of sleep dust. Then just as Adam showed you, you go from shelf to shelf, tipping the dust into your palm and gently blowing it over each toy. The dust is soft and powdery and it glitters like moonlight. Every handful you tip into your palm comes out a slightly different colour. And when you blow it, you hear the faintest chiming melody, like the sound of a song being played very far away. You blow the sleep dust onto dolls dressed Dolls dressed like ballerinas and figurines dressed like pirates. One by one, their eyes fall shut.

Starting point is 00:29:35 Some of them wear a smile on their face, looking like they are already lost in pleasant dreams. You blow the dust over the clockwork frogs and fish in the lily pond. They curl up beneath the lily pants and start to snooze. One by one you send the rocking horses to sleep. Then the unicorns too. You give each one a good night pat on their sparkly horns. You move on to the teddy bears. One at a time they stretch their furry arms and legs, open their mouths into big yawns,

Starting point is 00:30:36 then drift off to sleep. When you come to Augustus the Bear, you reach your hand into the sack of sleep dust and your fingers brush against the bottom of the sack. It is empty. You've used all the dust. You look around the store. There's still a whole shelf of toys who need to be put to sleep. You remember what Adam told you. Each toy needs a good night's sleep, so it can be bright and shiny for all tomorrow's customers. Augustus tells you gently not to worry. He sure there's more sleep dust in Adam's special workshop. He offers to show you the way. You follow him through the darkened store until you come to a bookshelf, almost hidden behind

Starting point is 00:31:57 the very back shelves. It is lined with old leather-bound books. Augustus reaches up for a thick book with a red cover. Gold letters on the book's spine spell out the title, Secrets of the Master Toymakers. As Augustus pulls the book, you realize it isn't a book at all, but a lever. Your mouth drops in wonder as a secret doorway opens in the bookcase to reveal a wide room that smells like resin and wood shavings. You step inside. This Augustus tells you his Adam's workshop. He spends hours and hours in here, testing out new and fantastic toys. Everywhere you look, you can see Adam's wonderful inventions.

Starting point is 00:33:20 On his work table, you see a clockwork cherry tree. Every few seconds, a fluffy pink blossom slowly leaves the tree's branches and drifts towards the table. Next to the cherry tree is a toy theatre, covered with green velvet curtains. Two wind up bluebirds lift the curtains and music starts to play. One by one a troop of graceful dancing swans, each wearing a white tutu, leaps onto the stage. Together, they perform a miniature ballet. There are paintings of teddy bears hung on the workroom walls. As you look at one, it raises its arm and waves hello to you. You could spend hours in Adam's workroom admiring his creations. But you have an important job to do. You begin to look for the sleep dust. You check under the table. You open all the cupboards and drawers. You inspect every corner of the workroom, but there is no sleep dust to be found.

Starting point is 00:35:09 You turn to Augustus. He looks at you with a shrug. He hasn't found any sleep dust either. Just as you were wondering what to do next, you hear someone politely clearing their throat. You look up at the painted teddy bear on the wall. He winks when he catches your eye. Then, he points upwards. You see a shelf nailed very high on the wall. It is piled with sacks, each labeled, sleep dust. At first you are happy that you found the dust, but you soon realise you won't be able to reach the shelf on your own.

Starting point is 00:36:15 Together, you and Augustus hatch a plan. You will climb on the bear's shoulders. But even standing on Augustus, you are not tall enough to reach the shelf. You drag a chair away from Adam's work table. Augustus climbs up on the chair, then you climb up on his shoulders. You stretch your arms out as far as they can go. Your fingers are so close to the sleep dust, but you still can't quite reach. You climb down from the chair. Or gustous frowns trying to think of what to do next. As you are standing, staring at the shelf and wondering how you will reach it.

Starting point is 00:37:27 You feel a strange twitching in your pocket. You reach inside and pull out the magic egg. You had almost forgotten it was in there, but now it is rocking from side to side. Soon enough, a tiny crack appears in its sparkly blue shell. The crack turns bigger and deeper, a man with a pop, the egg hatches. A tiny red air of plane flies out and begins loop to looping in the air above you. While you watch the plane, something strange begins to happen. With every loop it makes, it grows a little bigger. It loops towards the ceiling, then back down again, growing bigger and bigger each time.

Starting point is 00:38:51 When it lands on the floor by your feet, it is just big enough for you to climb in. Next to you, there is a passenger seat for Augustus. E climbs in too. Now, you know exactly how you can reach the sleep dust. Hold tight, you tell Augustus, then you push the control marked up. You lift off the ground and saw up to the shelf. You reach out and pull down a sack filled with sleep dust. Then you guide the plane out of the workroom. The secret bookcase door closes behind you. The plane engine wears. You pick up speed. You and Augustus are soaring through the

Starting point is 00:40:09 toy store now. Past all the clockwork, parrots and dragons and floating planets that drift in the air between the shelves. As you go past, you sprinkle a little dust on each one. The dragons and parrots fold their wings and settle in the ease to sleep for the night. The planets turn dark and stop spinning. When you reach the chest filled with teddy bears, you say goodnight to Augustus and shower sleep dust over his eyes. He yorns and thanks you for a wonderful adventure. Now you are alone flying through the store, shaking hand-fours of sleep dust onto the

Starting point is 00:41:18 toys below. The story is very quiet now. Most of the toys are asleep. The only sound is the soft hum of the plain engine and the gentle noise of sleep dust falling through the air. When you're sure every toy in the shop is asleep and dreaming, you fly the plane up as high as it will go and turn one last loop to loop. You feel the cool air on your face and ruffling through your hair. Slowly you land the plane and climb out, sprinkling some sleep dust onto its shiny red wings as you go. You have landed outside the enormous dollhouse. There is still one lamp shining, mellow and golden in the window. You look through the glass and see there is an empty bed waiting there.

Starting point is 00:42:48 It is just the right size for you. Suddenly, you feel very tired. You turn the knob of the Doe's house front door. It's open. Yawning some more, you go inside and stretch out on the bed. You've had a wonderful day in Adam's toy store, and he's sure to be pleased with how well you put all his toys to sleep. The pillow is soft beneath your head. You pull a big fluffy blanket over you and snuggle up nice and cozy. You close your eyes and wander sleepily what you will dream of tonight. Teddy bears and toy planes, clockwork cherry trees

Starting point is 00:44:13 and miniature dragons, magic eggs and gingerbread houses, and all kinds of amazing things. Your breathing is slow and heavy now. Your entire body is relaxed. And you fall into a deep calm sleep. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

Starting point is 00:45:20 I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. you ... ... you ... ... ... I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing.

Starting point is 00:48:12 I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. ... ... I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

Starting point is 00:49:18 I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. you ... you you you

Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories - Bedtime in the Antique Toy Store

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