Oh What A Time... -  #73 Dreams (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

This week we’re closing our eyes and going to the land of dreams. We’ve got: how the ancient Babylonians regarded the land of nod, great works of art and inventions that came to people while snoozing and also what Sigmund Freud made of sleepy time. And guess what! We’ve found the worst Christmas tree on earth and GUESS WHAT: it belongs to Elis and it’s been up all year. Please send your Christmas tree hate mail for Elis to: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time. It's a history podcast and in the immediate past, in my immediate past, I have made some bad decisions food wise and for the first time ever in Oh What A Time history, I'm recording this with heartburn and I it made me think of like Henry the eighth like just sitting down to do a history podcast. I would have lasted five minutes before getting gout I mean Henry the eighth when you when you think of the shape of him and his lifestyle in the in the pre pepto-bismol age He never have heard of a rene his entire life no no no in the pre-peptobismal age. What a maniac. He'd never have heard of a rene, his entire life.

No, no, no. Surely it's rene, not a rene. Renne was in a lower lobe. Oh, so it's rene. Remember that was inspired by, I mean, he looked like he had heartburn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He lived like he had heartburn. A king's diet back then must have been... There's nothing sort of measured about any of your meals, is there? Everything is full on rich, wine, goose, all this sort of stuff. It's just constant. No one ever said at a medieval banquet, have we got too much red meat here? And also no one ever said, do you know what, I've had enough actually. I'm watching my weight. I'm watching my cholesterol. The doctor's going to put me on statins.

Henry VIII's saying I'm going carb free for a fortnight. Recipes, I've just googled it. Recipes for Henry VIII included a variety of pies, game, roasted meats, potages and sweet dishes such as custards, fritters and jellies. Some of his favourite dishes included venison, pies stuffed with oranges and an early version of beef olives called aloes. What are beef olives? Oh large big olives. Yeah, yeah. It's not olives. It could easily be olive stuff with beef. This is a medieval king. That's quite feasible. If you're an actual historian or you've studied Henry VIII, do feel free to correct us in Corrections Corner.

Oh, what a shame. Let us know. But according to this article I'm reading on LinkedIn, Henry ate a gut-busting 5,000 calories each day of a predominantly meat and poultry-based diet. It was double an average man's 2,500 daily calorie intake. But the only sugars he consumed

were those occurring naturally in fruit and honey. Only peasants ate vegetables. So he wasn't eating flumps and that kind of stuff. He was just eating black jacks and fruit salads and all the sweets you buy on the newsagent. He was just eating a lot of meat and poultry. Mason- That is the one thing, at least this isn't a time before ultra-processed meats, kind of artificial sweetness. It is all natural. Mason- He wasn't eating ham bought in a post office that's got a smiley face on it. Mason- Which is 80% water that's been injected into it. Mason- To his credit.

Mason- Yeah, he wasn't eating a bit of ham. Mason- Yeah. Mason- To his credit. Mason- Do you know how he would have felt? I reckon he'd have felt like, you know, that it into it. Yeah, he wasn't eating the Big Bear Ham. To his credit. Yeah. To his credit. Do you know how he would have felt? I reckon he'd have felt like, you know, that feeling New Year's Day morning when you wake up and you've had just Christmas, just eating chocolate and everything non-stop and wine. And then you've had New Year's Eve and you wake up, you're like, oh, I need a detox.

He'd have felt like that the entire time. But you wouldn't have thought, I'm Henry VIII and I need a detox. He'd have thought, this is what life is like, this is how you feel when you're alive. Also our relationship with that feeling is that you wake up, you're stuffed, and then you have to do things. To function in life as a normal person, you have to look after the kids or you have to go and do an errand or whatever it happened to be. He never had to do anything. So he'd wake up full of food, full of enough food to feed an army and then people would just bring him things, they'd wash him, whatever it happens to be. He didn't have to do anything.

Yeah. Yeah. His step count would have been embarrassing. Yeah, exactly. But that's fine. He could just stay in his bed and people would do whatever they needed to do and he could just click his fingers and summon people. It wasn't competing with the needs of real life. It'd be like my step-con on Christmas Day. When you go to the gym at 4pm, look at your phone, it's like 311 steps and you think, that is not the day.

And most of those were you going to get cheese and quince. Yeah, I suppose, yeah. It was like he was on his stag constantly, wasn't it, I suppose. Talking of Christmas, Ellis. Yeah. It's October the 13th. We're recording this now. Yeah. Guess what I did this afternoon? Admittedly with my children, but we actively chose to do this.

Letter for something. We watched Muppets Christmas Carol. Is that too early? Yes. We lit a fire and we watched a Muppets Christmas Carol. You might be onto something. They put the lights up on Oxford Street today. Last night. Really? Yeah, over the weekend. Maybe I could just sense it on some level.

I think that's right. You're so in tune with the Oxford Street ley lines. They run right through your house. Leave it to December the 1st. Do you think? Okay. Shops can do it on December the 1st. I Leave it to December the 1st. Do you think? Okay. Shops can do it on December the 1st. I do it around December the 15th. I think it's starting to feel a bit Christmassy.

There's a Christmas in the air. The evenings are darkening quicker. There is. You can't quite see your breath, but it's not a mile away, is it? When do you buy your tree, Ellis? Did you say it was like the week of Christmas? No, we've got an artificial tree. In fact, it's still up. Have you?

It's in the after. Oh, of course. I'm actually looking at it. So I'm actually looking at it right now and it's decorated. It's ready to go. That is the opposite of what I've just watched, which is a depiction of a Victorian London with snow falling and people with huge goose and natural furs. Whenever we were recording in the summer, I was looking at a Christmas tree fully decorated. I'm looking at it right now.

It's not fully decorated. It's fully decorated. I just carried it upstairs and put it in the attic. So where's the joy? So you just bring this down and it's ready to, you've got a pop up Christmas. I might take off the tinsel and then say, go on then. Put it back on. Put it back on.

Go on. Talk me through the logic of, first of all, first question is what does this tree, which I imagine now is completely battered, what does it look like? Are you looking at your tree now? I'm looking at it right now. You can see it. Come on, we need to have a look. I'm sorry, me watching Muppets Christmas Carol on October the 13th is not the issue here. The fact

that you... Let me... I'll send it to the group. I'll take a photo of it and I'll send it to the group. Are you one of those people that celebrates Christmas every day, but alone upstairs in your office? The rest of your family don't know. I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but my brother-in-law does this thing where he's got an artificial tree and on Boxing Day or just before New Year's Day he will cling film the entire tree and put it into his loft. Cling filmed up. And then the next Christmas he takes it down, removes the cling film, it's all got the decorations on.

I've texted it to you. Oh, okay, great. I'm so excited for this. That is, categorically, the most depressing image I've ever seen in my life. I don't know how a tree looks sad, but it somehow managed to look sad. Put a blanket over it or something. Why is it full of you? This is insane. You can never judge me about anything. What is that? It looks like it's melting. It's like, why did you get that Christmas tree Chernobyl?

Is it melting because you leave it out in the summer it melts? Why haven't you covered it with something? Because I cannot be out. The kids never come up here, so it's not spoiling their Christmas. They've almost never appeared. They can't be here. Is it missing a bit? You can't be asked. You can't be bothered to chuck a duvet cover over it. Why would I chuck a duvet cover over it? Look, hang on.

To retain its majesty. I can't understand the perspective here. You've got it next to a bookcase. I reckon this tree is three books high looking at that bookcase. Claire's here. Claire's not going to be in shock. I just want her comments on this. This is in Ellis's office where he records. This is his Christmas tree, his plastic Christmas tree, which he has in view the whole year.

Thoughts on that? I've seen your parents Christmas tree. You have seen my parents Christmas tree and it's, well, it's, and it's stung. Hang on. Is this, is this the main tree in the house? This is the focal point of your Christmas. Just to analyse this Chris, do you have a secondary tree? Yes!

Secondary tree! Ella's leaping on that as a way to divert attention away. You loser! I've got an inflatable tree for the garden for the kids. The main tree is in the kitchen dining area and then a mini tree in the living room. I'm trying to minimise Christmas joy. So the kids get an orange and some nuts, although it's only my son who gets nuts because my daughter has quite a severe allergy to nuts. We shake hands and then by around midday on Christmas day it's all

done really. I'd argue if your daughter has a severe allergy to nuts your son shouldn't be getting nuts. He should just be getting something different. At least can we put the Christmas tree on our Instagram? That is one of the worst things I've ever seen. I cannot believe that. Couple of other things I briefly want to say about the Christmas tree. First of all, you say it's already decorated. Yeah. But it's got like four things. It's so badly decorated.

It's got four things on it. The kids decorated it, so I'm not taking the blame for that. With things they found in the street. Second point is that the Father Christmas on a motorbike bauble, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say, is a fifth of the size of the tree. It's like Flav-Flav's clock. It is massive. Why is that? The size of the heart as well! If we do put it on the Instagram, could we crop it? Because the attic, we're going to

have an loft conversion at some point. The last thing we'll do though. And so we're not changing the carpet and the carpet is stained from the previous owners. Yeah. So let's crop it a little bit. And yes, we can put it on the... Can I just ask, what's that thing in the bottom right? It looks like you've got a mop ornament hanging off the tree.

What's that? It's just a bad ornament. Can you say that in me? What is that? It's like a mop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a mop. It's like a Christmas mop. It's a Christmas mop. It's the old Christmas mop. Again, it's like a fifth of the size of the tree. It's a weird time to bring it up. Do you want to hear my idea for a John Lewis advert for Christmas?

Go on then. It's to do with this, which is, you know on Christmas Eve, there's all those unwanted Christmas trees that are just a bit wonky and are never bought, basically. The ones that nobody wants because they're just the least pretty of the bunch. So the idea is that someone goes around on Christmas Eve, buys all these wonky Christmas trees that haven't made it to Christmas, and then you cut and hit his Christmas day and he's filled his room full of these Christmas trees and they're getting to experience Christmas. Cue moving music, John Lewis, buy your cattle. Well that could work, yeah.

The end of the advert, fast forwards five years, all the trees are still up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like in my house. It's always Christmas in my house. Wow. Well there we go. What I had assumed is that, because you mentioned the tree is up, I thought it must be so big and cumbersome that it would be just too much effort to put it all away. No, this would take a minute. There's like five things on it. It's the worst Christmas tree I've ever seen.

Can't believe it. Also, there's no like discernible top of it. Lost's the worst Christmas tree I've ever seen. Also, there's no discernible top of it. I lost the top. You lost the top. Where did the top go? The top's not going around somewhere. Chris, as an end of series Christmas tree, we are going to buy Ellis a new Christmas tree and deliver it to him. On the final episode of this show we'll give it to him in person. Well that is absolutely remarkable. Well done Elle. That's fantastic. That's amazing. Thanks for that Elle. That's genuinely remarkable. Made me feel much better about watching Muppets

Christmas Care on October 13th. I've been podcasting in front of that Christmas tree all summer. June, July, August. It was just like a taste of Christmas. I just don't understand how at no point you'd think I should just toss something over it. No, because I love the summer, you see. So that reminds me that dark days are coming. I think this is weirdo. You know in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho where he lives with his dead mother, I think you living with that Christmas tree is weird, isn't that? In Psycho he'd look at that tree and go, no, that's weird.

Exactly. Oh man. Okay, let's crack on with a little bit of correspondence, a palate cleanser after that Christmas madness. Molly Cheek has got in contact with the show. What a superb name, Molly Cheek. Love that. Yeah, I love that. So this is a One Day Time Machine email. I love it, so cue the jingle. It's the One Day Time Machine. It's the One Day Time Machine. It's the One Day Time Machine. It's the One Day Time Machine.

Hi boys. Fulltime are here and for my One day time machine I'd like to travel back to the Iron Age, walk up to the first person I see and give them a Tangfastic. I just think it would blow their mind or maybe if I actually wanted to do some damage I could whip out a packet of toxic waste. I don't know what that is though. That's the really super bitter sour sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never had that.

Yeah, it's really strong. I'd either be seen as a good or a terrible omen, but either way I'd hop back in and get back home before I had the chance to find out. Cheers, Molly Cheek. That's an interesting one because we've talked about on this show the idea of playing hard house to someone from a stone age or whatever. The idea of a tang-fastic, that ultra sour, weird fizzy flavour. Will Barron You'd think your tongue was going to come off.

Neil But do you think in the iron age the taste buds would be so deadened from like just starchy food, non-stop onions? Will Barron It would be the opposite of deadened. They'd never come alive in the first place. It would just be so bland. Given a tang-fastic they'd never come alive in the first place. They'd just be so bland. Given a tang fastic, they'd be like, whoa, okay. And also the sugar, what sugar rush? Will Barron Chris, are you aware of Project Spice, which was Ellis's attempt to slowly work up to spicy food? Is that right, Al? Al Gore Yeah, I had a tremendously West Whalien

palate. So my mother used to make curry that was just chicken on a bed of rice with a couple of raisins. And so many people took the piss out of my very bland diet. It took about 12 months and I moved up from ginger biscuits through to English mustard and then I got as far as the Vindaloo. Oh wow! You don't mean like spoonfuls of English mustard? You mean on the side of something? No, I started putting little bits on ham. Okay fine, yeah.

In a sort of controlled, very controlled, a bit like if you were taking someone who had never been to the gym before they got a personal trainer so they didn't injure themselves by doing heavy weights. I started off biting ginger biscuits with a cup of tea, then dispensing with the tea. Just a ginger biscuit straight away. A wallop. It's going in. English mustard in a sandwich, then just on a bit of ham and no bread. Just so I could really taste the English mustard. Dijon mustard. So I was always working my way up and then I started getting the Blanders chillies from Tesco and putting them on salads,

maybe putting them in a little bit of soup. I started upping my black pepper intake. About three or four months in, felt pretty good actually, felt like I was really cruising. I moved up to Chicken Tikka Masala. The first Madras was big. Yeah, that's a real line in the sand. Moving up to Chicken Tikka Masala is such a sentence. It shows you where you were before if you're moving up to that. So I went from English dish in the Indian restaurant to Korma to Chicken Tikka Masala, Rogan Josh, Jalfrezi, Madras, all sort of at around the seven or eight month stage. By this point I'm really

enjoying life. So now I'm having English muster for breakfast. I'm having ginger biscuits all day round, you know, all sort of constantly. And then I got as far as, I never went farl, but I did have a madras. And no, no, I did have a vindaloo. And it was, it was, it was bearable. Now I've come back to the Madras. Where have you found your happy place? Where are you? Madras is because I just think it's a more pleasant tasting curry than a vindaloo. But I think I could cope with a vindaloo and now I really like spicy food.

Because what I think Marley Cheek needs to do is to visit at regular intervals doing Project Tangfastic. That's what you need. So you're moving up to a Tangfastic. I don't know what the initial thing would be. Is it a tiny bit of a Tangfastic or is there a much sort of more low level sour thing you could introduce them to? Maybe a little bit of lime, natural lime. Will Barron It would be the sugar as well. So I think you'd start off with a little bit of a fried egg from Star Mix. The soft bit, or the little heart one, or the little ring that kids put on their fingers. But only a little bit.

They'd initially think that was a real egg, wouldn't they? As well. The first time they saw it because they have no concept of a synthetic created fake egg. They'd definitely assume it came from a tiny chicken. Initial big laugh. Yeah, I think you'd have to start off with basic non-sour sweets. Yes. Just so they can get used to the sugar more than anything. And sure, I mean, unless you're bringing dentists back to the Iron Age with you, you're giving all these people cavities. I mean, they're not going to thank you for it.

At what point, after a few visits, at what point is the Iron Mage man you keep visiting saying, why are you doing this? Who are you? Why are you dressed like that? And Molly Cheek is saying, I'm a listener too. Actually this is going to be quite hard to explain to be honest. You'll just have to trust me. It'll be worth it. I have a plan. It's Project Tangfasting. Okay, Tangfasting is a type of, once again this is complicated. Mason- It's based on Project Spice, a podcast trial. You don't have spices yet, don't worry about it.

Mason- But he's got a Christmas tree in his office. Oh yeah, Christmas is a brilliant thing. Mason- I remember putting chilli sauce and chilli flakes and fried eggs at around the five or six month sort of level stage as well. It was all part of a project. I took it step by step. And by the time I was having a vindaloo, I felt so comfortable in there. I felt like a runner at the sort of top of my game. I felt like a runner at the top of my game. I'm ready for this half mile. Mason- In terms of foodstuffs you could take back to the Iron Age that might get you killed. I think a Vindaloo would be up there. I think if you went back and served a guy a Vindaloo,

they'd go, this is poison. This is poison. I'm dying. There'd have no concept of spice at that level. Creamy league spice. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Or would they find... No, they're not going to... Tangfastics too. I think anything outside of that, they're going to go, what is this? And go for you. Okay, final question on this then. You've got to go back. You have to give them a modern day food stuff that they're going to be immediately okay with. It can't just be something they're having then, like chicken or whatever. It has to be something very contemporary. What are you giving them? What KFC would be the one that you think.

I'm going to give him a Freddo and he goes, are they still 5p? There we go. We have a winner. Nice. Thank you, Molly Cheek for getting in contact. How did Molly Cheek tell you, what are you doing? sorry, I've just got to go back and take a load of Freddo's to some Iron Age people I've met. Yeah. It'll work out. It'll be worth it. And then it really changes the course of history.

And one of the early gods is the Freddo. You've got like the Beaker people. All these... Freddo people. Yeah, they're the first... You go into a cave, there's drawings of Freddo and the rising sun behind him. The first Freddo-based culture. An entirely Freddo-based society.

It's the currency and the foodstuff and the god. It would be people being sacrificed in the name of Fredo as well. People being melted because that's what happens to a Fredo and that's what he wants. Molly, if you are listening, do make this happen, please. We've given you the idea. You now run with it. See if you can do that. If you ever get access to a time machine, please create a Fredo-based...

We'd appreciate that. Thank you very much, Molly Cheek, for getting in contact. And if anyone else has any things they want to send us, there are many ways to do it. And here's how. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. look here's how you can stay in touch with the show you can email us at hello at oh what a time dot com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod now clear off so in today's episode we're not discussing Christmas we're not discussing Freddow's we're not discussing Christmas, we're not discussing Freddowes, we're not discussing Project Hanfastix. We are discussing dreams. And in my section, I'll be chatting about how people many, many, many years ago used to interpret dreams. What are you going to be talking about, Tom?

I'm going to be talking about the science of dreams, about the psychological evaluation of dreams in the late 19th century. And I'm going to tell you now about dreams that have inspired famous inventions, works of art and music throughout history. And I've got a list of them. You're definitely going to have heard of a lot of them. Do you, but firstly, do you have any recurring dreams? Have you ever had a good idea in a dream? I have crazy dreams when I'm worried about something. For example? Like if I'm worried about writing a stand-up show or something, which is what I'm worried

about at the moment, often very weird violent dreams that have nothing to do with comedy, per se. But I'll wake up and I'll play. So it's not you on stage and think you're going wrong? No, no, no, no. It's always, it's obvious that I'm worried about something, but I'm never doing the thing I'm worried about. So it's not like I'm doing a gig in Velinvah and dying on my arse. It'd be like, I'll open the front door and there'll just be like a load of like-

A mob? Yeah, yeah. We need to beat me up and they've all got bats. You know, bats and sticks. The weapons or the animal? Yeah, yeah, yeah to beat me up and they've all got bats. Okay. You know, bats and sticks. The weapons or the animal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, either way. Oh my god, I had a dream, for instance, I was doing a preview, I was quite nervous about

it a couple of weeks ago, and I had a dream that my cats were fighting with a rat on the stairs and they pulled the rat apart, and as I was shouting at them to stop, all of the rat juice and blood and guts went into my mouth at which point I woke up. Oh, what is that? I'd hate to interpret that. I thought, I am worried about my gig at Theatre Cloydine World. To answer your question then, Chris, I don't have ideas when I'm asleep, but I do have a thing where as I'm drifting off, I would often have my best ideas and annoyingly have to force myself to wake up to note it down. Yeah, that's really important.

Which really disrupts my sleep. I think there's part of the creative brain, and I say that very loosely because it's not always active in my part, but it's relaxing. I think maybe sometimes when you're drifting off, you think in a slightly less conventional way. Some of these sort of structures of thought, I do genuinely think this, fall away and you think in a slightly different way. A lot of good ideas I've had, sitcom ideas, format ideas, what it happens to be, or gag ideas will come at that point where I'm just, you start to think a little bit more loose I suppose in a way.

I'm probably not articulating this very well, but it is a useful time. No, no, no. I know what you mean because you're allowing yourself to not abide by the rules for a bit because you're so tired. And it can be quite creative and quirky. I would say that's true 70% of the time, 30% it will be absolute bollocks. And then I'll read it the next morning and I'll think, oh, right. Will Barron- I mean, I would bite your hand off for 70-30 to be honest. I'm not getting those numbers. Crane, there might be something to that thought that the sleep awakens creative juices because

one of the many of the most creative people who have ever lived have created fantastic works of art while asleep. And I'll begin with 1965 Paul McCartney, one of the most famous musicians of the 20th century ever, I'd say actually. He came up with a melody for yesterday. It came to Paul McCartney in a dream. He woke up, he played it on a piano to ensure he wouldn't forget it. And Paul McCartney was actually worried.

He thought he'd plagiarised that tune. It felt so familiar that he started playing it to friends and they went, no, no, no, that's an original tune. His dad was a, loved jazz music, was a jazz musician in Liverpool, and he thought this must be an old standard that dad played me. He could not believe that it was his own song. So he played it to loads of people. Imagine hearing something that good the first time. Someone saying, I've just played this, I've written this little song. What do you think? Because it's so impossibly beautiful, that song.

My favourite, I think that my favourite ever depiction of the creative process is in the documentary Get Back, where Paul McCartney writes Get Back in real time. And it takes him about two and a half minutes. Wow. And he goes in and it's so normal. Like he has like a cup of tea and some toast and he talks to Ringo and he asks George how he is or something and then Lennon is late I think from what I remember and then he just starts playing it.

It's it. And then you can see him going, na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na And then he just works it out and then it's done. Yeah. It's a fascinating video that. It's incredible. It's amazing. Because famously Johnny Ma wrote this charming man more quickly than it takes to play it.

So he just came out of him and then he was like, oh, I'll do that twice and that's the song. And it's really amazing watching Paul McCartney do this. It genuinely, it sent shivers down my spine when I saw it. You just saw me come up with Operation Tankfastick. You saw that, you were there for that. Anyone who's seen this podcast has heard that in real time. Exactly.

Incredible. How we were just chatting, loose chat and then suddenly, wait a second, I came up with Operation Tangfastic quicker than it takes to talk about Operation Tangfastic and I'm brought to really go into it. It was really like Johnny Ma. Mason- Hang on. Why don't we maybe record a podcast about disappointing Christmas trees? God, isn't the creative brain work in mad ways? Ellis, Channel 4 show, Britain's worst Christmas tree. You're watching that. Come on, Christmas-y. A one hour documentary about Ellis' Christmas tree?

It would be, I think it's a studio show. People are sending in pictures of their Christmas trees in the run up. You've got the top five brought to studio. Who's going to win Britain's worst Christmas tree? Ellis wins it every year. Yeah, the prize is a quarter of a million quid. Rob Beckett presents. And you end up, it turns out money does grow on trees. Nice laugh from the audience. Yeah. And then you get the credits.

Also, you can have roving reporters. Yeah. So you have people running up suburban cul-de-sac saying, oh, we're here on, you know, Acacia Avenue and apparently in number 42, they've got a terrible Christmas tree. Let's go and have a look at it. Craig Chow is like on Ghostwatch. Ding dong. Yeah. Are you here to see my shit Christmas tree? Please don't swear. We're live on Channel 4.

And 40 million people are watching. It's rescuing the channel single-handedly. It's rescuing telly. It's the first simulcast on Apple TV, Netflix, BBC One, two, ITV, Channel Four. It's branching out, you could say. You wouldn't want to. You wouldn't want to. It writes itself. Your heart, Tom. Thank you, mate. This is you. This is you, Byron Oleson. This is your get back moment. Any commissioners watching listening, Britain's worst Christmas tree. Are we all in Tom's dream? Because he's just being so creative now.

Right, back to the history. 1965 was a vintage year for people dreaming songs, because Keith Richards that year composed the main riff of I Can't Get No Satisfaction after waking up from a dream with a melody in his head. He had left a tape recorder running next to his bed and when he woke up he found that he had recorded the riff while half asleep. He didn't remember composing it and he said, I just played it back in the morning and there was this song was there and then a whole lot of snoring. Incredible,

eh? Mason- Yeah, I love this story. I love the idea that he listened back to the whole tape. It's 35 minutes of snoring and he makes up goes, and then there's just more snoring. Mason- I'm being stupid. Youn explains to me. So he was sleeping. Yeah. And his tape recorder was going, yeah. And in his dream he came up with that riff. And then he wakes up, he plays it, and then he goes back to sleep again.

Wow. Pretty good, eh? Incredible. So I knew about yesterday, and I can't get no satisfaction, but I didn't know about these ones. Mary Shelley had the idea of Frankenstein in 1818, directly inspired by a vivid dream she had during a really stormy night. She came up with the idea of a scientist who created a horrifying creature that came to life. The dream frightened her so much

that she used it as the basis for Frankenstein. She said, I saw with shut eyes, but acute mental vision. I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. She knew this dream was so terrifying. She was like, I've got to write this story. Frankenstein came to her in a dream. Wow. That's amazing. Not the only one.

Fast forward a few years, Robert Louis Stevenson came up with the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886 after the story came to him in a nightmare. He was suffering from tuberculosis and had a really feverish dream about a man transforming into a monster. Again, he woke up, he wrote down the central elements of the story. When I read about this, you just, you know that feeling when you have a really feverish dream and you're like, oh, that is absolutely awful. But if you're a great writer like Robert Lewin Stevenson, extremely like, oh, that is absolutely awful. But if you're a great writer like Robert Lewin Stevenson, you can turn it into one of the most fantastic works of art ever.

Will Barron And it's quite thought provoking how frightening you can be in a dream. Because you think, Christ, what is going on up there? I thought I was quite normal, but that is really, really unsettling. Oh my God. Will Barron Do you want to know what my dream was last night? What? This isn't a lie. It wasn't like a... there's nothing sort of sexual or anything about it. It was just... Now I think it's going to be sexual. When I named the person it suggests it probably was some kind of like,

fanciest person to write it, wasn't it? I was trying to help Taylor Swift get through a really busy airport. But she kept getting bothered and I was trying to just help her get through this airport. I don't know what airport it was. Just trying to help her through the airport. I love that she reached out to you, Val. Were there like food courts and decent places to eat in this airport? We never got to that. It was just me trying to help her get through the airport that people wouldn't notice her and then she could get to a flight. Bizarre. I don't know why, but it went on forever. In my mind, it went on

forever. Mason Hickman If there were lots of different food options, it wouldn't have been Cardiff Airport. It's going to be Gatwick Heathrow, isn't it? Will Barron It felt like it was a big London airport. That's what it felt like. I couldn't say. It wasn't London City. I'm guessing Gatwick Oetho, isn't it? It felt like it was a big London airport. Oh, okay. That's what it felt like. I couldn't say. It wasn't London City. I'm guessing Gatwick Heathrow.

Yeah. I don't know. Weirdly, I think she'll be fine in London City. A lot of business commuters. They'd probably just leave her alone. And then I woke up and I thought, this is what I'll talk you through all my thought process. I thought, oh, she probably doesn't get just passenger airlines, I guess.

I imagine she probably books out a big plane. I was just lying there after I woken up thinking about how she travels around the world. I imagine that she's booking. When she goes on tour, surely she's not just turning left and going to business, is she? Surely she's at that level where she's just chartering a jet. Well, she's a billionaires. Famously, she got a private jet something like 30 miles back home from the Super Bowl. Well, there you go. So it's unlikely I'd ever need to help her through Gatwick and go, Taylor, there's Speedy Boarding. Surely you've got Speedy Boarding.

Have you checked in online? No, easy, gentlemen. Let you take a little suitcase like that. Now, it's got to actually be a rucksack. They're going to charge you 40 quid. Or you can afford it. You're a billionaire. There you go. That's my dream. Yeah, I do. Do you want a bit of poetry? Yes, oh you can afford it, you're a billionaire. There you go, that's my dream. Do you want a bit of poetry? Yes please. That sunny dome, those caves of ice, and all who heard should see them there, and all should cry, beware, beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair, weave a circle round him thrice,

and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise." Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan, 1797. Coleridge, written in a dream. Wrote it in a dream. Now there's an interesting code to this story. He wrote it in a dream, but when he dreamed it, he said it was amazing, but in his dream it was 200 or 300 lines long and he started writing it down. The poem is 54 lines long. He got most of the way through that and then he was interrupted. Someone knocked on the door.

He told this story later when the poem was finally published that he intended it to be much longer, but he was called out by a person on business from Porlock who detained him for above an hour. When he returned to his room, to no small surprise in his mortification, that he had lost a lot of the memory of the poem that had come to him in a dream. Will Barron Oh no. Wow. Will Barron That is so annoying now. Sometimes I have, you saw a lot when I was a teenager, I was having a really great dream and I just think to myself,

you've got to enjoy this because you're going to wake up soon. Will Barron Let's not go down into what that dream was. I think we can all tell where. I mean, annoying you that never happens now because I will be walking up by my bladder. What's really disappointing, and this says an awful lot about my personality, I often have dreams that should be amazing, but they're slightly disappointing. So I will have a dream, a really vivid dream where I'm playing football for Wales, but in this dream I'll be playing wide on the right and have no influence on the game. Yeah.

So I'll just be a sort of passenger who might touch a ball a couple of times in the first half and I get taken off. I always have dreams about playing football and I'm never good in them. No, I'm never good either. Seems so unfair. Yeah. Why can't I just score the winner in front of 30,000 of my own fans? Just what? You think it happened once. Would you say, would you go so honestly, do you do a job? You do do a job, do you? Your Danny Mills. No, I'm just slightly irrelevant. That's hands on hips. You know, all of our joys come down the left

and I'm wide on the right. I'm tracking back a bit, but I'm sick. When I was about 21, 22, I used to have a repeated dream, always the same dream. And my girlfriend at the time would say, so I'll tell you what the dream was. The dream was that I was on a first great Western train handing out quality street to people on the train. So I was walking around holding one of those big purple color street tins and I'd just be handing out quality street. It's like you get a Christmas.

Yeah, exactly. And I'd say, would you like a quality street? Would you like a quality street? And my girlfriend at the time, I'd wake up in the morning and she'd say, you were talking about quality street. And it would happen like every week. Constantly handing out quality street. So weird. I used to talk a lot in my sleep, but I don't ever anymore. Yeah, since my wife used to do it a lot, but since we had kids, I think you just don't sleep properly. When you have kids, it's over, isn't it? You never sleep properly again.

That's interesting. You don't descend into a proper deep sleep. Stephen King came up with Misery in 1987 after falling asleep on a plane, and he just woke up and it came to him while he was asleep on this flight. He says, the idea of Misery in 1987 after falling asleep on a plane and he just woke up and it came to him while he was asleep on this flight. He says the idea of misery came to him in a dream. I dream all the time about being trapped but in this case I woke up and just started writing. Misery. Terrifying. Wow.

Wow, that's amazing. But if you're a writer at the top of your game, you must be thinking all the time about your next book. There'll be loads of pressure from fans and from publishers and the press about, well, what the next book's going to be about. He'll have set himself a really high standard. So your brain will just constantly be ticking over. And for him, luckily enough, he was coming up with really good stuff. It's interesting that great works of literature are coming to people in their dreams. I think

there's a natural storytelling instinct that comes with dreams, and on some level are stories. Your mind is piecing it together with narrative. There's something very essential going on, isn't there? Will Barron I mean, if you're Stephen King as well, one of the greatest minds of trillers, his dreams will be terrifying. Will Barron For any writers though who are listening who might feel slightly demoralised that they haven't come up with anything good in a dream, the great stuff gets recorded as dream creativity. What we're not doing is making a podcast about all the crap ideas people have had in dreams.

You know, some soft play centre for kids, but it's dangerous. Is that a good idea? Hard play. Just loads of slabs of concrete. Is hard play good? Hard play, soft play, but with loads of spikes. Is that good? Aled, a couple to end on. Otto Lowey, he won the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1936.

He won it for the groundbreaking discovery of chemical neurotransmission. He had this idea of an experiment that would prove that nerves communicate chemically, not just electrically, in a dream. He woke up, he jotted down the notes, he confirmed the results in his lab the next day. He says the night before Easter 1921, I awoke, turned on the light and jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of paper and he went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1936 for the discovery of chemical neurotransmission. That came in a dream. A Nobel Prize winning dream. The nerve of the mass.

Lovely stuff. Well, that's not really, is it? Amazing. That's amazing. Do you want one last one? 1845, the invention of the sewing machine. Elias Howe. Howe had been struggling to perfect the needle design for a sewing machine. He dreamed thate. Howe had been struggling to perfect the needle design for a sewing machine. He dreamed that he was captured by cannibals who threatened to kill him with spears that had little holes in the tips. When he awoke, he realized the solution was to place the eye of the needle near the tip rather than the base, and thus he invented the sewing machine in 1845. Wow. I love that.

How good is that? That's incredible. Yeah. And he also improved his pajamas as well. So it's double benefit. All right, that's it for part one. I hope you enjoyed that. We'll be back tomorrow for part two. But if you're an O-watt time full-timer, you're gonna get part two right now and a couple of bonus episodes every month and ad free listening, et cetera, et cetera. So if you are a full-timer,

you're gonna enjoy this part two, but if not, we'll see you tomorrow. But don't forget, if you have enjoyed this chat, why not have a dream tonight, perhaps, about leaving us a nice five-star review? Oh, yes. Just do it, just dream it and then make that dream a reality.

That'd be lovely. All right, see you tomorrow. Yeah, thanks guys. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye. So Thank you.