The Paper People: Original Bedtime Story

00:30

00:30

The Paper People: Original Bedtime Story

Rated

4.8

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

266

In this sleep story, a young girl at home hears a kitten meowing outside. She lets it in, and while it purrs on her lap by the fire, she daydreams about exploring woodlands and a wasteland with the now-grown cat. They find a map in a suitcase among ruins, leading to a beach with diving suits. They retrieve a chest from a sea wreck and make a discovery. Awakened by another cat's meow, she plans to write adventures about the woman and her cat before drifting to sleep.

Sleep Connection Relaxation Storytelling Animal Companionship Dreams Dream States Stories Visualizations

Meet your Teacher

Chichester, UK

Meet your Teacher

Chichester, UK

Transcript

Okay just take a moment to allow your eyes to close and allow yourself to begin to relax and as you begin to relax I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or to the spaces between my words and as you drift comfortably asleep I'm just going to tell this sleep meditation in the background this meditation is about a young girl and she's sitting at home and she's reading a book and while she's sitting at home reading a book she's allowing herself to become deeply absorbed in the story and as she reads that book she can hear some background sounds of her parents pottering around she can hear some sounds from outside she can feel the warmth of the fire and yet her mind is drawn into that story but after a little while something begins to take her out of the story slightly every now and then she hears this meow and at first she doesn't really pay it much attention but then after a few meows she decides to put a bookmark in her book close her book and go and investigate and she goes towards the sound of that meow and she sees outside in the back garden this tiny little kitten and she opens the back door and she lets that little kitten in and the little kitten walks in through the back door and comfortably and confidently seems to walk itself all the way through to the main living area where it settles down on the rug in front of the fire and the girl closes the back door follows after that kitten and sits down next to the kitten on the floor and once that girl sits down next to that kitten so the kitten climbs up on her lap curls around a few times and settles down sinking itself comfortably into her lap and she begins to stroke that kitten and that kitten begins to purr and she's curious where this kitten came from the kitten doesn't seem to have a collar or any identification as she strokes that kitten so she wonders about how that kitten got there and why this kitten seems to be so trusting of her even though the kitten doesn't know her and as she strokes that kitten she can feel the purring of that kitten and she almost has this sense of herself and that purring kitten falling into sync with each other and as they fall into sync their breathing starts to synchronize the girl begins to drift and float comfortably into a reverie she starts to drift into her own mind and while she drifts into her own mind she finds that she's walking through some woodland and she notices that she's all grown up and that up on her shoulder is a cat and the cat looks a lot like a grown-up version of that kitten and the experience feels so real to her despite the fact that she knows that it isn't real and she walks through the woods hearing the rustling leaves overhead noticing the way shards of light shining down through the trees glistens and dances on the path ahead the occasional sound of animals moving around in the woods and she continues through that woodland and she can see that off ahead it gets lighter and lighter as the woodland comes to an end and so she continues walking towards that lighter area and as she exits the woodland she's surprised to see that this whole area out here looks like a dusty wasteland that the wind is whipping up that dust into small clouds of dust that spread out disperse into small twisters of dust little dust devils dancing across this barren landscape the girl is curious where this place is she looks behind her and she can see the lush woodland but out this side of the woodland is this harsh dusty looking landscape and she walks down through this landscape finds her way down to some ruins it looks like it used to be an old village and she searches through those ruins she finds an old suitcase buried in the dust she uses a hand to wipe off the dust she opens that suitcase with a click and a creak and inside the suitcase she finds a map and she takes that map from the suitcase and sees on that map that it seems to show this location as it once was and it shows that not far just over the hills and around the corner you can find your way to a seafront and so she follows that map she can feel that warmth of the Sun on her face and she heads down towards that seafront and down at the seafront she can smell that salty air hear the sound of those waves rolling in onto the shore and can hear some seabirds flying overhead and down here she notices that there's a cave in the cliff and inside that cave she sees what looked like two old-fashioned diving suits and there's something strange about one of them but there's something even more strange about the fact that these diving suits happen to be here and she wonders whether this is some crazy kind of thought that there could be diving suits placed here specifically for her and her cat even though she's never been here before and the cat jumps down off her shoulder and it starts to climb itself into that old-fashioned diving suit and it gets all its paws into that suit and the girl as this grown-up woman does up the back of the diving suit and then places the diving bell helmet on top of that diving suit and sees that cat inside that tiny diving suit she then climbs into the other diving suit struggles to get that suit done up places the bell helmet onto this diving suit attaches tubes to those suits and then goes to what looks a bit like a generator that supplies air to those suits and has to pull on a cord over and over again to get that generator started and once it starts whirring she can feel the coolness of the air pumping in and flowing out of this suit and she carries the cat with her as they walk towards that sea and she starts walking into the sea she can feel the pressure of the water on the outside of the suit yet she's totally dry inside the suit and she can feel that pressure of that water rising up her ankles her calf muscles up to her thighs her stomach and after it's passed her stomach she puts the cat down into the water and the cat lowers down under the water and within a few paces she's just putting her head under the water and she continues walking from the shore into the ocean and as she walks from the shore into the ocean she can see the way the sunlight is shimmering and shining through the water above the way the waves are gently undulating overhead and the ripples on the surface and the way light is dancing through that water illuminating the ocean floor and illuminating a wreck not that far in the distance and she heads down towards that wreck with the cat and the cat is swimming along with its four paws inside that diving suit and they head all the way to that wreck and in the wreck the girl finds a chest and she drags that chest out of the wreck ready to take back with her when she goes back to the shore but first she explores the wreck to try and work out what's happened here and she can notice that it looks like there are scorch marks on this boat she can notice the way certain bits of wood are broken to see that something had obviously struck this and a fire had started on this boat and she couldn't see signs of any lifeboats being with this wreck and she was curious whether people made it off this boat safely and for whatever reason never came back for the treasure and after exploring this wreck and watching as fish were swimming through the windows and seeing crabs hiding under plates and other sea creatures down here and seaweed floating past and feeling that sense of peace and calm that comes with the way time seems to slow right down underwater she started her journey back to the shore and she dragged that chest through the water until eventually she was walking up towards the shore she could see the way the water was flowing in and onto the shore and then her head broke through the surface of the water and she instantly noticed the weight of her head and then of her shoulders and her arms and her body and then of that chest she was pulling from the water and she helped that cat out of the water as well as the cat climbed up onto the chest to be pulled out of the water and up on the land she removed her diving helmet she removed the diving helmet of the cat she undid the cat's suit and the cat climbed out and then she freed herself from her suit and the Sun was beginning to set so she lit a campfire on the beach created a makeshift tent out of leaves and wood and the cat and the girl sat and watched as that Sun began to set and while that Sun was setting so the sky turned the most beautiful blood red and as that sky turned that red and the moon rose as the Sun lowered over the horizon she decided to open this chest and she looked at that lock and she worked out how to pick the lock she carefully listened and carefully felt with her fingers while maneuvering a tiny piece of metal inside the lock to feel for the way the inside of that lock moved and she managed to pop open the lock open that chest with a creak and inside the chest she was surprised to find that there was just a sheet of paper and this sheet of paper looked like a very long sheet of paper that was folded up and on the sheet of paper was some dotted lines and a little note saying tear here and so she tore along those dotted lines carefully and then she held on to both sides of that paper and carefully pulled it apart and found that that paper made a string of paper people and she felt a bit bitter about going to all this effort for a sheet of paper that made people and yet this chest was so heavy to carry here and as the campfire continued burning she was curious about what this all meant she was gazing at that chest when clouds started rolling in it started raining and the rain started to damp out the campfire and the girl and the cat tucked themselves away out of the rain into their little camp and the girl continued to stare at that chest curious about why it just seemed to contain that sheet of paper and she looked at the paper and she looked at the people on that paper she tried to work it out and as the rain increased so looking out from the tent appeared more hazy and harder to see over to the chest and that chest was beginning to fill with water and then after a while she drifted asleep and the cat drifted asleep unable to solve the problem of this chest and in the next morning after sleeping and dreaming she went over to that chest the Sun was rising it was a beautiful clear day all the rain was drying up and yet the chest was full of water and she tipped up that chest tipping the inside out emptying that water out of the chest and as she did so she was surprised that the bottom of the chest fell out as well and underneath the false bottom that was in this chest she found a little leather pouch and inside that leather pouch were some gold coins with symbols printed on them and they'd managed to remain dry underneath that false base of this chest and with it was a note and the note said that the paper was shaped by this person's son and that they had hoped that their father would treasure it for always and so to them the real treasure in that chest was the paper and that they had promised their son that they wouldn't make those paper people alone that they would only make those paper people when they're reunited after the voyage when they can make the paper people with their son and so it's important to them to keep those paper people safe in that chest and in this pouch is all the money they have and it's not a lot but it's all they have and the girl then appreciated that paper more so and appreciated the story behind this chest and realized that there was only one important thing about this and that's the connection with others the love between people being able to say yes that's what I'll do I won't complete this until we're reunited and can do this together and just as the girl reaches this point in this reverie so the reverie begins to fade and she finds herself sat back in front of the fire with that kitten resting on her lap purring away and she feels a certain sense of connection with the experience she's just had and then she has another meowing and the kitten jumps down off her lap and runs back to the back door and she opens the door and outside the back door the larger cat and the kitten runs up to that cat rubs itself against the cat that other cat then seems to lead the kitten away carefully and seems to lead the kitten from their garden and through into another garden and the girl recognized that other cat as being the next-door neighbor's cat and the next door neighbor's cat must have had kittens quite recently and the girl was fascinated with the reverie that she'd had and so she sat back down in front of the fire but instead of reading this time she got out her notebook and she started telling the story of this female adventurer and her cat going exploring and treasure hunting and she told her parents about her stories that she was writing about this female hero and her cat and together they were going to go on so many adventures and that night after she was tucked in while she was drifting asleep she drifted and floated so comfortably into pleasant dreams and stories she knew she could write and tell in the future and she relaxed and floated so peacefully so comfortably asleep