Five stars for a podcast with the tension of a VVE meeting ★★★★★

Please note: I’m going to give five stars to a podcast that I haven’t listened to a single episode of yet. Precisely that is the ultimate proof of the success formula of Sleep With Mea 1,083-episode series that works against turbulent sleepy nights, or against unwelcome agenda items that thwart your afternoon nap.

As an insomniac you can of course look for a distraction in a series, book or (God forbid) a late night talk show, but then you run into new problems to practice about. Then host and writer Drew Ackerman is there to get you in Sleep With Me distracting with stories that are just interesting enough to pause one’s own thoughts until the morning, but also not exciting enough to stay on board at all costs.

Here, without any obligation, strange non-issues such as: what does a grain of sand experience on the beach? What do nuns do in space? Or: a complete report of everything you encounter in the supermarket. And yep, your thoughts meander with ease to that confused sleep pre-stage, from which you drift into the great nothingness.

Ackerman, who in the podcast is also called Scooter, Scoots and you ‘bore bud’ (bored friend), suffered from insomnia as a child and already started telling boring stories with his brother. In the nine years that he has been making the podcast, he has become the absolute master of the bloody boring story. To get rid of the listener, all the laws of storytelling go overboard.

An average Sleep With Mestory has the tension of a VVE meeting, but with the cheerful fantasy pleasure of a good children’s book. Every side path is worth walking, every detail is worth a microscopic look and often we never return to the main road. Some episodes are even just intros. Ackerman creates a completely unimportant, nonsensical dream world in which everything is possible, yet surprisingly little happens.

For the experienced listener, Ackerman’s nagging, sluggish voice (think: your Walkman’s batteries have run out) and exhausted intonation also evoke a Pavlovian reaction after a while: instant drowsiness. Don’t worry, your bored friend says: you can leave, here are some more dream suggestions. There will never be a conclusion – as far as I know, then.