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718
September 25, 2020

Same Bed, Different Dreams (2020)

Stories of people who are tied together, but imagine radically different futures. In one case, a movie star and her ex-husband plot against Kim Jong-Il. In another, a woman stalks her doppelgänger. And sometimes, one bed is the basis for an entire relationship, even for a man who almost never sees the person who shares his bed.

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Choi Eun-hee, a South Korean actress, left, who was married to Shin Sang-ok, right, a film director, with Kim Jong-il, center.

Courtesy of Choi Eun-Hee

This is an updated version of an episode from 2015.

Prologue

Prologue

Host Ira Glass discusses what it means to peacefully transfer power from one president to the next. He points out one of the weirdest things about it, that the new president has to go and sleep in the same bedroom as the previous president. (4 minutes)

By

Ira Glass
Act One

Dream Weevil

Kim Jong-Il loved movies, but hated all the movies made in North Korea. So he kidnapped a famous South Korean director and his ex-wife—a South Korean film star—locked them up in a villa in North Korea, and forced them to make movies for him. Nancy Updike tells the story. (21 minutes)

By

Nancy Updike
Act Two

Smell You Later

Lots of people in America share actual beds, but almost never see each other; flight attendants have crash pads near airports, oil rig workers carry their own sheets and sleep in shifts in an RV. Producer Stephanie Foo has a profile of Mexican immigrants who share a few beds in a tiny trailer in upstate New York. (6 minutes)

By

Stephanie Foo
Act Three

The Haunter Becomes the Haunted

When someone stole Jessamyn Lovell’s ID, she became obsessed with the thief. Miki Meek tells what happened. (19 minutes)

By

Miki Meek
Act Four

Overnight Flight

Several people who just woke up on red-eye flights talk about their dreams. (3 minutes)

By

Stephanie Foo

Song:

“Dreamin’” by Skinny Dyck

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