After a busy day, listening to sleeping sounds with a pair of sleep headphones as you drift off to Dreamland can be like going on a vacation.
Maybe it’s the best kind of vacation. There are no crowds or airport security at the airport. There’s no lost luggage. There are no lines to wait in at popular tourist attractions. Also, absolutely no squabbles with people you’re vacationing with about what to do or when to get out of the hotel room.
Experiences are framed by all five senses. With exotic sleeping sounds and visuals supplied by your memory and imagination, it can be a pleasant way to relax, especially if you love traveling.
Some people may think of it as a form of meditation, but it’s not. Not really.
There are many different sleeping sounds to choose from. Unless you have an idea of what you’re looking for, however, you’re usually going to be directed toward the sound of rain. Rain seems to be far and away the most popular sleeping sound.
Not that there’s anything thing wrong with drifting off to the sound of rain. The sound of rain is very relaxing sometimes.
Yet not always. If you’re trying to visualize being on vacation, rain can be a symbol of ruined plans. Also, when drug test monitors are trying to get someone with a “shy bladder” to urinate for a job’s drug screen, they turn on a faucet to make the sound of running water. This makes a person have the desire to pee. Does nobody think of this when it comes to listening to rain sleep sounds? Who wants to wake up to a wet bed?
There are literally hundreds of these soundtracks that people have posted on the Internet, especially on YouTube. Chances are if you think of some kind of white noise, there’s a recording of it. There’s also pink noise and brown noise to consider.
For sleeping, don’t get fixated on the “color” of noise
When using a recording as a sleeping sound, don’t get fixated on the “color” of noise. For many people, all colors seem to work equally well when it comes to falling asleep. There are really a lot of dumb articles written about this on the internet. White, pink and brown (short for “Brownian”) all mask sounds in the background that may keep you awake.
The actual sound matters more than whether certain frequencies are wiped out or spread out evenly. You’re trying to be a sleeper, not a sound engineer! Right?
Do you like to travel? Better yet, do you like the idea of traveling? Your bed at night can be your way of escaping.
If you listen to the recorded or generated sound of rain or some other white noise, changing your routine to something different can be a positive change, like going on vacation.
When it comes to sleeping sounds, some typical search results are crickets, waves, rain on a shingle, wind rustling through leaves, or that kind of thing. They’re probably the common sounds people associate with sleeping in most places.
That can get you out on a mental vacation in the Amazonian rainforest to a trip to the forests of North Carolina, the northern Californian coast, and New England.
You might listen on a music streaming service, on YouTube or may have even bought a white noise machine. Or a pink noise machine. Whatever.
Interesting white noise sleeping sounds available on the Internet
Try taking a tip from those who live along train tracks.
Take the night train.
The sleeping soundtracks of night trains differ from reality substantially. In real life when you sleep in earshot of the Southern Pacific train tracks you’ll hear a long, lonely whistle as it rumbles up to your town. You’ll hear the rumble of the train, metal on metal. It’s brown noise, similar to white noise but to the ear, deeper, something like a waterfall. Engineers don’t usually sound the whistle when they’re within city limits in the middle of the night but if you’re listening from somewhere in the country, you’re not usually going to hear that.
Anyway, for those of us used to sleeping near the train tracks, you’re going to be used to hearing the whistle. The human body gets used to all kinds of things and this is one more example of that. Train whistles won’t wake you up. It becomes part of your environment. You habituate.
Sleeping sounds recorded on the Amtrak Silver Star, a passenger train that runs through North and South Carolina to Tampa, Florida.
There are lots of others…
In addition, available on some streaming music services like Spotify, is 14 Experimental Noises for Sleep and Meditation by the Meditation Music Experience.
Post other suggestions for sleeping sounds in the comments below.
For further reading:
Go on a mental vacation in the past with old AM radio broadcasts
Another sleeping sound suggestion:
Also on the blog…
James Cobb, RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. His goal is to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
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