Music To Fall Asleep To

Dearest Rachel –

Last night found me nodding off watching YouTube. I’m sure you hardly find that to be stop-press news, as I used to do that quite a bit when the three of us would be watching this or that in the family room, especially after a draining day at work. This was doubly true when we were watching one or another of the “Let’s Play” gamers that I never quite gained an interest in; ManlyBadassHero, in particular, had that mellifluous baritone voice that belonged on some easy listening FM radio program, rather than narrating his way through one indie horror game or another. So this hardly seems like the sort of thing to write you about; better I should be telling you about the Malaysian restaurant Daniel asked to go to (and enjoyed! I was amazed to see him eat the chili peppers right off the plate; I always treat those things like bay leaves) yesterday afternoon.

But it’s what happened afterward that struck me as worth telling you about, if only due to its sheer irony. You might also recall how I would occasionally wake you up of a Sunday by turning on the bedroom television and playing one song or another; well, it seems there are channels that play music specifically designed to be background music for people to fall asleep to. Indeed, the one I selected specifically warns the prospective listener (and it’s meant to listened to rather than viewed, per se, as it supposedly displays nothing more than eight hours of black screen) not to drive or operate heavy machinery while it plays, as its 432Hz binaural rhythms are so in tune with the body’s own natural ones (at least, the ‘third eye chakra,’ according to the video) that it will induce sleep in whoever is listening to it.

Considering I seemed to be on the verge of slumber already, despite it still being just vaguely light yet (summer in Chicago, don’t you know), this sounded like a reasonable idea, even if its claims seemed to be a little overhyped, in my opinion. So I settled myself in bed, got myself comfortable, and started up the video, and closed my eyes.

Since I’m writing this to you, I’m sure you can guess that things didn’t go quite as planned; certainly not to the extent that the video’s description assured me it would. Maybe it’s because my earlier napping took the edge off of my exhaustion; maybe it’s because I had to actually look up the video in the first place in order to get it started; maybe it’s because I generally tend to prefer sleeping in as near to complete darkness and silence (I used to be amazed at my grandfather’s ability to nod off in the middle of the day with the television going full blast when I was a kid. These days, I don’t question it as much as I did back then, but I still don’t know what changed or how). Either way, I was much more awake than I had been, and it took longer for me to achieve unconsciousness than it usually does of an evening.

That being said, once I got there, I was well and truly out of it for a few hours, until Daniel wandered into my room, startling me awake. It seemed that Logan had decided to retire early (which, given his new, four-day-a-week, seven-to-five work schedule, is hardly surprising), and so he decided to check on whether I was up and willing to hang out with him for a while. Recognizing that I had been soundly asleep (and understandably chagrined at having woken me), he quickly withdrew, but not without a goodnight hug from me – besides, I still had to perform my nightly ablutions before completely calling it a night. Those taken care of, I resumed my attempt at the deep sleep this music claimed to offer.

And once again, it took way longer than I expected it to for me to fall back asleep. This time around, it probably had more to do with the fact that the room wasn’t as dark as I’d like it to be; when the television screen is on, even black isn’t exactly black, and turning it off would eliminate the sound as well as the visual, so that wasn’t an option. I grabbed a sleep mask left over from our last trip to Israel (strange to realize that, given Emirates’ reputation, we still have better memories – and goodies! – like this from our trips to Israel on Turkish Air) and popped it on. It worked pretty well, but it still took a while to fall back asleep again.

And it didn’t last, either; some time after two o’clock, I could sense light and a growing sound from the screen. It turns out that there must have been a period in which the music was kept to a relative minimum, but as dawn was expected to break on the viewer, it not only raised the volume of music, but also displayed a sunrise image onscreen. The thing was, I had started the video three or four hours before what the creators might have considered to be an optimal time to start the process. As a result, I was subjected to a sort of “rise-and-shine” effect hours before I should have, or was ready for it.

It’s at this point that I simply decided to give up on the experiment. I’d gotten a head start on my night’s sleep, but between one interruption and another, this wasn’t working out. Guess I’m better off sticking with the quiet darkness – or as close to it as I can get, given where the house is situated. Ironically, I did get another three hours or so out of my time in bed, just enough to get myself up in time to work out before heading to the ‘office’ (and, to my slight chagrin, an invitation to meet up with Lars. Looks like I’m going to be getting a little extra walking in today, at this rate), so clearly, the quiet dark works just as well. Sure, it does nothing for my third-eye chakra, but it’s not as if I noticed any effect on it at any other time, so what’s the difference?

Anyway, I guess I’ll let you go for now. Keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck; I’m probably going to need it.