Do you sleep with noise?
I must have noise to go along with going to sleep. Usually thats an audio book or long-form video essay type YouTube videos. I wear one earbud to bed if I'm sleeping at night with my girlfriend or just blare it from the TV if I'm sleeping alone during the day (rotating shift). I feel like when I don't have engaging audio and I'm trying to sleep I can't quiet my mind enough to sleep. A fan or random ambient noise isn't enough for me.
115 replies
My fiancée sleeps with a fan. I sleep with my finacée snoring.
I do the same, I can't sleep without a fan
I even use a fan in the winter. I like cold air on the outside and warm air on the inside. More than that, something about the wind moving past my head is soothing.
Lmao thats a tough one
Not necessarily.
I'm hoping you already have, but if you haven't, get your fiancée to get a sleep study. Very often snoring is their way of telling you they are dying slowly.
Yup, I ignored my snoring. That led to waking up tired every day, then a sore neck, then a mild headache that went away after waking up, and finally all of my extremities started to tingle. It all went away once I was able to wear my cpap for maybe half of the night.
I had insomnia for about the first 45 years of my life. At its worst, I would miss at least one night of sleep per week. By "miss" I mean I would go to bed at a reasonable hour, lay there with the lights off and my eyes closed until about 4:00am, when I'd get out of bed, get dressed, and go to work.
I tried drinking myself into a stupor. I tried white noise CDs. I even got a prescription for Ambien from my doctor. That scared me because I thought meds would do the trick, but I took it and still didn't sleep.
One day I saw a post about the Sleep With Me Podcast. It's described as bedtime stories for adults. I followed the link, started listening, and thought, "this guy may be the most boring person I've ever heard".
I started playing it when I went to bed, and it worked for me from the very first night. I fell asleep within minutes of starting the episode, but then I woke up after it ended.
The next night I loaded my phone with all the episodes. I slept through the night, but then I couldn't wake up in the morning. My alarm would go off, I'd hit snooze, then I'd hear the podcast playing and fall asleep again.
What I finally settled on was setting a sleep timer to stop the podcast a few minutes before my alarm would go off.
I've been listening to that podcast every night for the last 11 years. It's been the best sleep of my life. I've actually had the experience of being consciously aware of losing consciousness. It's a weird and wonderful thing.
The thing about the stories he tells is that it seems like there might be a point, and you start listening to the story, but he goes on so many tangents and diversions that it never actually goes anywhere. After a while, my brain just shuts down.
The first episode I listened to was telling a story about a group of people about to enter a pyramid. It ran for over an hour, but I didn't hear more than a few minutes.
The next episode continued the same story, and when I started it the next night, the people were still outside the pyramid. In over an hour of telling the story the night before, absolutely nothing happened.
Damn dude, I figured I'd give it a shot. Over 12 minutes in and it's been ads, introducing the concept, then more ads, then a short song, then another ad, THEN welcoming you to the show with another explanation of the concept. If I wasn't trying it because of a recommendation I never would have made it this long in.
Yeah, it doesn't work for everyone. He even says that in the intro.
I'd point out that if you thought he'd get right into the story, you weren't paying attention to my description. I'm usually asleep before he gets through the intro.
Nah I got the gist of it from your comment, just almost 15 minutes of pure ads at the beginning is abrasive to me.
I did stick with it, but unfortunately for me I have the same issue as I do listening to an audio book in bed. Even though he's talking nonsense about butter and whatnot, I'm still paying attention too much. Was worth a shot though.
That podcast sounds like the audio equivalent of Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, where the narrator is so in his own head he spends pages going into tedious detail describing tiny facets of the most inconsequential recollections from his childhood. Highly recommended for falling asleep.
I swear I've read a creepypasta of something like this happening to someone.
Yes.
There's a retirement village nearby, and EVERY MORNING around 4 o'clock, some motherfucker with a huge rubbish truck goes in.
The driver parks.
The driver walks over to the large industrial bin.
The driver opens the lid to see if it's worth putting the contents in the truck. If it is, he lets the lid SLAM down, then pushes the rusty metal bin over the bitumen road towards his truck GRRRRNNNNNNNTTTT (because the wheels on those things never work).
He then gets back in his truck, does the little garbo magic with the mechanical arm thing, the truck lifts the bin, and he bangs it against the top of the truck receptacle a few times for shiggles BANG BANG BANGGGG, then moves the mechanical arms to place it back down on the bitumen with a gentle kiss BANG!
He then gets out of his truck, and pushes the now empty industrial bin over to where it was GGNNNNNNKKKKTTTTTT and positions it gently against the brick wall there BANG!
He then gets back in his truck, and reverses out the driveway DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT, and finally fucks off.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of people live there. If I can hear that truck as a neighbour, how much worse must it be for the oldies trying to sleep there?
"If I'm awake everyone else should be awake to witness it." ~ asshole on a motorbike, overrevving on a 30mph road at 5 am
Hearing loss can be a blessing...
No, I cant sleep with anything with vocals in it. My brain strains too hard trying to interpret or ignore it. Non-vocal music can work very well at low volume as long as its repetitive and thus predictable enough that my brain doesn't have to pay attention or react to a lot of changes in composition.
A lot of comments in here about white noise and no one talking about brown noise! Brown noise is elite iykyk
I want something deeper than brown noise. Haven't had any luck though.
Try the Biggest, Blackest Brown Noise!
White noise machine
Moved to a very noisy apartment about a year and half ago. Near a major hospital so ambulances 24/7. Near a rather busy intersection so cars, trucks, motorcycles accelerating 24/7. Live under the approach for a large international airport, so large planes decelerating often throughout the day.
Kept a fan on for almost a year. Fan didn't like it so now it wobbles.
Finally bought an old white noise machine with an actual fan inside. LOVE IT. It doesn't filter out everything but it sure helps.
not intentionally, white noise from the ac or a fan is fine on summer nights though! and the sounds from my girlfriends headphones when she stays up a bit later than me, but only because I get to be next to her lol
a speaker/TV show/movie? absolutely the fuck not I can't sleep with that my brain wants to pay attention so bad
Yeah, for me if I didn't have something to pay attention to my thoughts would never let me drift off.
ive tried a few times when in a hotel or any shared sleeping space, never fails to keep me awake. i used to have that problem with the thoughts but as long as I'm holding something/someone I'm usually good
This is exactly how my brain works too. Can’t sleep unless my brain is focused on one thing rather than a hundred.
Precisely
Yeah, tinnitus.
He's 100% right. I laughed at the imaginary pain, until it happened to me.
"Trust me, you do not want tinnitus." – Sterling Archer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMfPqeZjc2c
For the past two years. Without it, I have intrusive thoughts and anxiety. The sound makes me able to dream and to remember my dreams. I feel protected. Like I was in a bubble, sheltered from reality.
Oh yeah this one is my go to as well
I’m so goddamn hyper alert that I need complete silence and pitch black darkness to fall asleep.
Except for thunderstorms. Those are oddly soothing. But that’s it.
seconded on stormy nights, I love sleeping with the pitter patter of rain and thunder
Playing by Minecraft rules, I see.
Ooooof I'm the opposite. Hyper alert meaning every minor noise, shadow or anything will keep me up. Need to drown it out with someone's voice telling me about a video game from 20 years ago. Or some nonfiction book read by a dude with a monotone voice.
Thunderstorms wake me up because I like them so much.
I always put on one of Vinny Vinesauce's vods from his Fullsauce channel when I go to sleep. He just relaxes me so much I'm normally out within less than 5 minutes whereas in complete silence I could end up taking half an hour or multiple hours to fall asleep.
I prefer to sleep in the quiet, but if the neighbours are being loud I'll use a fan to drown them out
Tv every night
Yeah, my girl is a pitch black silent room sleeper so I do the headphone out of respect. Like I said though, during the days when I sleep alone the TV is blaring.
Go and get that ADHD assessment
Diagnosed and medicated since 8 lol.
Haha fair play then, you got to find out why 25 years before I did
Never, but I like conversing with my internal monologue in my head. I'm not quite neurotypical, but I have been pretty good (trained?) to rein in any out of control thoughts if they ever wander by using bait I know my brain can chill with.
When I was a teen, it was sexy stuff. Young adult, plot points for a novel setting I'll probably never write. Lately, it's just plans for the day (I sleep so much faster now than I used to, though, since I changed my sleep habits after having kids).
Plus, my own monologue makes sense of how I'm feeling and gives me pep talks! That's probably a product of coping with abuse, but it's nice none the less.
You planfor the day and fall asleep? If I start planning I start stressingand worrying and I stay up all night
Especially when it spirals into panic about not having fallen asleep yet which keeps me awake even longer which makes me panic because I have stuff to do tomorrow! Which keeps me awake, on and on
Hell, I plan for the week, even. I'm the kind of person who doesn't tend to write things down so it helps me organize my thoughts. I used to do it with homework assignments but now it's like "kid needs to see her speech therapist on Thursday."
If it helps, I recall reading something that suggested that even if you're not asleep, laying there with your eyes closed will still help you feel somewhat rested. But, admittedly, knowing I have to get up at 6am or something still sucks regardless.
Usually a story-telling or audio play podcast.
I could get down with that.
No
Always, because I have to use a CPAP
I don’t miss my CPAP days.
I'm about to get a dental device that is supposed to replace it, I just have to get around to taking the sleep study.
White noise (usually a fan) has been greatly beneficial to my quality of sleep. I wish I had started doing so many years sooner.
I do not do well with TV or anything that has speech though.
We have a ceiling fan, and I also used various white noise apps on my phone. I read somewhere that sound apps running on my phone all night was bad for the battery, so I bought a small, dedicated rechargeable white noise machine.
ADHD adult with chronic insomnia here. I usually sleep with "electronic ambient music for sleeping with delta waves", which is the prompt I give my bedside google home before bed. I do not sleep more, but the delta waves thing seems to help me sleep deeper.
Podcast recommendations:
Both have no ads at all, and uniform volume.
Gooooood stuff right there bud
"Woo" unintentional ASMR, for me. Love hand reading and concave earth nonsense, it sends me straight into Morpheus' arms.
Is that an app ?
Nooo, just weird videos on YT, lol. Let me show you a classic, "Welcome to the real world" (misspelled in the video), an introduction to the concave earth """theory""": https://youtu.be/WLnSRWaPu3I
I can see the appeal but I've always hated the breathey way ASMR videos are. Even unintentional ones haha.
I live in a city, of course there's noise, mostly road noise from cars going past tbh
I needed the fan when I was younger, but I am more tired now. lol.
Being tired definitely helps the sleep come on faster.
Sleep music . changed my life . i used to lay awake for an hour . i created a world in my head and would continue the story every night . now with sleep music I'm out in minutes , the people of my world prolly miss me.
If it's hot out yes because I got a window ac unit. But when it's cold out, it is the deepest silence, and I love it. Either way, doesn't bother me. But I prefer the quiet.
I absolutely have to have white noise of some sort. My stupid ass brain is ALWAYS on alert for any noise whatsoever. A pin drops on the opposite side of my apartment and my brain freaks out "omg wake up and pay attention!!" it's so fucking frustrating. Any typical creaks or whatever that a house makes, well time to focus the entirety of my attention on it whether I want to or not. A knocking heater? It's the most dangerous thing in the universe and apparently my brain feels that it deserves all of my focus...
I swear sleeping is the most difficult thing for me to do. I'm so tired of being tired lol
Yes I use a fan.
Varies from one night to the next, but I typically put on something from myNoise.net when I do want sound.
I use an app (iOS, Android, Windows, web) by TMSoft called White Noise. I think it was like $2.99. It has a bunch of pre-programmed sounds (waves, chimes, birds, traffic, etc) that you can use. You can also import sounds, change existing sounds (alter pitch, make slower, etc), create your own mixes, etc.
My current "sleep sound" is a mix. The base is pink noise, which nicely muffles many sounds. Since a constant hiss can be annoying on it's own, I topped it with a pitch-lowered heavy rain (the regular pitch was a little annoying). To avoid being woken up by bass noises (lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, delivery trucks), I added in a slowed-down heavy thunderstorm: it has intermittent peals of thunder that rumble on and then fade away; any base noises that I hear, my sleeping mind interprets as a long peal of thunder and doesn't bother waking me up. Underneath all that, I have a very slowed-down heartbeat; my heart will tend to try to match it, prepping me for sleep. And I've added in some very intermittent birdsong and frogs croaking to make it a little more cheerful, and a kitten purring because that's relaxing too so why not?
I tinker with it occasionally, but it really helps me sleep through any disturbances at night.
I have tinnitus, I can't sleep without it.
I have sleep with me podcast
We have the sounds of NYC to fall asleep to.... when we (are able to) go upstate, I sleep like a rock, the silence is deafening
I could never live in a loud city, especially one as loud as NYC.
I live steps from multiple Michelin starred restaurants and some of the best museums and galleries on earth, and am surrounded by pieces of every culture on the planet; opportunity flows like water. It's a very demanding place to live but I couldn't trade it for anything
Oh man no. Not like that. White noise or nature sounds is great. One thing is I run a fan often in the summers and it is a bit annoying to adjust to not having it but its not so big a deal I feel I have to use it. Its like a treat for myself to put on some nature sounds but I rarely do it. I love having a fire with ocean rains and a light storm combined. Im actually sorta the opposite of you. Sounds that actually have engaging audio drive me nuts and its kina worse the lower it gets. The most annoying thing is to have this sound of a show or voices that is just barely loud enough that I can hear them and its keeping me from actually sleeping. Have had to remind my wife a bunch to put on her headphones as she always thinks she can just lower the volume and it will be fine. But the lower volume is as I said. Worse.
Just the sound of my CPAP running
I use a fan. Without it it's too quiet and hot.
I’ve had some success with binaural beats. It’s two pure sin wave tones - one in each ear. The tones are out of tune with each other so it has a bit of a wavy or pulsing sound. But they’re close enough to sound like one note and not two. Apparently the difference between these two waves gets entrained into your brain waves even though you can’t hear it. My favorites are 94 hz carrying a 3 hz differential, 96 hz carrying a 4hz differential, and 115 hz carrying a 5 hz differential. I’m using an app called Binaural Beat Gen by TMSOFT. Anyway the very low brain waves are delta waves associated with deep sleep. In a way, it’s hacking your brain to sleep.
Interesting, I think that was an aspect of a type of therapy I did years ago. EMDR if I remember right, could be completely wrong though.
Every night, White noise via the sound of rain and/or the fans of my computer if I leave it on.
I used a fan for almost three decades. About a year ago, I fell asleep without my fan accidentally and I have not slept with one since. #JustTinnitusThings
I honestly would prefer library silence or less. Earplugs cause other issues for me so they are not an option, I have tried. I also prefer almost complete darkness.
I'm honestly looking to build a float tank to use for times when I am really struggling to sleep. When I scuba dive the only reason why I don't try to take a nap is the risk of losing my regulator or running out of air.
Yes. Generally with Would I Lie to You or the Unbelievable Truth.
Give me the sound of rain or white noise or give me death!
Yes.
I prefer movies or anime I've seen so many times that I have them memorized, so my mind follows along effortlessly.
It's sort of like my mind is a toddler, and if I don't plunk it down in front of something familiar that I know it likes, it'll run off and get into god-knows-what and I'll never get a moment's peace.
As a teenager in the '70s I used to fall asleep to albums and the radio on headphones. These days, I need silence!
My husband usually falls asleep to tv, so I usually put on instrumental music on earbuds to drown it out. I'll stay up way too late listening to tv otherwise.
I sleep with a fan going and some zen-like meditation music on my computer.
Sounds peaceful
My window unit on hot days. Also some tv show I’ve seen before.
I sleep in my AirPods listening to tv shows. The new feature where it pauses my stuff after I fall asleep is pretty nifty.
That sounds like an incredible feature for me. Unfortunately I don't have anything apple.
Ive been sleeping with a noise maker (the kind that blows air through holes) my entire life. Ive noticed I get deeper sleep in silence though, it just takes too long to fall asleep without the white noise.
I didn't do it for noise initially, but I've become quite dependent on the fan noise from my air purifier these days.
Yeah, I have a mp3 player under my pillow with a white noise track on it
Yes. I have a list of YouTube channels that make content suitable for me to sleep to.
English isn't my mother language so I think it's easier to me to pay attention when I want to but just turn off my brain when I feel like it's time to sleep
I started using a white noise machine and fans on high when I lived down the block from a hospital emergency room. It sounded like a jet engine in my bedroom, but my brain learned to interpret the white noise as profound silence. I moved away from the hospital zone but still use the white noise to sleep.
I sleep with noise but I don't need it to sleep. I just leave my windows open and get the ambient sounds of the city at night: traffic, distant music, fireworks, snatches of conversation as people walk by.
But I also go camping and the sounds of nature are just as fine: coyote howling, wind through the trees, crickets and birds and raccoons
I rarely get true silence but when I do... I still fall asleep just the same.
Can’t sleep without the TV on, ever since I was a teenager. I have playlists of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, the entire chronological timeline of Star Trek, Star Wars extended universe, Stargate, and many others. I rotate through them.
I started sleeping with rain sounds years ago because I would always hyperfixate on every little noise. The wobbling tone of the ceiling fan was enough to keep me awake some nights. I've played my usual setup for people and it's always too quiet for them to near, but it's louder than every creak and pop of the house. The track I picked was based on what actual rain sounds like outside my window.
Podcasts can help me fall asleep when I can't, but that happens rarely and does not feel like a good thing to me, as it's usually being stuck in bad thoughts.
Been falling asleep to music recently, using Finamp and set a timer for 90 minutes because sometimes it takes me 30+ min to fall asleep. Wear one ear piece, so it's not to drown out noise, just something to fall asleep to
Yep, HomePod has a 'babbling brook" loop. I used to use "rain on a tin roof", but Apple is a jerk and doesn't make bringing your own sleep sounds easy.
Going to have to check that out. We’ve been using the rain sounds.
It takes practice, like anything else. Doing something makes you better at something and not doing something will make you worse at it. In this case you have been conditioning your brain to need ambient noise. There is a line between it being a small help on some days and it being a crutch you've built your life around. Sounds lile you are in the latter camp.
Before I got married, I always put some snoozefest video to fall asleep to. Now I fall asleep by itself. Frankly, I am not even close to my wife who falls asleep in 5 minutes if she leaves her phone alone. But 10 to 15 mins is guaranteed for me.
It took practice too. After I stopped doing it, sometimes it would take me more than half an hour to fall asleep. Especially if something is bothering me. Overtime I have developed ways to take my mind off these thoughs by focusing on music or sounds around me.
I have the TV on in the other room while falling asleep. I live alone, so nobody is bothered by it
I'd prefer to sleep in total silence, but since that's not an option where I currently live, I have a white noise machine.
White noise. I cant stand random volume changes, otherwise I wouldn't mind soft music. I also cant stand the sound of my own breathing, so silence isnt an option.
I do not. AI prefer quiet for sleep.
The sound of rain is nice though to go to sleep.
Nope, the quieter, the better
Used to. Had to have the radio going on low or a fan running during the summer. Not anymore. Any chance you’re adhd? Sometimes The noise in the head is hard to shut off so you can sleep.
Whatever it takes to quiet the thoughts. Plus, adding a base layer of familiar sound helps drown out the odd sounds that makes your brain assess the danger. I don't often use sound, but for a while I did key myself into playing a particular Deadmau5 album to knock me out for a lunch nap.
The thoughts can be a problem. You can't stop thinking about how to fix something from earlier. My favorite mental game is picking a category and going through the alphabet, naming an item for each letter. It's OK to skip a letter, come back later. You're still thinking creatively, but the speed is much slower. The "problem" is no longer something threatening you (bills, arguments, chores), it's just finding a one-word response at a time. Cities, towns but not real cities, desserts, bodies of water, car models, zoo animals, construction materials, colors...
Yes, either the fan, or gentle psybient music, something. Because it's never silent, and earplugs make me cough, I need sleepy sounds.
ETA I also love when a neighbor has a party, sleeping to the distant sounds of a party, music and all, relaxes my mind so much. I think my subconscious must figure things are ok if people are partying. I have had sometimes the opportunity to sleep above a dance club and that also was so nice.