Which YouTuber's voice can lull you to sleep?
I’ve exhausted things I can sleep to on Netflix, and it’s literally impossible to sleep to things on Prime (so I barely watch anything there; it’s not worth falling asleep to something I like, since I might be punished for it), so I’ve started putting on YouTube in the evenings since it won’t wake me with silence at 4am.
I’ve a few voices I love listening to, but I’d like even more.
Which YouTubers do you recommend who:
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Have smooth, hypnotic voices,
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have content that won’t give me uncomfortable dreams (I’m a very visual, realistic, and impressionable dreamer), and
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have channels I’ll want to listen to when awake? (eta I like sciences and news mostly, a bit of fiction (scifi, horror, nf), gaming, other nerdy things, but never romance, pop culture , or reality tv).
I kinda need all 3.
Technology Connections sounds straight up my alley, thanks!
PBS Spacetime is already a standby. I’ve seen all of them at least twice. I’m always up for more watches.
If Technology Connections is up your alley check out LGR if you haven't. He has a very smooth voice, talks mostly about 90's and early 2000's computer nostalgia, with smooth jazz in the background. We fall asleep watching him regularly as it's just a calm, chill time.
Technology Connections is awesome. He's the one who got me to understand how old CRT televisions could put a picture on a radio signal that could be picked up by both color and B&W TV's.
Youre looking for Bismuth, the technical speedrun communicator. Hes perfect in everyway.
Also theres Tomatoanus, also speedrun comminicator, excellent work.
Isaac Arthur is a futurist I like for this, hell give you wonderful dreams.
3blueonebrowns visual communicatio style is excellent but ive fallen asleep to his videos tons of times.
Chyrosan22 has the voice of God and he reviews mechanical keyboards, absolutely love it
Donoteat01, justin rosczknyaiacs channel, has perfect shit in his Power Planning and Politics series, hypnotic, funny, and entrancing
Drachinifel is a naval historiographer whos excellent, highly reccomend his video on the second pacific sauadron
Emplemon also has some excellent content
Food Wishes is chef johns youtube channel and he has a very unique way if talking that i love
Hypohystericalhistory has excellent longform documentaries about warstuff
Hope thats enough thats off the top of my head and is through H of my subscriptions lol
Oh wow, thanks!
This list will keep me for a while.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned VaatiVidya yet. His voice is so calm and relaxing, he's a fantastic narrator. His content is mainly lore about FromSoftware games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring.
This! I had to search for Vaatividya in order to find this comment.
His prepare to cry series as well as all of his lore videos could keep me going for ages!
Northernlion's Binding of Isaac series is notorious for putting people to sleep regularly. Definitely a must-listen in my books
I miss old NL before he was always interacting with twitch chat. I get why he made the move, and I like a lot of his newer content, but I feel like he was funnier when he was just bullshitting to himself
Exactly my sentiments! I don't really enjoy the twitch culture. Recent streams are all about commenters making snarky comments and NL trying to outsmart them I feel like. I still enjoy his unprompted insane takes a lot though.
I hear that. I've gotten used to it over the years and do see its value, but I do miss his oldschool Isaac-esque narration.
Same, it's a lot of old man yelling at kids on the internet.
Ooh my time to shine with my long list
I'll add more if I remember.
3blue1brown is a great call.
I would add Applied Science and NileRed (who does chemistry experiments) as possibilities if OP likes their voices. Their content is very methodical and uniform. My cat likes their videos, which seems like a pretty good metric for this use case.
I also love vihart, who does math videos, but her stuff is a little more varied, including some music, so OP might want to evaluate her during the day before trusting her channel for sleep.
Jeremy Fielding has a great voice if you want videos about engineering and how to salvage motors out of washing machines and treadmills.
I'll consult my subscription list and add more if I find any.
Edited to add:
Carl Bugeja (electronics)
CGP Grey (mostly history)
DIY Perks (various projects)
Henry Segerman (math art)
OskarPuzzle (designs for 3d printed puzzles)
Razbuten (video games)
Sabine Hossenfelder (physics)
Stand-up Maths (math)
Steve Mould (explanations of unusual everyday things, I guess? kinda hard to summarize)
Technology Connections (as others have mentioned)
Tim Hunkin (makes weird mechanical art and explains machines)
Tom Scott (videos about unusual places and bits of history)
Two Minute Papers (advances in AI and computer graphics)
Edited again to add: Breaking Taps. This one is mostly microscopic fabrication stuff, so, various kinds of microscopes, vapor deposition, etching, etc.
Yes almost all great options.
The narrator from the game the Stanley parable
perun
If you've ever been in the military, and had to endure hour-long PowerPoint presentations, and felt very sleepy... This guy is for you.
Perun does deep dives into defense economics, for modern-day conflicts. Extremely interesting stuff. Easy to fall asleep to. Highly recommend.
Death by PowerPoint!
Oh wow, it just keeps going.
This looks perfect, thank you.
has one of the most smooth voices I've fond. Very chill process even to watch.
I also find very soothing.
https://www.youtube.com/@Luetin09 and https://www.youtube.com/@baldermort for Warhammer 40K stuff. But that may break rule 2
https://www.youtube.com/@ScottsThoughtsPokemon for Pokemon Yellow playthrough with every Pokemon and back porting some gen 2 Pokemon to gen 1.
If you prefer red and blue there is https://www.youtube.com/@Jrose11 but his voice may not be rule 1.
I have slept through hours of Luetin
I like how recently he knows we do this and will shout us out. Too bad we are asleep and don't hear it.
Steve from GN Nexus
Are you sure it isn't just all the charts and data putting you to sleep? ^^^/s
Pete Complete, in particular his RimWorld series. His voice, relaxed tone and slow pacing with a lot of pause in his speech puts me to sleep even when I'm not trying to.
Absolutely my choice as well. In addition to being all the things that OP has asked for, he's also a phenomenal player and his dedication to highly precise play is insane.
My wife and I have been through all of his Rimworld series, and watch it as we would a TV show when a new episode drops. We just got done watching biotech episode 5!
Joe Pera Talks You Back to Sleep
The whole series isn't on YouTube, unfortunately, but it is SO worth your time and fits the bill like nothing else.
My big two are long form chemistry videos (codyslab, nilered) and old archived hours of the first version of the AI show Nothing Forever. Very easy listening IMO and should hit most of your bases. Maybe also look for podcasts on a topic you like, those can be hours long
Seconding NileRed. If I'm tired and watching his videos I can fall asleep, but they're great amusement awake as well
Professor David Kipping and his Cool Worlds youtube series / podcast.
https://www.youtube.com/@CoolWorldsLab/featured (sorry, linking to the channel instead of a specific video so can't use piped it seems
Try Drachinifel. It's about ships and naval stuff from previous centuries. Best sleep. https://youtube.com/@Drachinifel?si=hiHGva5RXNeSVopY
I watch a lot of tech related youtubers to fall asleep.
Techmoan, LGR, Bigclivedotcom, Usagi Electric, Tech tangents, technology connections.
Non-tech related youtubers: Baumgartner restorations, atomic shrimp, ashens
The History channels:
It's really good long form fomat. You don't have to watch anything and just listen. It's long enough for me to fall asleep and not hear the whole video so next night I just go close enough to the end of what I heard/remember I heard and just continue listening. I don't mind relistening at all - I always miss something so I always learn something new.
Edit: the awesome thing is that these videos are told basically like a story. The narrator's voice is calming, there are no loud noises or anything. He really tells it like a good night story.
I find the Universe one the best one for me. The one for Humankind or Earth can be unsettling sometimes (mostly the intros in my experience) but I don't have problems with uncomfortable dreams really so I don't mind. But from my experience if there's something that could give you a bad dream it's only in the into.
If you like D&D then I can suggest D&D Deep Dive - roughly hour long videos building weird combos for D&D play but with the smoothest voice ever!
Here are some I enjoy. All have a good voice, not overly expressively and no sudden change in background tracks. No sudden screaming/explosions/anything that will wake you.
John Michael Godier Science/Speculative Scifi, Low Soothing voice, even has a sleep playlist.
Issac Arthur Sci-Fi, Calm voice, Good background track, Long Videos
Darth Gandalf Fantasy, Soothing Voice
Forgotten Weapons Firearms, Historical and Mechanical overviews and indepth discussions. I recommend you skip the shooting range stuff if you're trying to sleep.
Cool Worlds Science & Astronomy. Great Narrative Voice, Calm background tracks.
North02 Science, Anthropology & Natural history. Soothing Voice, nice selection of long videos.
Natural World Facts Deep Sea biology, excellent soothing narrations, very good soothing background tracks.
Let's talk religion. Barely sociable. Lemmino
Dan Olson
Thevolgun... Just don't listen to the really scary scps .....
I'll add The Exploring Series as well, they have more long form videos and cover other subjects as well as SCP content. Both have great voices and I've fallen asleep to both before.
Just make sure you turn off YouTube autoplay, you never know what you're going to wake up to....
I love Wendigoon, he does interesting long term stories and is really calm
I should mention audiobooks. I love listening to audiobooks, and sleeping to them is also great. There's some excellent works out there, especially voice work by Steven Fry, that's just magic to listen to.
https://www.proofreadingservices.com/pages/audiobooks-read-by-stephen-fry
Oh yeah. And Stephen Fry is a national treasure.
I don’t know why, but I can’t sleep to them, though. I have to listen for some reason, and my brain gets too engaged.
It might be because it's a new story. Try listening to a story you've already heard before.
I find when I go to sleep with audiobooks, it feels like I'm awake for hours. But the next day when I try to pick up where I left off on the audiobook, I'm usually 5 to 10 minutes in. But it felt like hours.
John Michael Godier, great sleep ready content about science and science fiction. One of my faves.
John Michael Godier sleep crew checking in!
"The Why Files" and "Kutzergart".
If I'm really not ready to sleepy, I find the content interesting. If I am ready to sleep but my brain won't shut down then I ignore the words and I find the voices very soothing and relaxing.
That’s exactly the quality I’m looking for, thanks!
Ethoslab and Docm77 are both older Minecraft YouTubers who have a pretty chill voice and calm demeaner, Etho especially.
Honestly Kitboga is just so soothing to listen to
If you like video games, try a search for a video game of choice and add the words "role play".
I was playing a lot of Kenshi and I found some YouTubers who make long playthroughs of games. Specifically I enjoyed Rycon Roleplays Kenshi which was something like 80 videos and each about an hr long. It would put me to sleep.
Didn't see Baumgartner Restoration here yet. Incredibly soothing art restoration
For speeling purposes have you tried ASMR content?
For example Let's Find Out makes ASMR content focused on anstronomy and physics stuff and mainly whispering things. Example: https://youtu.be/U6M7_Pt0d14?si=0By2q3YJ-r95K0TD.
You also have The French Whisperer ASMR, who does a bit of everything (history, some science, reading stories...)
For pure ASMR (but non informative nor anything) RaffyTaffyASMR puts out some solid content.
ASMR sounds of natural things okay, ASMR talking sounds creepy to me no matter the topic, the moment I feel sleepy I get this feeling that they are sweet talking me and will kidnap me to sell my kidney when I fall asleep.
XD. I do get relaxed with them, but to be sincere, there have been a few times when I've woken up while listening to one of those and my half-asleep ass, not understanding a dingle word (even though it was english), felt like I was in the middle of an alien abduction.
StezStix Fix has a soothing channel where he fixes electronics.
Probably NileRed if he isnt handling explosives...
Some vTubers from Hololive have awesome voices and the live stream content isnt packed with interesting content
Definitely NileRed for me. Started watching his video about bulletproof wood yesterday and fell asleep after around 17 minutes. It's something about his voice and presentation that makes it really relaxing for me.
Just dont comment it without context in his video :D
Lol I see how that sounds a bit bad. I rewatched the entire thing today, its actually really interesting.
Seems to be a german thing to watch it today :D
Cracking the Cryptic always lulls me to sleep. Specially Simon.
Same, I was going to mention this one if no one had already. Except the outro music, at least a while back, is so much louder and would wake me up again.
Madseasonshow. I found him when World of Warcraft Classic launched a handful of years ago. Thinking about it, he and Joe Pera have a very similar speech style.
I've heard there are a lot of people who listen to PBS Space Time to fall asleep.
Danny Harmon of Distant Signal, if you're interested in railroading. I could listen to him talk at length about literally anything for hours.
My wife puts on RyconRoleplays or ChristopherOdd in the background sometimes when she’s having trouble sleeping. Rycon might have the voice you’re looking for; Odd’s narration depends on the game he’s playing, he likes to set the mood in more atmospheric games, and he reads out every bit of lore.
Clarkesworld is a sci-fi magazine with free audio versions on their site, plus on Spotify as a podcast. I’d recommend “The very Pulse of the Machine” personally as an intro. It was adapted into a great episode of “Love, Death + Robots”.
Noah Caldwell-Gervais is my go-to for just relaxing audio. He does very in depth coverage of game franchises talking about how they evolved and the ways the mechanics support the narrative or run counter to it. Very chill and hypnotizing voice
https://youtube.com/@broadcaststsatic?si=r1mXzscOKAAZCNsI
Lemmino hits 1 and 3, and sometimes 2 (some of his videos are about dark topics, some are more fun or wonderous). His voice is very nice to listen to. Smooth, low, and a relatively thick, but perfectly understandable Danish accent.
To boot, he's one of the best goddamned researchers I've ever seen. For example, he did a documentary on Jack the Ripper. Instead of just going over the same beats everyone else does, this madlad poured over dozens of police reports, newspaper clippings, and eyewitness accounts from the time of the events, (more than 150 years old), and then compared those to more contemporary research to make a more complete study. He somehow put all of this together into the most cohesive description of the events I've ever seen, all with detailed and accurate CGI visuals (nothing graphic, just to show locations and timelines and such).
Really, really dedicated guy with a huge amount of integrity in his work, lots of creative flair, and no annoying biases or wild assumptions.
History of the entire universe
And earth
And humanity is their newest channel
I listen to my favorite British game show (QI and "8 out of 10 cat's does countdown") or the 10 hour loop of Joe Pera talks you to sleep https://youtu.be/91wX0NRjJqg?si=aMDe0U0oyoNmAbVR
Northernlion, specifically his non-twitch content. I also enjoy his twitch content but he goes reaction mode for it and it's not the same rhythm
Vi Hart is calm and mathy. Here's the story of Wind & Mr ug.
Highly recommend History of the Universe and its sister channels, it is incredibly calming
James May, reassembler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_jgBrUdtEg&list=PLyl5ty6OTbcoHPEVeH8k2Ke1DVcYwqELa
My current go-to is Paul Cooper's Fall of Civilizations Podcast
ZFG. He has a nice deep voice. He mostly does Zelda Ocarina of Time speed runs, but as of lately he has focused on playing Zelda randomizers.
I like The Spiffing Brit (game exploits), The Backlogs (challenge runs) and JoshStrifeHayes (MMO stuff).
Wristwatch revival is a go to for me !
Gopher, I found his channel learning how to mod various Bethesda games over 10 years ago but he has let's plays for various games that are great and put me to sleep when I'm tired
Don't know if they're on the tube, but I never made it through an episode of Brian Cox's Cosmos without nodding off.
Wirtual - trackmania streamer and ancient Egyptian expert
https://m.youtube.com/@sea_space
This one is my favorite. It's mostly 30 minute videos about astronomy. I recommend starting with the newer ones.
No idea about YouTubers, but I sometimes put on Nemo's Dreamscapes to sleep. It's just a music ambience but I like it.
Thanks!
Unfortunately music doesn’t work for me. I need something to engage part of my brain or my mind races.
How about something like Veritasium, Kyle Hill or VSauce?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds
Especially their podcasts and audio dramas.
Not a "youtuber", but Jason Stephenson - Floating Amongst Stars might help you.
Hardware Haven is very calm and articulate. His (home made, I think) background music is really zen.
For gaming I'd go with 'Midnight Snap' long let's plays designed for being on while you sleep. No shouting, no loud laughs or anything, just chill rambling
I like brutal moose, he has had a whole slew of different content through the years from video games, cooking and shopping outings that are all funny, meanwhile his second channel moose2 has streams that are calm and great to sleep too.
Real calm voice, jazz in the background usually, still entertaining. Just don't put on any point and click adventure games to go to sleep because all the noises will be clicked repeatedly lol.
I go to sleep with the History of Philosophy: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/history-of-philosophy-without-any-gaps/id396903391.
Everyone has different things they want for going to sleep, and this might not be right for you. But for me this is perfect because:
I seriously can barely get through 1 or 1 episodes before going to sleep. Another similar one is Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History.
Whisky.com! Smooth, German! Very serious about quality whisky.
I like ! He's a Dutch fella that does videos of him playing Doom levels with live commentary, all done in single takes with no saves. He also does Doom analysis videos, which are fantastic deep dives into the code and mechanics of the old Doom games, but I love his play throughs as sleep aid since he keeps the game volume low and has this low, soothingly calm voice and laid back quality.
The Librarian for me, no competition. He analyzes horror games/stories so well and the dude has a very pleasant voice.
I very recently got into watching his videos. They're great for falling asleep to, his voice is just so calm and soothing.
Dan Worrall
Warlockracy, but I don't think that's normal.
Wolfpack345 plays naval war games and has a voice like that. He usually does slow and strategic submarine stuff. Puts me right to sleep.
Ozzyman reviews. I sleep violently.
Danooct1 was this for me, though I've no idea if you'd be interested in old computer viruses.
Have you tried ASMR videos? I'm sure there are lots of creators there that will hit all 3 for you.
Posy.
I've slept with each of these before:
LockpickingLawyer (lockpicking videos)
Trent Lenarski (multi content. specifically his Stardew Valley playlist is nice and relaxed)
Pekinwoof (streamer. Keep to his first channel for sleeping. Channel 2 is louder)
Talking Feds with Harry Litman (lawyer who talks law in politics)
Sean Carroll (podcasts. Various science topics)
Sam Harris (podcasts. Some episodes can get loud when he's playing recordings of news events.)
Idk if I just have a dirty mind or whether that was intentional lol
Purge (https://youtube.com/@PurgeGamers) is pretty good. He typically posts full, un-cut dota games, and is lower energy throughout. There's not big volume or tone changes, and they're long enough that you should always be able to fall asleep during them.
You should try classical music.
For me it has been Slay The Spire streamer Baalorlord. His cozy sub club is just too cozy for me some times.
Manlybadasshero
Dude does a lot of indie games especially horror. But his voice is really soothing and he's really calm so I end up falling asleep a lot
Northernlion -- He plays video games, but his banter is very easy-going. I especially like his older videos where it's just him (not reacting to chat while streaming) rolling with his stream of consciousness while he plays the game and talks about it and life in general.
Biffa, he plays cities skylines and it's super relaxing
Northernlion for general gaming and PekinWoof for League of Legends gameplay are my choices
Papa Meat
he might give you nightmares though lol
ChessNetwork
The guy who makes the vita carnie series and his art tutorials might not fit the second criteria
IPAT
Lmao just close your eyes