An alternative to sleep meditation.

Why it works

Meditation asks you to notice your thoughts and let them pass. That is a skill, and a hard one to practise in the dark with a full head. If emptying your mind has never worked, you are in good company, and there is another approach: fill it, gently, with something that does not matter.

This page plays a soft green noise with a quiet story on top. The story makes no requests. It will not ask you to relax your shoulders. It tells you about a small town on the Greek coast, and if you stop listening halfway through a sentence, that is the intended outcome.

What you are hearing

• Green noise. Pink noise passed through a wide band centred on 500 Hz. The lows and the hiss are both turned down, leaving the middle, where most outdoor sound lives.
• The voice. The first four minutes of Aristotle, the Greatest Philosopher, a Lullable story, in a synthesised voice. It only plays if you bring it in.
• The ending. The preview lasts four minutes. Its last ten seconds are a straight fade to silence, so it never stops abruptly.

For a real recording that runs forty minutes, the Lullable iPhone app has rain, waves, a campfire and plain noise, with no voice and no music.