Sound for a mind that won't switch off.

Why it works

An unoccupied mind goes looking for work. Silence gives it the whole day to go through, and plain noise is not much better: the ear stops hearing it within minutes and the mind is on its own again. So this page starts with two layers, a dark, drifting noise and a voice over it.

The voice is the working part. It reads true, mildly interesting material at a pace nobody could be anxious at, and it gives the ending away at the start so there is no suspense to stay up for. Your mind gets something to turn over. It turns it more and more slowly.

What you are hearing

• Dark noise. Pink noise low-passed at 320 Hz, with a very slow rise and fall in level that never repeats. Soft, close and a little uneven, like air moving at night.
• 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.