Sleep story · cozy, rain
Sleep story: an attic room, when you are not sure this will work — for a racing mind
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
Lights off. Press begin and let the story read itself to you, at the pace of sleep.
Screen on or off — we suggest dimming it, or simply closing your eyes after the first paragraph.
The story, in full
The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window. There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night.
Let your lower back sink down into the mattress. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.
Let your ribs stop working so hard. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.
The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.
Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
If a song is stuck in your head, let it play in the background. Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Let your calves spread out and flatten.
Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Nothing needs deciding tonight.
Leave it there. Let the next part go past without you. Nothing here needs following closely.
Not being sure it will work is a perfectly good reason to try it once.
That is the end of the story. Sleep is the next part, and it does not need instructions.
12 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for cozy, rain.
If this story does not settle you, try A kitchen late at night, after a long day — for waking too early, An attic room (a sleep story), if you have done this a hundred times — for an overtired night or An attic room (a sleep story), when you are at home and cannot settle — for a restless night.