Ask Lemmy

Nothing. As close to silence as possible.

I use Futurama. It's my comfort show and I've watched it so much it makes me sleepy now haha

Technology Connections doing a deep dive into something like how a VHS cassette tape works. I’m interested, but if it’s late, the topic also knocks me out in about 15 min.

A fan and total darkness.

Audiobooks.

Mostly the one I'm currently reading, but I have to listen to that part again the next day.

If that's too engaging I listen to Nothing much happens, Bedtime stories where as it says, not much is happening, read in a soothing voice.

Darkness and a home server fan

I've been listening to Fall of Civilizations, with some Kosmo before that.

I used to try to put on ocean things, but the animals were all too pretty, so I'd end up watching it instead of sleeping.

Alarm clock sound.

Math class

Classic movies, usually from TCM. I love classics but they’re often fantastic to fall asleep to with their slower stories and quieter dialog.

ASMR videos. I know some people associate them with fetish stuff but they're really varied and most are just about relaxing.

Over the last year or so I've conditioned myself to fall asleep to "Seasons" by Chris Cornell. It's the first song on my sleep playlist and I realized I was conditioned a few weeks ago when my wife was watching the movie Singles (which features the song repeatedly) and every time a bit of the song was played I would yawn.

The I cant sleep podcast. Just a guy reading random wikipedia articles.

A book.

Fucking quiet. Which is damn near impossible to get, which is what gives me insomnia

D&D lore, or any other fictional lore is really good for this. It's not nearly interesting enough to really keep my attention, but just interesting enough that I kinda half listen.

Put this on, and just try to stay awake at night, I dare you.

https://youtu.be/RF-5kbXzopg

For background listening while I'm winding down in the evening I like something a little more interesting, and my best for that is probably SEA. One of the best astronomy channels around.

https://youtu.be/-ybiXR2WCFQ

Whatever book I'm currently reading.

A couple YouTube channels I regularly turn to:

The Exploring Series - He does read throughs of SCP files and Lovecraft stuff, as well as other things. His voice and inflection are excellent for being calming, but not hammy like a lot of sleep story channels.

Astrum - Astronomy and physics related material. Also an excellent voice for this purpose.

Otherwise I sometimes just pull up a dungeon synth album that has the right mood that I'm feeling for the night.

More Kitboga for the last few months.

Extremely longform videos where an incredibly talented voice actor/software engineer/performance artist/ADHD dad calls scammers and wastes their time, collecting things like bank accounts to report as compromised, BTC wallet addresses to investigate, and the like. Streams all of his calls live, uses a physical voice transformer, and plays like 12 different characters on the fly. Sometimes plays four characters AT A TIME.

The relaxing sound of scammers just screaming obscenities in other languages.

An irreverant/fantasy show with sypathetic well-intentioned protagonists, at minimum understandable volume, with characters and plotlines that invite analysis. Something about the pointlessness of studying a fantasy universe is a quite effective sleep aid. Various Star Trek series, Futurama, X-Files, Grimm, Family Guy...

For shows that are a great fit except for a few segments (boisterous theme songs, jarring fight scenes, etc) the PotPlayer Skip Playback function (hotkey ') is super useful. Also I have a basic script that gradually mutes the volume after 40 minutes.

Almost all the suggestions here are videos. Who wants light from a screen keeping them awake when they are trying to sleep? Put on some very quiet music instead. Best for me is when it's something I know pretty well.

Used to watch Forrest Gump and Harry Potter to fall asleep quite a few years ago.

Anything presented by Simon Whistler.

Cosmos with Carl Sagan

Malcontent.

Futurama. used to be Dan Carlin podcasts

Reading paper books.

There's this Dutch fella who has a huge library of videos on YouTube where he plays these incredibly difficult custom levels for Doom. Despite the difficulty of playing them pistol start on the hardest difficulty, he's (almost) always very calm, narrating his experiences live with a low, calming voice. Game volume is also set low, so even with tons of explosions and screaming revenants his voice takes center stage.

While he isn't uploading gameplay videos anymore, save for user submitted levels, he was uploading daily videos for the better part of five years. There's plenty of material. I like to put a video or two on while unwinding for bed, and once I start feeling sleepy enough I just lock my phone screen, drop the volume til I can juuuust clearly hear his voice, and fall asleep.

decino

I have a playlist of meditation/yoga music I put on when I go to bed.

Casefile. It's not that content is boring or uninteresting. It just knocks me out.

I listen to a small fan generating white noise and sometimes my cat purring

Feldup, the French version of scare theater or other channels like that.

If it is really noisy or I need to sleep during the day (working shifts), waves sound from my Ozlo sleepbuds.

Anything I’m watching by the time it hits 11:30 at night. Unless it’s a really great movie/show, I’m falling asleep on the couch.

The Office (US). I've seen them all a million times but there's still enough to distract my mind. It's using the ubiquity of all the one liners and memes to advantage.

There's a few short fiction podcasts I like for bedtime stories:

• Myths & Legends
• Fictional
• LeVar Burton Reads
• The Magnus Archives

Woodworking or restoring old appliances and tools.

Usually nothing but silence, but if I can not sleep or am thinking to loud I try to distract myself with some glitch in the matrix or anything by as the Raven dreams.