Send Me To Sleep | Rain

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So give it a listen, and perhaps you'll have another way to get a good night's rest. Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player. Hey, it's Thomas here. I'm the host of Deep Sleep Sounds. Another sleep-inducing podcast from the Slumber Studios Network. On the Deep Sleep Sounds podcast, you'll find hundreds of episodes featuring relaxing nature soundscapes, sleep music, calming white noise and much more. Everything is designed with your sleep in mind. So if you're looking for another great way to ease into a restful night's slumber, then just search Deep Sleep Sounds on your favorite podcast player. I'll see you there, my friends. Hey, it's Thomas here. I'm the host of Get Sleepy, another sleep-inducing podcast from the Slumber Studios Network. On Get Sleepy, you'll find hundreds of original bedtime stories and meditations to fall asleep to. Some of our listener favorites are our trips to the rainy day bakery, our Sleepy History series and our adaptations of classic tales like Beauty and the Beast. Everything is designed with your sleep in mind. So if you're looking for another great way to ease into a restful night's slumber, then just search Forget Sleepy on your favorite podcast player. I'll see you there, my friends. I've never been the sort of person who was put off by the rain if we were, say, already planning to go out for a walk. I know a lot of people sort of see a cloudy sky and, you know, the drizzle beginning to come down and think, oh, well, that's our plan's done for the day. But I don't think that's ever really bothered me personally because I think there's actually something quite exciting about the rain when it comes. Of course, in a very gentle, atmospheric sort of way, you know, there's almost this sort of layer of adventure that's added to any endeavor if the rain suddenly presents itself. And that is, of course, directly proportional to the amount of rain that starts to pour. But I think as long as you're prepared, you know, you have a good cold on, you have a nice sturdy umbrella. And as long as, of course, the rain isn't really, really too much to bear, which, of course, sometimes it can be. There's nothing wrong with a little bit of water falling from the sky. Sometimes it can add to any endeavor. It can make the journey that you're about to make. If you're in the right mindset to see it like that, of course. Hello, by the way. My name's Andrew. And today I'm talking about rain. It's nice of you to join me. Appreciate you being here. I'm guessing that you're here because, one, you'd like to feel a little more relaxed this evening. And to you, like me, enjoy the subject and the sound of rain. And moping that across this gentle conversation, I'm going to not only create a nice cosy atmosphere and ambience for you around the concept of rain, but also towards the end we're going to start drifting off the andering. Going to places that we hadn't initially seen. And see where we get to. Hopefully that helps you drift into a place where you can feel a little more relaxed and able to drift into sleep. Imagining yourself as perhaps some little paper boat that we take and as we stoop down into the gutter on a rainy day and the water is streaming down the road. We plop our little paper boat that is you onto this rushing stream and you gently drift off down the road. If you see that as an effectual analogy. Now like I say, I quite enjoy going out in the rain. I think there's something beautiful and adventurous about it, especially going through the forest when it's raining. Because, well, first of all, trees give you such a wonderful natural canopy that oftentimes I've been walking in the woods and only when I've exited the more dense areas have even realised that it began to rain. So there's this sort of beautiful, protected feeling that you can get in the woods, but when it's wet and the rain begins to pour and you're there, hit amongst the trees. The atmosphere around you completely changes, you know. There's this new assault of the senses, you know, the smell of the earth when the rain comes down and the smell of the trees becomes so much more fragrant and there's this new texture taken on by everything, you know, the look of wet bark. This shine against the trunks of the trees and the branches, the look of dew drops or dripping water from leaves as they pour down. It's a beautiful thing to interact with. I think it helps you feel a bit more in touch with nature because, of course, nature isn't always a bright and sunny day. Sometimes it is the rain, sometimes it's the snow, sometimes it's the wind, sometimes it's the cold. And in all of those instances, it's still a really beautiful thing, I think. Something to relish, something you should submit yourself, something you should succumb to as you sit in the ambience of it. I think one of my most favorite rainy days, at least in recent memory, was when I visited Lisbon. This was a few years ago now. And for most of our trip, which was only about four days, we had very lovely sunny skies and Lisbon in the sun is a beautiful place. Lisbon, in general, is a beautiful place. If you've ever been, well, I'd highly recommend it. It's this European city that is extremely hilly and covered in cobblestone paths and old, colorful, terraced buildings. And the fact that it is sort of built upon this hilly, I guess you might say mountainous layered kind of terrain means that you get these beautiful landscapes of architecture that are sort of built into the hills themselves and layer like a man-made mountain of sorts. I think some of the most beautiful architecture I've ever seen was in Lisbon. And I, in fact, bought this beautiful piece of art whilst I was out there. That is really evocative of the place, though it is somewhat surreal in nature, I suppose you could say. It is this sort of floating mountainous rock that is suspended in a clear blue sky and at the top of the rock is this, like I say, descriptive formation of a small mountain of Lisbon architecture. You can see all these paintings of the buildings that are really evocative of the city itself with its pastel, colored walls and these beautiful painted tiles that you'll see everywhere as well. It's truly a very beautiful city, but on the second from last day that we were in Lisbon, the heavens began to pour and this was not a sort of gentle rain that sort of saturated the atmosphere of our holiday. This was almost an untenable rain that was difficult to deal with, but like I say, there was quite a lot of excitement that came with this and that came with our decision to, despite this seemingly untenable weather, to go out anyway and try and explore the city in the best ways we could. And of course it was not really a day for exploring the city itself. I mean, perhaps it could have been, but we were not particularly expecting rain in that time and so we weren't particularly prepared for it. We didn't have any rain jackets, we didn't have umbrellas with us at the time and so we looked for things that we could do inside mostly and what we found was I think the perfect rainy day activity. I really enjoyed myself as we went through what was this sort of half indoor, half outdoor market. Now, I wish I could remember the name of the market, I really do. As it's coming to my memory, I'm thinking it was something like, I want to say the word LAX, which I know is incorrect because that is the name of an airport in Los Angeles and has no connection to this indoor outdoor market, but that's what I want to say, it's kind of evocative of that. It might have even had X in it, I think it might have been some kind of acronym of some sort. And when we arrived, we went through this neon sign lit archway that entered into sort of like, would look like a long open street, of course the rain pouring down at this point, although not quite as strong as it happened to later on on the day, but you know the atmosphere was saturated with the falling rain and these bright neon lights down this sort of, would look like a cross between an old cowboy in western street that you might imagine two cowboys meeting down for their final standoff and then also had this sort of Tokyo kind of cyberpunk nature because of the rain and the glowing lights, it felt sort of really warm, a little bit surreal in nature, but again super exciting because this street was lined with little independent shops and restaurants and one of the buildings, one of the large buildings which if I recall correctly was on the left as we entered this little indoor outdoor market area was an indoor market of its own that contained very many little stalls that were selling all kinds of creative arts and some clothes and trinkets of sorts and it was the perfect place to sort of meander around and because of course when you enter one place if you wanted to go to the next you'd have to leave and dart your way through the rain it added this element of excitement of adventure into trying to go to each shop almost like a small challenge in between it was very very memorable and more so memorable was about partway through the day just in the afternoon I think just before we were getting rather hungry looking for something to eat we were stopped in our tracks because of this absolute torrent of rain that came down and it was some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen and it was so fantastic to watch because we were sat looking out just in this little stairwell there was a little a little sort of old-fashioned stairwell that came down from the upper floors of this like inside trinkets market and this acted as the exit but it was quite a large stairwell area and as such it wasn't just myself and my partner that were waiting there there were several people who of course also found that they were unable to leave due to the sheer amount of rain that was coming down and so at the same time there was this sort of communal atmosphere around sitting in there this joint experience that we were having with these people we didn't know and we didn't exchange many words really as we stood there but we looked at each other in just amazement and I would have presumed if I had tried to have spoken to some of these people they wouldn't have been able to speak English or the language I was speaking and I certainly would not have been able to speak Portuguese but the beautiful thing is that there was no language that was necessary to experience that moment with each other we were there with the sound of the rushing rain as it hit hard onto the floor and flooded out of the gutters along the sides of the buildings and pulled inside of the parasols that were just above the benches just immediately outside of this little stairwell that we're all sheltering in and as it pulled and pulled it began to rush over the top and I think as I vaguely remember there were some people sat there under these parasols who were in fact just having their lunch and because it came so quickly so fast so hard I think they decided that their best chances were to try and remain underneath this parasol and quickly they realized that they they had no option really because they were on all sides surrounded by you know ostensibly waterfalls of rain that were pulling out and just pouring over the top of these sort of triangular square shaped umbrellas like I say like we didn't have to have any language to experience this with each other because we would look over these people and a huge smile and a shaking of the head and a sort of dropping of the jaw exasperated sort of gasping was all the communication that we needed to know that between us we were sharing this experience that we understood the enormity and the special nature of what we were witnessing this heavy heavy rain coming down and flowing along this cobbled street flowing and flowing like a river I think it got quite deep before it eventually peed it out and stopped you know a few inches running along the floor and the moment at which we decided we were going to make the attempt to move I think we'd been sat there for 10 or 15 minutes and this rain kept coming so hard and it only just tapered off slightly but at this point we were getting so hungry and we thought we might as well risk it and in some areas we could see that the rain was not so flowing as others there were sort of dry patches that we might just be able to skive and hop around and so we went for it and we did get wet quite soaked I think the method we took because we had a place that we knew we wanted to go for lunch at the very end of the street and I can't remember what the food was but I do remember really enjoying it I remember finishing the meal and thinking it was fantastic which was probably informed by the excitement of the day I think food does that interestingly you know the deliciousness of a meal is often proportional to the context in which you eat it you know there is a famous phrase that you eat with your eyes first right proposing to you like the way in which your food looks before you eat it but I think further still you eat with your heart first really whatever mood you happen to be in at the time definitely informs what you feel when you think about the food that you've just eaten I mean the most literal example of that I suppose is when you're really really hungry if you're really really hungry things tend to get quite delicious I think but we knew that we were gonna eat at this place so we had to come up with a plan to get to the very end of this street which was and we were sort of like basically near the top and the plan was to enter into shops as we went so sort of run to one shop take shelter there run to the next shop take shelter there but what we found quickly was that the shops were small as all of the architecture was really enlistment there are a few very few places or you know shops or restaurants that were big and wide and open most of them were quite cramped if you're gonna go inside I think it's probably some result of you know the architecture and the building from immemorial you know these buildings were all very old you could tell that most of the buildings were built a long time ago and for whatever reason they made them small at that time and so that is the result of the modern-day city but it was raining hard and so all of the shops were filled with people who were taking shelter and in some instances we'd make our way up to the door looking you know the glass window the door and notice that there wasn't even room for us to open the door to get inside to take shelter so we'd have to quickly run away to the next one and see if we could stay in there no no room in there move on to the next one that one was okay so we stayed in there for a little while and then moved on to the next eventually a little bit wet made it to our restaurant I honestly can't remember what we ate I think it was some kind of burger it was fantastic though I think partly informed in this instance by that feeling you get when you believe you've earned your meal if you think you've worked hard and here is your reward after a bit of a treacherous bit of a tumultuous time there was certainly the feeling of that as we sat mate and of course the feeling of being fortunate that time all the tables weren't taken it wasn't just full of people looking to take shelter and the sunshine came out after that everything was still sort of soaked in the wetness of the rain and it was really really beautiful to walk around that sunshiney range soaked city if not a little bit difficult because another thing you will know if you have been to Lisbon is that these streets are cobbled and they are made of polished marble cobbles which even when it has not rained it are extremely slippery and I fell over onto the ground more than once during my time in Lisbon and that rainy day was no exception I fell to the ground a few times much to the general amusement of my partner and somewhat myself although the second or third time became a little a little tiresome for me but it was enjoyable atmosphere I'd highly recommend Lisbon as a city another rainy holiday that comes to mind when I think like this is my time spent in Japan specifically Tokyo Tokyo is where I visited I didn't have a lot of time whilst I was there it's something I regret in one hand but then another I remind myself that I may never go back I certainly hope I do but if I don't I'm certainly more pleased that I spent the four days there that I did than if I never went tall and it was really an impromptu visit a friend of mine was planning to go to Japan anyway and spend two weeks there and I think I'd just been paid for a job at the time that paid me quite well I was still living at home with my parents so you know it was disposable income for me at the time and my friend said would you would you like to come with me to Japan and I had another job that was butting up right against the time that he was planning to go and I said to myself I can't really go because that would only give me four days in Japan and he said well what's the matter with that and I did not have a good argument for him so I went and how marvelous it was what a great city but I traveled there in October and for those of you who have been to Japan or even that those of you who haven't just know a little bit about that sort of place in the world it's rather rainy in Japan during that time they most certainly have a monsoon season and the time in which after I left my friend told me he saw storms worse than he'd ever seen in his life um and actually wrote off some of the days for him that he he's personally spent in Japan fortunately whilst I was there it was not untenably rainy but beautifully rainy ah I think it rained and almost every day at least for a period of the day there was some sunny spots and amongst that time that I spent there but there was a consistent and pervasive rain across Japan and at first when I saw the weather reports before I was traveling you know I was telling myself that I was maybe gonna have to you know really try hard to make the most of it considering the weather wasn't going to be so good but my goodness I um I think I enjoyed it more than if I were to go during fair weather and the reason I I think that is because I got to see a side of Japan that was deeply embedded in the culture and I might have missed otherwise if I'd have waited to go at a nicer time I'm I'm struck and we'll always remember these visions of seas of people walking down a busy street all of which with umbrellas have some beautiful pictures of just seas of umbrellas um as people walk down the street it's a funny thing to me and I wish I had more of an opportunity to talk to people whilst I was there and maybe you might know a little bit more about it and if you do please let me know because I'd love to understand specifically why it is that everyone had an umbrella and weren't just you know wearing hooded coats um like that they might do in the UK and it's much more uh common for people to put a large coat on with a big hood when it's raining then necessarily have an umbrella to protect themselves but everyone seemed to have an umbrella and maybe I have a bit of an inkling as to why that is because I myself of course had to buy an umbrella when I went out there uh in order to well I didn't have to you know I did have a coat but um since I was seeing so many umbrellas being carried around I thought it would almost be not giving myself a fair opportunity to experience Japan if I didn't buy my own umbrella and what I found was that the umbrellas were actually one very well made very sturdy and two exceedingly cheap for some reason I think um it was the equivalent of something like £1.50 at the time for me to purchase uh this beautiful white handled metallic rotted umbrella um with a transparent hood uh that had this really beautifully satisfying sort of pop and click as it locked into place and although I personally didn't experience any heavy winds whilst I was out there I knew that it would be able to handle it most certainly it was it's my favorite umbrella I've ever had the pleasure of using quite honestly and I really wanted to bring it home with me at the time but I only bought a small suitcase with myself and um I had a few other things to carry it was just going to be too much for that 24 hour flight to bring it back with me and um my friend in fact he actually did bring his back with him even though he was in a similar scenario but he he literally bent the metal rod in order to fit it in his suitcase and when he came home he bent it back into place and remarkably enough that the umbrella it still worked uh and he had that umbrella for some time I think it eventually sort of fell apart which will happen when you uh forcibly bend a metallic object uh that is made as cheaply as to be able to buy it for £1.50 but um it lasted for some time and so it made me think I I should have thought of something similar but um I'll never forget it and I'll certainly bring one home if I visit again in the future and uh as I say a really wonderful thing to wander around with an umbrella over your head in the wet streets of Tokyo with the beautiful glowing nights another thing of course is that the nights were a little bit longer during that time of year of course in that particular place in the hemisphere of the earth and so we would spend some dark rainy evenings walking down the streets of Tokyo looking at the glowing lights have some beautiful photos of my friend and uh it's such a serene experience you know it was a it was a great way to experience the culture and I I do wonder if I go back again whether I will take the opportunity to go during the rainy season because I mean it when I say that it was a profound experience something really really beautiful because I would you know there is this tendency to think oh well you know you should be going during the cherry blossom season which is of course something else I would love to see no friends of mine have said that it is obviously saturated with tourists so this kind of idealized version of seeing the cherry blossom in Japan is not quite as it seems when you're actually there and so again some more support for the idea that I would go back again during the rainy season because it's something I'd love to show my current partner and my son I think it would be a great great way to experience Japan although I will say I was a little bit younger a little bit more free of spirit when I visited at that time and like I just said with reference to to food I think um I think any holiday is completely informed with the context of your heart and your life at the time and we certainly did things on that holiday that I wouldn't be able to do say on a family holiday in the future not that I lament that in any way you know a family holiday and you know looking after and supporting children as you go traveling is is a very different thing but part of the new kind of joy of that specific kind of way in time of life but um the kinds of things we would do when I went with my friend to Japan when we were a little bit younger hopping on to the trains the the tubes there and um and just deciding to ride the train until we arrived at a place that sounded nice we didn't know where we were going at all um scarcely really understood how we were going to get back to our hotel but we just hop on and uh and get off at a place that seemed appealing to us and wander around and maybe nearby we'd see a shrine and and we'd go to that shrine or maybe we'd find a place that made fresh ice cream and we'd buy a little and eat it outside the shop and our evenings were definitely spent in excess there walking around the rainy streets of Shinjuku what is known as a golden guy I think that translates as a golden road golden streets these really narrow sort of passageways that go on for I'd say like a square miles worth of narrow streets that all had these really tiny it was like micro bars in the micro micro pubs so you might call them or very unique very unique styles such an interesting experience and uh perhaps I'll perhaps I'll talk a little bit more about my time in Japan in another episode but I think um I think I would go again when it was raining I think I think I see that is important I think also because I personally would love to be witness to some of the monsoons some of the really great storms I don't think I've ever been personally privy to fantastic you know displays of nature in that way I think I'd find that terribly exciting of course only if I were myself ensconced you know warm blanket looking out at a a landscape through a the safety of a pane of glass while I was happily sat enjoying the storm with a nice warm mug of something but I think mostly in life my enjoyment of the rain is more connected to its gentle kind of lulling side and that is something that as a person of the UK of England as you will know if you are from here or as you may be able to imagine if you're not is who we're fairly in tune with as gentle soft persistent rain and gray skies is almost embedded in our existence something we are very used to here and some people who live here are more in tune with it more accustomed to it more able to persist with it and others I think I would consider myself someone who is very much happy with it being a part of the tapestry of my life because certain memories of my life are deeply associated with the sound of gentle rain outside days camping as a child hearing the pitter patter of rain against the side of a tent is extremely warming the sound of rain against the roof of a conservatory reminds me of being with friends and childhood playing board games on the floor of my best friends back room and seeing the darkness outside turning on the lights at three o'clock in the afternoon because it was so dark with rain clouds outside and hearing that pitter patter of rain on the roof above and almost feeling like that looming darkness and surrounding rain was a comforting blanket you know we were inside this cozy little bubble the very fact that it was pouring down outside made you feel even cozier to be warm and safe and relaxed surrounded by this beautiful sound of falling rain and there is something inherently calming and relaxing about the pitter patter of rain against a hollow surface or even against the floor as it splashes into puddles and I think that has something to do with the fact of course it's this low frequency kind of predictably rhythmic sound that acts as white noise I suppose it would in itself be described as pink noise or green noise which is known to not only block out other external noises in the ambience that might be louder or jarring to create this sort of more diffused ambience it sort of acts as a filter for other sounds but also because this predictable but at the same time random sort of rhythmic tapping interlocks with our brain in a particular way so interacts with our mind in a way that is able to regulate our thoughts I think calm our thoughts produce a more relaxing effect although of course this is quite a clinical scientific way of describing the phenomenon I think it is more true to say that there is something still more unspeakable more enchanting about that sound of rain the tugs at the heart it's almost nostalgic even in the moment to be hearing it like the rhythm of it calls back to times long ago like it's something that is reminiscent in the heart of all of us like a deep ancient memory of rain that we all know that rain that has comforted humans for a really long time still does today and puts us in touch with everyone else and everything else there's something about the rainfall in its action that very fact that it's falling over everything it's almost like you get to hear everything you see around you you get every kind of surface and texture gently rhythmically tapped away you get to hear the music of the world around you and that is something so unspeakably deep and resonant with the heart of all of us something too magic for science to describe you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you do