Soul Soothe Slide Sleep

LIKE many people, I have struggled with insomnia on and off for many years. The solution to help get me to sleep has always been to play music, or sometimes a guided meditation with music. Something that can lull my mind gently into the dreamtime for that much needed healing sleep.


AT the end of 2022, after a bout of, what felt like, a continuous year of illness for me and my family, I was desperately seeking organically made music (you know, music made with real instruments that an actual musician plays, either acoustically or with analogue equipment. No programming or synthetic sonic frequencies) that could not only get me to sleep, but also not jolt me out of sleep.

SO many so-called sleep albums that I'd come across, were usually made with inorganic instruments, like synthesizers, who's artificial sonics just never resonates with my organic body and mind, at least at bed time (Hey, I’ve got nothing against Synths. In fact I love them and they have their place, but I don’t wear plastic pyjamas to bed either, so why listen to plastic music to go to sleep with, right?).

OR if these so-called sleep-inducing albums were made by organic instruments, like crystal bowls for example, there was always a moment, like when they ding the side of the bowl to initiate the tone that would startle me out of the slumber that I'd finally gotten into and I'd lie there shuffling around for a comfortable position to get back out of that awakened beta brainwave state.

I tried so many “sleep” albums.


ONE was by a famous and talented modern composer and another made by a famous electronic artist, but there were moments that were super creepy, like it was the theme to a horror film. which would startle me in the wee hours of the morning and incite a not-so-great headspace, suddenly acutely aware of every night time sound. Who needs to be reminded of the friggin’ exorcist at 3am?! Haha…


I was thinking "have these artists even used their own music for the purpose of inducing sleep to see if it actually works?”


"HAVE they even suffered from insomnia, or are they those blessed creatures, that the rest of us envy, who can sleep through anything?” (I literally sat next to a friend on a long, turbulent flight holding the armrests with a white-knuckled grip whilst she slept as peacefully as a kitten satiated from a milk feed)

OR do these musicians simply not realise that sudden, dynamic dings or creepy piano riffs with an operatic choir in the background might, you know, wake someone up, or give them nightmares??

I wonder if it’s some kind of inner joke between sleep-inducing music makers, “Hey! This’ll be funny! Let’s wait until the first sleep cycle (approx 45 minutes) and then smash a cymbal!”


THESE thoughts (at 2:30am) sparked a brilliant, yet obvious idea. 

Why don't I just make the album that I need to get me to sleep & keep me there? (probably hadn't thought of it before due to brain-fog from over-fatigue)


So I sprung into action (picture a tired sloth in motion) and plugged my lapsteel slide guitar into my studio gear, via my guitar FX pedals, and started dialling in gentle reverbs and delay settings through my analogue pedals.


WHEN I found just the right tones, I pressed record and I began gently playing smooth, soothing sounds.


I chose to play in the keys of the Indian chakra system, which, for those that haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, is an ancient spirit-science that has been around for thousands of years and crosses cultural boundaries due to the underlying universal truth (all matter is sound and light vibration), which attributes positive and negative emotional and mental states to energy centres in the body that correspond with particular organs. I chose to it do this way because I felt that in order to attain a deep, healing sleep, I needed to heal every aspect of my inner meridian system whilst entering REM (No. Not the band. “It’s the end of the world as we know it” would likely keep me awake for hours! Hehe).

AS I sat there immersing into the journey whilst gently interweaving scales, modes & ragas on the slide guitar, I completely lost track of time.


At the end of the session I'd made 9 tracks. 

8 going up through each chakra (there are 7 chakras, 7 colours and 7 notes that all correspond, but I chose to do 2 on the first chakra key) and the final track seamlessly flowing down through all the chakras in one long piece.


OVER 1 hour and 35 minutes of gentle, healing music through 2 sleep cycles worth of time to ensure a very deep state of sleep.


I could have gone down the traditional route and rendered each track separately, but I decided that it should be released as one entire journey piece. That is how it is meant to be experienced and that is how it was organically created.


WHEN I mentioned that I'd made this album on social media, many people asked me where they can get a copy, but I felt that before I released it to others I wanted to walk my talk. 


INTENTION is important in making a creation with a deeper purpose, but execution of that purpose is vital. How could anyone release something into the world that is supposed to do what it’s prescribed to do, but it doesn’t work? (Hmmmm, Sounds like government-sanctioned policy)

So I have been using this album to sleep to over the course of the past few weeks or so.

What did I notice?


IN the first few days of listening to this during sleep, I finally got over the illness I wasn’t able to shake off for over a month, due to that fact that I just needed to get some decent sleep to heal.

I have continued to listen to it and am so ecstatic to know that this really works.

I can confidently share this with the world knowing that it will help other people, like me, out there.

Yay!

SO my search for that perfect, organically-made sleep album, to help me with my insomnia, is over!

You know, sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself, right?

And I did it so that you don't have to.


YOU can guarantee that I will continue to use this album and I hope you also benefit from it as much as I have as well.