Ask Lemmy

As a kid in Australia a fan.
As an adult, a fan plus tinnitus

I was nearly always grounded from all electronics from 6-13 (autdhd, and authoritarian parents, bad mix), and had a bedroom with no exterior windows. My window went to a modified 3-season porch thing, in 2 of the 3 places (the third was an apartment for like 6mths, I barely remember it), and that’s where my mom slept, so.. really quiet dead silence, mostly, else I was in trouble. Again. Or whatever garbage my mom had on tv, muffled through the wall.

Now I have tinnitus, so silence is really loud. I have aquariums tho and the hum and bubble of the air pump helps a lot (plus really loud circulation fans).

Hilary Duff CDs on loop. I felt like every song had something to relate too. Anytime I try to play them now and my friends tell be to turn it off.

Mostly nostalgia for me now. Remembering a time I had dreams.

Vin Scully(Dodgers), Dick Engberg(Angels, Rams), Chick Hearn (Lakers) and Jiggs McDonald(Kings) on my 9 volt transistor radio well hidden under the covers. So well hidden that it ended up switched off and in the drawer by morning.

Breeze, rustle of leaves, sounds from birds and insects. Fan if no breeze.

As a kid varius radio play cassettes like Benjamin Blümchen, Bibi Blocksberg, later the Star Wars soundtrack.

Nowadays various science shows on YouTube. Mainly astrophysics stuff. My favourites are Dr Becky, Harald Lesh and PBS Space Time.

If you're looking for bed time stories for adults (non-sexual haha) then I highly recommend the podcast "nothing much happens" by Kathryn Nicolai. She has an amazingly soothing voice perfect for bedtime and she writes her own stories! I normally knock out in less than 10 mins when I pop her on my podcasts now.

As a kid, it was the local oldies station for a while, then swapped to this long-form recording of ocean surf my parents had on CD.

These days a fan is fine, though I'll put on rain or surf white noise, or ambient music, with headphones if I'm travelling somewhere & it's noisy.

I don't fall asleep listening to anything but my fan, but reading knocks me the fuck out most nights. Sometimes I can't make it through a paragraph before catching myself with my eyes completely closed.

A radio either turned to an AM station far away to the point where it's mostly brown noise with hints of someone speaking, or to some calm music.

Nowadays it's mostly KnowledgeFight.

When I was a kid I had a record player and usually played a particular record that had various artists on it Like Johnny Horton (Battle of New Orleans) and Elvis Presley (Blue Suede Shoes).

Now 40+ years later, it's usually stuff like Frog Leap Studios (Leo Morrachelli https://www.youtube.com/user/leolego/videos) mainly so I don't have to hear my cats screaming around the house in their nightly turbo mode.

I still like Johnny Horton, but anything from Elvis makes my eye twitch.

Hundreds of bullfrogs croaking the night away around a nearby pond. Now if I hear a bunch of frogs I get nostalgic.

I never played sleepy music until I was a teen, and every night I played Cake - Fashion Nugget. Great, mellow tunes, and I learned ALL the lyrics subliminally!

Ok, I did listen to it awake, so maybe it wasn't completely subliminal, but it's been a while and I bet I could still sing 80% of the album from memory.

Nowadays, it's just the fan or AC running.

EDIT: I typed the wrong Cake album originally.

The Star Wars audio cassette. No idea what it would do for me today, but I miss that tape.

Now I just listen to rain or ocean waves on Alexa.

As a kid, CD documentaries about constellations and astronomy

Modern day, video essays about the lore of soulslikes and random media I've gotten sucked into

I shared a bedroom with my twin, so no audio. I prefer the sound of the AC on over off though, lovely background sound of nothingness.

Star Trek deep space nine

Silence, it was usually my pose rather than the background noise that affected sleep. When I sleep, I often look like I was carried out of the chamber of secrets.

Robot chicken. Now, I usually have on some kind of space documentary, creepypasta or some long gameplay videos.

If there is any discernible pattern to noise it keeps me awake (talking, music FUCKING STUPID MOTHER-FUCKING NIGHT BIRD). I use a noise machine with white noise or fan sounds running. Creates a lovely sound blanket from that mother-fucking night bird.

Beatles albums then, rain sounds now

I had different audio cassette of Airwolf where they told the story from the episodes in audio form and in German. I would listen to them when going to sleep.

Today I fall asleep seconds after I hit the mattress because I'm so exhausted every day, no time to listen to anything :D

The never ending story!

I barely remember it.

Doris Hall, aka "The Solo Cup Lady"

Still know all the songs!

The Other Side (series) by Joe Frank www.joefrank.com

The Doctor Demento Show! And they're all available online!

There was a particular easy listening station when I was a kid that played 60s, 70s, and 80s folk, soft rock, motown, and other singer-songwriter stuff that helped me deal with the anxiety of fighting parents and the deathly silence in between.

These days I listen to old episodes of MST3K or Rifftrax on YT, Best of the Worst, or one of the myriad of "oldies playing quietly in the next room and it's raining" that you can easily find.

My mind still races at night. I eventually made a playlist to recreate that old radio station vibe. It doesn't hit the same way it used to.

Bugs bunny and Friends sing The Beatles.

Nothing as a kid. Now I listen to a detuned playlist of fascinating, but dry science/history/tech videos.

My current rotation is Anton Petrov, Sean Wilsey, Red Wrench Films, and Curious Droid, all played at 85% speed, 95% pitch.

Edit 95 pitch, not 90.

It's gonna take a bit of explaining, so bear with me.

You guys know Al Jazeera, right? The news channel that everyone loves. Well uh... in the 2000s, they had other non news related television networks. A series of sports channels, a documentary channel, and... a children's channel (we'll call it JCC for short). Depending on the time period, at night they don't broadcast programs at all, and instead they aired an animated test card that looped all night long. Before 2009, it looked like the EBU color bars, but they actually made it seem alive. I don't remember that one very fondly. From 2009 to about 2012-13, it was just the channel logo in a night setting, but with extremely soothing music (a remix of the channel's theme song) and sound effects that actually genuinely made me fall asleep on multiple occasions.

I actually managed to find recordings of both test cards on this French website, right here.

Nothing, mostly. And nothing. Unless there was hard wind or rain or an occasional bird. Loud birds can be a bit annoying to me these days.

As a kid? Nothing. Just silence.

Today? My tinnitus, quietly humming away.

Now,.if I'm in a very weird mental spot and just can't spin down to rest, I put on The Might Jingles' World of Warships gameplay videos. His English voice just puts me out in moments.

A cassette on one of those small kid stereos, later it was my mom reading me stuff. I don't know if I could listen to music falling asleep but nowadays I have YT videos on and lots of white noise to drown out the crackhead neighbours upstairs.

As a kid in Detroit? Distant gunfire, most summer nights.

Now as an adult in the suburbs? Usually a fan, because my wife prefers that and I don't mind.