Ambient geek sleep aids? My bedtime prayers have been answered

Weblog: Forget whale noises – nod off with Star Wars sounds and NASA Mars audio

Dear reader, how do you sleep at night? That wasn’t an accusatory rhetorical question, I’m just wondering what helps you nod off. If you’re tired of the usual suspects – trickling streams, whale noises, birdsong – from standard sleep apps, then head over to Cheesy Nirvosa’s YouTube channel for something decidedly different.

Cheesy composes “longform space and sci-fi ambience” and I’m here for it. These tracks range from one to 12 hours long and most are inspired by, or even sample, classic sci-fi movies. There’s one of the sandworms from Dune on a loop, which sounds like a terrifying choice for drifting off to sleep but is actually a relaxing kind of white noise.

Check out the one sampling sound on board USS Defiant (Star Trek: Deep Space 9) or perhaps you fancy a TIE fighter sound from Star Wars because you don’t mind experiencing low-level anxiety. But here’s one for the real geeks: The Deep Wind of Mars is 12 hours of ambient soundscape using actual NASA audio.

“This sound was put together by smoothing out a sample from one that NASA recorded on the surface of Mars. It has been deepened quite a bit so it is not nearly as scratchy as it was when recorded but no other sounds have been added to it,” he explains.