Tide incompatible with Brain
It’s fortunate that I have nothing I’m required to do this weekend, because the rolling sound of the ocean tide next to this holiday bach makes me quite unable to do anything. It’s a battle with hypnosis. A struggle to do anything beyond rolling off the front of the couch, as the low churn of the water sets my pulse at only half a beat above a dead man’s.
I dream of living by the ocean so I can hear this calming sound all the time, but I suspect such a lifestyle would be only suitable for my retirement. I imagine a hypnotic tide is not compatible with preschooler parenting, or client deadlines.
At home I make do with a tide on tap: an audio rendering of the ocean at A Soft Murmur, which I play only when lethargy is desirable. It’s not as spectacular as the real thing of course—it doesn’t have the right depth or reverberation—but it’ll do in a pinch.
…While it disconcerts me to end a blog post so soon after starting it, to do so now poetically and practically emphasises my point: in this beautiful audio ambience, my brain can’t brain.
20 Mar 2016
Have you discovered the joys of a white-noise alarm clock? It is very un-alarming, as it slowly waves you awake (as it were). You can’t sleep through it, as it gets louder and louder and louder until you dream that the sea is breaking over the bedroom windowsill and you wake up with a start. So, only a little bit alarming…
20 Mar 2016
Ah yes, I used to have a morning alarm of falling rain, in a White Noise app. Perhaps I should go back to it, as my current one, installed on a whim, was diverting at the time but now manages to startle me into a cardiac event. Every morning I hear a Jeevsian Stephen Fry softly clearing his throat, like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside, before he says, “Good morning, Sir.” I used to find it delightfully delicate, but although he does it quietly, the Jeevsian throat-clear now has the effect of a foghorn.
20 Mar 2016
Ha! That is hilarious. Although it would be more appropriate if he said “Good morning, moddom” instead. Actually, you could have a lot of fun making Wodehousey alarms. “Mrs Gregson to see you, sir,” for example, would definitely create alarm (and despondency).
The only problem I have with the white-noise waves-alarm is that it starts so quietly I can’t tell if the noise I’m hearing is just the whooshing of blood in my ears or if it’s the alarm starting.