A Lesson In Harmony (Meditation Bedtime Story With SFX)

This healing sleep meditation bedtime story (with sound effects) to help with stress, anxiety & worry, while helping the listener sleep, is about someone sitting in a cafe drifting into a reverie. Finding themselves in a monastery, encountering a friendly dragon. Flying on the dragon for a while before heading back to the monastery & drifting out of the reverie to sitting in that cafe.

Transcript

So as you listen to me and begin to drift comfortably asleep,

I don't know whether you'll find yourself drifting asleep more to the sound of my voice or the words I use or perhaps to the spaces between my words.

And as you drift comfortably asleep,

I'll just tell a story in the background.

Now this person,

They went to the same cafe every day.

It was part of their routine.

They enjoyed going out,

Getting out of home for a while,

Going for a little walk,

And wandering down this cobbled street.

It was quite a quiet street,

A bit of a back street somewhere that there wasn't too many people.

This independent cafe,

And they enjoyed going into that cafe,

Sitting down at a table,

Drinking their favorite drink,

And relaxing.

And they could spend a while in this cafe,

Just sitting down,

Drinking their favorite drink,

Relaxing,

While watching out the window,

Watching people walking past,

Going about their daily business in their own little worlds,

Hearing the sounds of the coffee maker and other sounds in the cafe,

And the clinking of china and metal teaspoons,

And the mumble mumble sounds of voices in the background,

Unable to make out any one voice or word or sentence,

But just having this mumbling sound of other people in the background,

Finding it all deeply relaxing,

And while finding it all deeply relaxing.

They often find their mind begins to wander,

And as their mind begins to wander,

They discover themselves gently stirring their drink,

Gazing at a rose in a vase on their table,

And as they gaze at that rose in that vase on their table,

So everything else begins to fade away.

They stop being aware of the sounds around them.

They stop being aware of people walking past outside.

Everything begins to fade away as their attention absorbed on that rose,

And while their attention is absorbed on that rose,

So they begin to drift and dream.

They begin to drift into a pleasant reverie,

And they enjoy just letting what happens happen as they drift comfortably inside,

And while they gaze at that rose,

Firstly they notice how that rose begins to grow,

Begins to start getting taller and wider,

Getting taller and wider and taller and wider,

And as that rose continues to get taller and wider,

So they notice it begins to spread wider than the vase,

Breaking the vase,

Then it gets wider and wider and taller and taller,

And they notice at some point it merges and morphs into a tree trunk,

And the top of the rose begins to fall away and spread out and merge into a tree's canopy,

And as this all happens,

So the cafe around them begins to fade away and disappear,

And they find themselves sitting in what looks like a monastery on that cafe chair with no table in front of them anymore and no cafe surrounding them anymore.

Instead they've got a stone wall,

Off a little way in the distance,

That goes along in front of them,

And then turns and goes along beside them,

Then some way off it turns again,

Goes off,

Back behind them,

And when they look the other way they notice there's a monastery there,

And there are people quietly milling around in the monastery,

Walking with purpose,

Walking slowly,

Almost as if it's taking them no effort,

Then as they bring their eyes back to looking in front of them,

They notice how the tree has stopped growing,

And the chair they thought they were sitting on moments ago is now a stone bench,

And they stand up gently from that stone bench,

They reach over and touch the tree,

They feel how real that tree feels,

They walk around the tree running the hand,

Around the bark,

Feeling the reality of that tree,

Continuing to walk around while looking up at the canopy,

Noticing the way the sun dances and twinkles through the leaves,

Noticing the way the leaves move in a breeze,

Noticing the reality of the experience,

They walk over to the stone wall,

And the stone wall is slightly lower than they are at points,

And they walk over to one of the lower points,

And they look out over the stone wall and see that they're part way up a hill,

And that they can see down the bottom of the hill there's a road that leads all the way down there,

And what looks like a village down there,

With people,

With stalls,

Selling fruit and veg,

Selling other things,

And they take a deep breath of the air,

Can smell how different the air is here,

And they start carefully walking around the monastery,

And as they walk around,

So they meet one of the people in the monastery who tells them to walk with intent,

And they think to themselves they were walking with intent,

They decided to walk,

And they were walking slowly like everyone else,

And they were told you're walking slowly to copy others,

And you knew you wanted to walk,

But you weren't walking with intent,

You weren't just focusing on the walking,

Your mind was elsewhere,

And this person taught them about walking,

Focusing on the walking,

About being focused on the one thing you're doing in any one moment,

And paying that one thing your full attention,

Not living in the future all the time,

Not living in the past all the time,

Not living elsewhere all the time,

But being grounded,

Being present here,

They told the person reach down and touch the ground with your fingertips,

And the person thought this was a bit of an odd request,

But felt comfortable doing this,

And they reached down,

And they touched the grass,

And they're asked what do you feel,

And they replied they feel the grass,

And they were told no look inside yourself,

What do you feel,

And they thought about it,

And they thought about it,

And they started to feel a connection with the earth,

They started to feel the grass on a deeper level,

They started to feel like they were connected with the grass,

Not something separate from the grass,

And the person turned with intent and started walking away with one hand behind their back,

And this person started following them,

And as they followed that person started walking this direction,

Then that direction,

And seemed to be just walking for the sake of walking,

And then they stopped,

They turned,

And they spoke again,

And they asked what are you doing,

And the person said I was just following you,

To learn from you,

And they explained that they didn't need to be followed,

That all they've done is led them all over the place,

Nothing was meaningful,

None of the movement was meaningful,

And the person said but you seemed so wise I thought if I followed you I could learn from you,

And you can teach me some of your wisdom,

And they said you don't want to learn my wisdom by following me,

You want to learn wisdom by looking inside yourself and your connection to the world around you,

Not by following someone else,

And the person then turned and walked away,

And this time they weren't followed,

The person thought to themselves this is a long way from the cafe,

As they explored the monastery,

And while exploring the monastery they wondered if they would be allowed inside the monastery,

They walked over to the door,

They knocked on the door,

The door was opened and the person who opened it stepped aside and didn't talk to them,

And they walked in and started exploring the inside of the monastery,

And nobody got in their way,

Nobody told them they couldn't look anywhere,

They seemed to be allowed to roam wherever they wanted like there was full trust of them,

And they explored around the monastery,

They noticed that everything was very simple,

And everyone seemed so peaceful,

So calm and relaxed,

And they walked around the monastery,

Then up some stairs,

They found a spiral staircase,

And they followed that staircase up to the next floor,

They explored this floor,

They saw rooms for sleeping,

And yet every bed was really simple,

Everything just seemed to be practical and serve a purpose,

And they gazed out of a window from up here,

They looked out and could see the town,

They could see off into the distance,

All the way over to some distant forest,

They could see clouds in the sky,

They then walked up another spiral staircase,

Going higher up in the monastery,

And found a wooden door,

They opened the wooden door,

And found themselves on the rooftop,

They decided to walk out onto the roof and explore,

And they were taken aback by the view from up here,

And the fresh air,

They gazed out over the view,

Kept walking around and continued to gaze out at the view at different directions,

And as they turned around,

The heart skipped a beat,

When they saw a huge dragon resting in the middle of the rooftop,

They felt a bit nervous and anxious about this dragon,

They started trying to creep around,

Not wanting to wake the dragon,

Not wanting to be seen by the dragon,

Worried that maybe the dragon would eat them,

Or breathe fire on them,

Then the dragon noticed them,

Opened its eyes,

Jolted up its head,

Stood up and looked even larger,

Moved its neck and its head all the way down,

Almost nose to nose with the person,

And the breathing,

The breath could be felt as well as heard,

Bursts of powerful breath,

And the dragon just watched,

With its head just ever so slightly in front of the person's head,

And the person moved sideways,

And the dragon held their gaze,

And the person moved back other direction,

And the dragon held their gaze,

And the person stood still,

And the dragon held their gaze,

The person didn't know what to think,

Was the dragon about to attack?

Why was the dragon not doing anything,

Just holding their gaze?

And after a while of the dragon holding their gaze,

Their nervousness began to decrease,

Because they didn't know whether they should be nervous or not,

Or what was going on,

And as their nervousness decreased,

So the dragon lowered its head,

And rested its head and its neck down on the ground,

Still maintaining eye contact,

And as the nervousness decreased further,

The dragon set itself back down,

Still maintaining eye contact,

And the more the dragon looked calm and relaxed,

The more the person relaxed themselves,

And as the person relaxed deeper,

So the dragon's breathing seemed to relax deeper,

And then they felt this compulsion to walk along the side of the dragon,

To touch the dragon's neck,

And feel what its skin feels like,

And as they touched the dragon's neck,

The dragon just remained there,

Calm,

Relaxed,

They moved their hand along the dragon's neck as they walked towards its body,

And as they reached the dragon's body,

It lowered its nearest wing,

As if to say,

Climb aboard,

And the person had this feeling that that's what the dragon was trying to tell them,

So he climbed up onto the dragon's back,

And with incredibly fast reflexes,

The dragon just leapt off the top of the monastery,

Up into the air,

And the person grabbed on tight,

And the dragon started flying,

And the person felt this sense of being thrown all around,

Not like the dragon was trying to hurt them,

But just like they weren't used to this experience,

Like being in a fighter jet,

And as the dragon flew around and did different aerobatics,

The person began to fall into sync with the dragon,

To get in tune with the dragon,

Began to feel a sense of harmony,

And when the dragon banked left,

The person knew to lean,

When the dragon banked right,

The person knew to lean,

And the person began to respond to subtler and subtler communication,

Knowing when to lean,

Just at the moment they needed to lean,

And the more they fell into harmony with the dragon,

The calmer and more relaxed they felt,

And the more they enjoyed the experience,

And then after a long time of flying around on the dragon,

The dragon flew back to the monastery,

Crashed down onto the monastery landing with a thud,

Dropped its head,

Its neck,

Its legs,

Lowered its wings,

And the person climbed off the dragon's back,

Feeling serene,

Feeling a sense of wonder,

A sense of harmony with the dragon,

And now a sense of harmony with this land.

As they walked back down the spiral staircase,

And then down the next spiral staircase,

They left the monastery,

And they found that original person who they'd followed around,

Who said,

I see you've learned what you came here to learn,

You understand what you needed to understand,

And they intuitively knew what this meant.

They went back to their bench,

Sat back down on that stone bench,

Gazing at that tree,

Resting their hands on their legs,

Breathing deep and comfortably,

And as they did with each out breath,

So the tree began to shrink back down again,

Began to turn back into a rose,

And as that tree shrunk down,

Turned into a rose,

So the vase repaired itself around the rose,

The table appeared again,

The outside world appeared again,

And the cafe appeared again,

And the chair they were sitting on was the cafe chair again,

And they instinctively found the hand lift off their leg,

And continued stirring that drink,

And realized the reverie had come to an end,

And that they were back in the cafe with the mumbling background sounds of people,

The sounds of the coffee maker,

The clinking of china and spoons,

People walking past outside,

And no one aware this experience had happened but them,

And they knew that later that night they'd go home,

They'll probably continue to process this learning when they sleep and dream.

.

.