So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close and allow yourself to begin to relax and as you begin to comfortably drift to sleep.
I don't know whether you'll drift to sleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it will be to the spaces between my words.
And as you comfortably fall asleep I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background.
And in this sleep story you awaken one morning in a tent in a magical forest near the most beautiful and calming stream.
And as you awaken you can smell the fresh air of the forest,
Hear the gentle bubbling of that stream and you have yourself something to eat.
Before packing away your tent and your belongings ready for the day's journey and you set off walking following that stream through this forest.
The gentle rustling sounds of the leaves of the trees,
The occasional dappled light dancing on the path before you.
Walking along deeper and deeper into the forest and as you walk listening to the sounds around you.
Enjoying that sense of peace and calm your mind begins to wander,
You find yourself lost in thought,
Curious about this location.
You've met a village of fairies and you don't know what else you're going to discover and so you continue to wander along the edge of this stream.
And you can hear sounds of animals within the forest and through the trees in the distance you spy a stag which is frozen still to try to avoid detection.
This just standing there looking back in your direction almost making eye contact with you,
The two of you stood stationary.
Both just observing,
You observing the beauty of that beast,
It's strength,
It's size and after a while as it recognises that you're not a threat it lowers it's head and continues to eat and you continue to walk.
And you watch that stag as you walk just admiring that stag,
Doing your best not to disturb it,
Deciding to give it a wide berth so that it can happily continue to feed where it's eating.
And so you walk a little bit away from the stream to continue to give that stag plenty of room,
Walking slowly,
Quietly and carefully and a little further into the woodland,
Deeper and deeper into this forest.
You hear the hoot of an owl echoing through the trees and you can't see the owl but you heard it's hoot and you look around to try to spy that owl and continue walking.
And after about a half days walking you stop for a while to take a break,
Have some food,
To rest with your back against a tree,
Feeling the bark of that tree against your back and while resting back against the tree you close your eyes.
And with your eyes closed you can notice the gently dappled light as it flickers across your face,
Your eyes,
Feeling the sensation of that light on your face.
With your eyes closed,
The areas of slight warmth and coolness and with the movement of the light casting light and shadows across your eyes.
It gives you a sense of movement which begins to trigger a reverie and you find yourself curious what this reverie is that's forming.
And from the patches of light and dark you start to have a sense of colours,
Purples of reds,
Circles and patches of colours and your eyelids.
Then the occasional patch of green and gradually some of those colours occasionally being a little brighter,
Still amorphous and then after a short while you start to notice subtle streaks of white or beige,
A lighter colour within your field of vision.
Interrupting those colours,
Almost overlaying some detail upon the colours until eventually the green begins to expand,
Seems to almost spread out and undulate across the lower half of your vision and your eyelids.
And yet seems to be moving as if you're flying over rolling hills and the purples and blues begin to spread out at the top of your vision as if there's the colours of the early evening moving past the top of your vision as those rolling hills move past.
The bottom of your vision and around to the side of your vision some of the white or beige streaks begin to form almost like there's a setting sun behind you,
Shining the last of its light into the scene forming in your mind's eye and the more absorbed in the reverie you become.
The more you pay less attention to the outside world,
The more absorbed in the experience,
The more vivid it becomes as if you're flying over those undulating hills on this beautiful comfortable evening.
Feeling a gentle warmth in your cheeks and a softness in your eyes,
Around your face and your shoulders,
Down through your body,
All the way to the tips of your toes and until eventually all awareness outside your mind fades into the distance as you feel like you're soaring easily,
Effortlessly and silently through this landscape and while soaring through this landscape catching the occasional updraft of slightly warmer air rising higher you notice way off in the distance a cabin,
A little wisp of smoke rising from the chimney of the cabin,
A gentle orange glow of light in the windows.
You fly down towards that cabin,
Closing in on that cabin as it gets larger and larger in your field of view before landing near the cabin,
Walking gently over to the cabin,
Noticing what each footstep feels like as you walk through this landscape and as you walk through this landscape towards the entrance to that cabin,
Feeling the gentle thud of each footstep on the grass,
The very slight crackling of that grass underfoot,
The scent of this grass,
The evening air,
The gentle sound of a crackling log fire coming from within the cabin,
Heading up to the door of the cabin,
Knocking softly on the door,
Waiting a few moments,
Hearing some noise coming from within the cabin before the door clicks and then opens and a friendly wizard with a long white beard is stood just there in the doorway,
They reach out,
Shake your hand,
Greet you and invite you in and they gesture for you to sit down in the seat beside the fire and so you rest down in that seat and they say that they're aware you've travelled from a far away land,
A land in a different dimension and here you are in this land of rolling hills,
A land of a setting sun and they tell you that your journey will be long but it'll help you to belong and find your place and there'll be many guides on the way,
Many discoveries to be made and they offer you a cup of tea and you accept and drink that tea,
Finding it to be the most beautiful,
Incredible taste you've tasted in a very long time and they tell you that you can stay here for the night and they show you through to a room,
You settle down in a bed and as you rest in that bed you can hear a little bit of pottering around of that wizard elsewhere in the cabin and gradually your eyes close and you drift peacefully and deeply asleep and it feels like you sleep for hours and after a while you then open your eyes and find that you're seated leaning against that tree and that the sun has moved on a little,
There's no longer dappled light dancing on your face and you stand up and you prepare yourself to continue your journey and then set off,
Continuing to walk deeper and deeper into this forest and it doesn't seem to take you that long before you hear a gentle sound in the distance and then encountering the whispers and you had heard about the whispers but had never met them and they're cat like creatures,
Very short and they stand upright and they're incredible climbers and they invite you to spend some time with them and so you spend some time with the whispers,
You sit as one of them regales you with stories,
Sharing their traditions,
Another one has fallen asleep while the tale is continuing on and they're purring so gently,
So calming and relaxed and you listen to their tales and you regale them with some tales of your own and as it's now getting late they invite you to stay and one of them tells you to help you get the most from this experience,
They'll guide you through the process for drifting into a healing sleep this will allow you to understand everything they've said on a much deeper level and you agree that you'd like to take part in this process they ask you to lie down,
Get yourself comfortable and prepare to listen along and just engage in the process and you give a little nod as you get into position just to acknowledge you'll do this and moments after the nod they begin to talk to you and they say that you can just take a moment to rest there lying down,
Listening to the sound of my voice hearing me as I talk in the background,
As you breathe in and out in a steady and comfortable way and you can be aware of the way your head is resting there comfortably the way that your body is supported and relaxed,
The way that at times you can be paying attention to my voice and at other times your mind will wander and drift and dream deeply and profoundly and that's okay and I'll just talk in the background any time you lose awareness of my voice,
It'll just help you go deeper and deeper into the experience and as you listen to my voice while you rest there drifting peacefully asleep,
You don't have to pay any attention to the way that your body is relaxing,
Almost becoming loose and limp and you can have a sense of walking out onto a patio that overlooks the most beautiful garden and you can see some steps leading down to that garden and you can hear me count from twenty down to one and with each count you can go one twentieth of the way deeper and deeper,
More relaxed and focused in the experience being fully relaxed and focused in the experience,
As you reach the bottom of the steps,
As I reach the count of one,
Beginning to descend those steps now,
Slowly and softly in your own way 20,
19,
18,
17,
16,
15,
14,
13,
12,
11,
10,
Halfway there now 9,
8,
7,
6,
5,
4,
3,
2,
1 and as you step into the garden now and you begin to walk along the footpath of this garden,
Smelling the scents of the beautiful flowers,
The fragrances,
Sweetness,
Seeing the movement of the flowers the way they sway so gently in the breeze,
The way the grass seems to almost undulate like a wave,
The colours of those plants,
The vibrancy,
The nature which seems to enjoy spending time at those plants bees and butterflies dancing and darting in and out of those plants,
The sounds within the garden,
Chirping of birds,
Scurrying of squirrels in the trees as you walk to a bench at the back of the garden and at that bench you gently,
Softly,
Relaxed,
Sit down,
Deeper and deeper into the experience and sitting down here deeper and deeper into the experience allows you to look around,
To take in the beauty of this garden,
To close your eyes,
To hear the garden better,
To feel the warmth and the breeze on your face to have a sense of descending deeper into the experience before walking from that bench to a hedge at the back of the garden,
Putting your hand gently into the hedge,
Finding a specific twig,
One branch that feels slightly different to the others softly pulling that branch and the hedge opens up to reveal a secret garden beyond this garden and in this secret garden you can see a sundial in the middle of a pond and you walk to that pond,
You touch the water,
Feel its temperature,
You notice the way the light of the sun interacts with the sundial,
You see a moving part on this sundial,
Like an hour hand and you move that hand to a point in the direction of the sun and as you do you notice another hand also moving and then you hear a click and the pond seems to open up,
Left and right,
Sliding aside,
The sundial begins to lower down and a staircase down into this pond,
Deep under the pond is revealed and with curiosity you softly explore this space under the pond,
You descend those steps 10,
9,
8,
7,
Deeper and deeper,
6,
5,
4,
3,
2,
1 as you explore this space under the pond,
A glowing chamber and in this glowing chamber you see a saucer of water and you head over to that water,
You dab your fingers into the water and you splash some of that water onto your cheeks and you can smell the freshness of this water and you cup some of that water in your hands and as it's very slowly draining through your fingers,
Through the cup made by your hands you bring it up to your face to better smell the fresh water,
To taste a little of that water and as you do the chamber around you fades away,
Almost melts away,
Revealing a vast landscape,
A tapestry of beauty woven from a thread of wonder and you follow a thread of wonder to a scroll of deep curiosity,
You open and read the scroll and while your eyes scan gently down the scroll,
So you drift deeper and deeper asleep and as your eyes reach the bottom of the scroll so the eyelids close and you fall asleep so peacefully,
So calmly and deeply,
Gaining deep recuperative sleep,
Updating your neurology with new learning and drifting asleep,
Awakening the next morning and you engage with the whispers some more,
You explain about your dream the night before,
The experience they guided you through,
What that experience was like for you and after a while and after eating you say your goodbyes to continue on your journey,
Continuing on walking through the magical woodland,
Curious where it'll take you next,
What you'll discover,
Who you'll encounter and so you explore for a while walking through the woodland until after a while it's starting to get late and so you settle down,
You have something to eat,
You set up a camp and prepare to fall asleep and you relax back in your camp,
Closing your eyes once again and drifting and floating so peacefully,
So relaxed into slumberland
