Relaxing On The Jetty And Other Bedtime Stories

This is an all-night bedtime stories collection consisting of 40 short bedtime stories to drift peacefully asleep to. These stories are gentle tales which you can have playing throughout the night as you fall asleep and if you wake up, you can just focus on the story which is playing at the time, and follow the story back to sleep.

Transcript

Okay,

So just take a moment to lay your eyes to close and just allow yourself to begin to relax.

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background.

Now I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words.

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

You can have a sense of a woman walking through the countryside and she's just comfortably ambling along through this countryside.

She can notice what the weather is like on this warm and comfortable day.

She can feel the warmth of the Sun on her cheeks.

She can hear the sounds of each footstep that she takes as she walks through the grass.

And she can feel that gentle thud of each footstep.

And yet as she ambles along,

A part of her attention is gazing around,

Admiring,

Being out in nature,

Admiring the sights,

The sounds,

The smells,

While another part of her mind drifts inside with that pleasant feeling that she's experiencing of walking through the countryside.

And so as she continues to walk through the countryside,

Seeing trees on hills in the distance,

Sheep in fields in the distance,

The way the hills almost seem to appear layered as she looks off into the distance.

And she continues down,

Heading deeper through the countryside towards a lagoon.

And after what feels like just a short walk,

She notices she's been walking for a while,

But was enjoying the walk so much that she was just lost in her reverie,

Time seemed to flash by.

And she knows that experience where you can be lost in a reverie and time seems to just flash by so fast.

And she arrives at that lagoon.

And looks around the lagoon,

How peaceful it is here.

And while looking at how peaceful this lagoon is,

She walks around the outside of that lagoon,

Just on the water's edge,

And she can hear the water lapping gently against some rocks that are at the shore.

And half the lagoon is illuminated by the sunlight.

She can see the way the sun is breaking through the hills,

Managing to creep its way over those hills to light up half of that lagoon.

And she walks around the lagoon and can see through the water as that light shines into the water,

And can see how quick that lagoon gets deep,

That it has a small shallow area by the shore,

But very quickly deepens for people to use this lagoon for sailing and for other water sports.

But right now,

It's quiet here.

And so she wanders around the lagoon.

She heads round to a jetty that's sticking out a little way into the lagoon,

That when it's used for boating,

People will go out on their boats and they'll return to this jetty.

And there'll be someone on the jetty who helps them to moor up the boat for people to get off the boat.

And then there's a storage space where boats get taken to be moored away from the jetty.

And it's near the shore,

Near to the jetty.

And so currently,

There's a few boats moored in that space,

But the jetty's clear.

So she walks down that jetty,

Taking those steps on that wooden echoey jetty,

Hearing the way the sound of each footstep echoes down to the water and seems to bounce back at her.

And the sloshing sound of the water hitting the legs that are holding this jetty up.

And she heads all the way to the end of the jetty and sits down at the end.

She takes her footwear off and dangles her feet gently down into the water of the lagoon,

Feeling the comfortable warmth of that water passing over her feet,

Feeling the sensation of moving her feet gently backwards and forwards in the water.

And as she does that,

She gets a book out and just begins to read that book,

Just enjoying the experience of relaxing on this jetty,

Alone at this lagoon,

Enjoying that piece of reading a book,

Breathing in the fresh air as the breeze gently blows across the top of the lagoon.

Occasionally feeling the inquisitive small fish that swim around her feet and seeing through the water as they occasionally tickle her toes,

Watching as they swim around her ankles and tentatively and inquisitively approach her feet,

But then back off and dart away when she moves her feet around.

And she sits here for a while,

Becoming deeply absorbed in reading that book,

In enjoying sitting out in nature with the background sounds of lapping water,

Distant rustling trees,

The blue sky overhead and absorbed in the book.

And after some time of reading this book,

She decides that it's approaching time for her to head home.

She feels she's been able to have this break away,

This period of solitude and deep relaxation that she likes to try to get out in nature at least once a day to go for a little walk,

To clear her mind,

Refresh her body and then stimulate her mind with a good book.

And one of her favorite places to come is just sitting on this jetty at a quiet time,

Over this lagoon.

Enjoying the nature around her,

Which helps her to continue the rest of the day feeling calm,

Feeling peaceful and relaxed.

And so she takes her feet out of the water,

Sits with her feet on the side for a little while,

While she continues reading,

Just a bit longer as her feet naturally dry,

Before putting her footwear back on,

Leaving the jetty and beginning her journey back home.

And she walks away from the lagoon,

Across the countryside,

Up a slight hill,

Follows a path,

Back towards a row of houses on the outskirts of the town,

And it takes a little while for her to make the walk,

But she makes that walk,

Heads home,

Prepares herself for the rest of the day,

And after preparing for the rest of the day,

She goes and carries on the day's business,

And at the end of the day,

Rests down in bed,

Lets her mind wander,

Closes her eyes,

And begins to drift and float,

So deeply,

So comfortably,

So relaxed,

Asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you continue to drift deeper and more relaxed asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this sleep story is about a woman who is walking through a window,

And as she walks,

She can see in the distance,

This grand oak tree,

And she's heading towards that grand oak tree,

And while she walks towards that oak tree,

She can hear the sounds of summer birds singing around her,

She can see the occasional bird of prey circling high overhead,

So gracefully,

Almost like it's just flying and gliding in slow motion,

She can feel what each footstep feels like and hear each footstep as she takes it,

She continues to walk towards that grand oak tree,

And as she arrives near that grand oak tree,

She can hear the rustling of its leaves as the wind blows a breeze,

She sees a squirrel scampering up into the treetop,

Seeming to hide among the branches,

And she sits herself down on the ground,

On a picnic blanket that she places down at the foot of the tree,

Shaded from the brightness of the sun by those branches arching overhead,

And as she sits there,

Relaxing against the tree,

With her back relaxed against that tree,

She finds herself drawn to watching a curious sight,

In the meadow around her she can see some rabbits,

And most of those rabbits are just grey rabbits that she's used to seeing nibbling on some grass,

Before taking a few hops to another location,

Nibbling for a while on some more grass,

Occasionally poking their head up,

Having a look around,

Taking a hop and then nibbling a bit more grass,

But one of the rabbits is the most beautiful pure white,

The rabbit looks so white,

That it almost seems to be glowing,

And she finds herself almost transfixed,

Watching that white rabbit,

And the white rabbit is doing the same as the other rabbits,

It's eating some grass,

Nibbling those stalks down,

Before hopping a little bit to a new location,

Eating some more grass,

Occasionally looking up and around,

But after a while of watching the rabbit,

It begins to be seeming to hop closer,

And it's still doing the same behaviours,

It's still nibbling some grass,

Hopping to a new location,

Nibbling a bit more,

Hopping to a new location,

Looking around,

Nibbling a bit more,

Hopping to a new location,

But it's moving in her direction,

It's gradually getting closer and closer,

And she watches as this rabbit continues to move closer and closer to her,

And eventually the rabbit is almost right beside her,

Just a little way from the tree,

She finds herself almost holding her breath a little bit,

So as not to disturb that rabbit,

And then the rabbit hops to the tree,

And is out of sight,

Just around the side of the tree,

And this woman is curious,

Where the rabbit has gone,

And so she waits a moment,

Thinking maybe the rabbit will hop back into view in a minute,

But when the rabbit doesn't hop back into view,

She decides to peer around the side of the trunk of the tree,

And as she peers around the side of the trunk of the tree,

She notices that the rabbit isn't there,

But she sees that there seems to be what almost looks like a rabbit hole,

Dug just under the tree,

Almost like a rabbit had dug a hole under the roots of this tree,

And curiously she stands up,

She walks over to take a closer look,

And she thinks that she catches sight of something glowing inside that hole,

And so she takes a closer and closer look,

Peering into that hole,

Moving her head closer and closer,

Then she begins to feel this strange sensation,

As she moves her head closer to the hole,

As if she's somehow being drawn into the hole,

And she pulls back a little bit,

And the sensation stops,

Then she leans forward again,

And this time she decides to go with the experience,

And she continues leaning forward closer and closer to the hole,

Before finding herself drawn into that hole,

As if she's suddenly tumbling,

Then she finds that she's rolling in the hole,

And as she comes to a stop and stands up,

She realizes that she's standing up inside this rabbit hole,

And as she turns and looks back,

She can see the meadow outside,

She can notice the overexposed sky light shining in,

And she realizes she seems to have shrunk down to fit in this hole,

And there's still a glowing off in the distance down this hole,

That seems to be moving slowly away from her,

And so being curious,

She follows,

And at first she runs to catch up,

And as she catches up,

So she slows down,

And she can see around a corner in this hole,

That glowing white rabbit,

Continuing to bounce its way,

Hopping along down the hole,

And so she slowly,

Carefully,

Quietly follows along,

And then the rabbit passes through what seems to be a door,

That it seems to just push through,

Almost like a cat flap,

Except that it's sideways,

Rather than hanging down,

And she walks carefully to that door,

And tentatively rests her hand on the door,

And it feels like a solid,

Heavy,

Wooden door,

And she carefully pushes on the door,

Creating just the slightest crack in the door,

So that she can see through to the other side,

And through the other side,

She sees this incredibly strange land,

With glowing plants,

With trees growing upside down,

With a pink,

Weird looking sky,

And she can see all sorts of different animals down here,

Rabbits,

Squirrels,

Different birds,

An owl perched in a tree,

And she looks around this strange land,

And then the rabbit that she was following,

As she walks through that door and into this land,

Hops over to her,

And in the most polite British accent,

With a sense of jolliness in their voice,

Greets her,

Welcomes her to this land,

And says that there are magical portals to this land,

Dotted around different locations,

There's a magical portal from certain trees,

That look just like holes under trees,

And there are some magical portals in trees,

And there are magical portals in some of the strangest locations,

And they explain that there's even rumours of a magical portal through a magician's hat,

And she explores this land,

With this rabbit,

Explaining to her what this land is,

And after exploring,

She knows it's time for her to go,

And so she leaves this land,

Curious whether she would ever be able to come back here again,

She heads back through that rabbit hole,

And as she approaches the entrance,

She almost feels like she's tumbling out of the rabbit hole,

And then finds herself falling over onto the grass by the oak tree,

And realises she's her normal size again,

And she feels a little dishevelled,

Having just fallen over a second time,

So she stands up,

Brushes herself off,

Runs her fingers through her hair,

She sits for a little longer,

Enjoying the peace and calm of resting in nature,

And curious about the experience she's just had,

Thinking that she'll probably revisit at some point,

To try and explore and maybe meet some of the other creatures,

And that something about the experience didn't faze her,

That the idea that she went there and they just spoke to her like normal,

And she wasn't even fazed,

By how unusual that is,

She knows that rabbits don't talk,

And other animals don't talk,

And she leaves that oak tree,

She makes her journey home,

And all day all she can think about is that experience that she's had,

Interacting with that white rabbit,

And that night,

As she drifts and floats so peacefully and comfortably asleep,

She finds herself thinking about the experience,

All the way through to when she stops thinking at all and drifts and floats comfortably into the most pleasant dream,

And then on to the most pleasant deep recuperative sleep,

Knowing she'll awaken in the morning,

Feeling so refreshed and revitalized,

As she drifts and floats,

Peacefully asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this sleep story is about a woman who is on a skiing holiday,

And this woman wakes up one day in her chalet,

And it's so warm and comfortable in the chalet,

And she gets herself all dressed for heading out into the snow,

Putting on her warm clothing,

She heads out of the chalet into the brisk fresh air,

Feeling that feeling of breathing in that fresh air,

Feeling the air passing in through her nostrils,

Down into her lungs,

Bringing a sense of peace and comfort,

But also a sense of invigoration,

And she crunches her way through the snow,

Heading from the chalet to the slopes for skiing,

She arrives at those ski slopes,

And as she's done every day while being here on holiday,

She hires some skis and ski boots,

And she places those on her feet,

And carefully skis and pushes her way through towards the bottom of the slopes,

And she can see on the slopes that they're not too busy,

There are already some people out here skiing,

Who've come out and started early,

But there's plenty of space on the slopes,

And there's a moving ski lift,

It's like a bench that comes down the slope,

Around,

Through the little building,

Then the bench comes back at you,

And as it arrives at you,

You sit on the bench,

And it carries you to the top of the slope,

And so she carefully positions herself,

As the next bench is beginning to swing around,

And she can hear the sound of the motor,

The sound of those benches,

As they go past her down one side,

She can see it coming up behind her,

And as it arrives at the back of her legs,

She sits herself down onto that bench,

Shuffles back slightly with her bottom into that seat,

Pulls a bar down across in front of her,

And has her legs just hanging beneath her,

As that bench leaves the building,

Then begins to ascend,

And it starts off just a little bit jerky,

As it goes from facing forward to ascending,

And as it ascends,

So it gets higher and higher above the ground,

And she can see people skiing on the slope,

People enjoying themselves in the snow,

She can see some of those pine trees dotted up the slope,

As she heads over those pine trees,

Over those people,

And from up here,

The way the morning sun catches the snow,

Seems to make it sparkle as she's moving,

As if the snow is millions and millions of tiny sparkling diamonds,

Carpeting the ground beneath her,

She continues to rise up towards the top of the ski slope,

And it's not a particularly steep ski slope,

Just a very comfortable ski slope,

And at the top,

Similar to at the bottom,

The lift faces level with the ground again,

Facing forward,

It heads into a building,

And there's a section to ski off out the way of the lift that's just brought her up here,

So she raises the bar as it's entering the building,

And then once she's above the slope to follow out of the building,

She drops off of the lift,

And skis away from it,

Pushing away,

Heading out of that building,

Down a ramp,

Out onto the main snow,

And out here,

It's relatively flat,

So she pushes through that snow a little bit,

Before facing down the slope,

And then begins to slowly ski down that slope,

Taking a very indirect route down,

Skiing a little bit down,

Turning right,

And then skiing across the slope,

And then turning left,

Until she's facing the other direction,

Skiing across the slope again,

Just carefully and slowly skiing down that slope,

Slaloming from one side of the slope to the other,

Really taking her time,

Enjoying just a gentle,

Relaxed ski down this slope,

She knows that she could just ski fast from the top to the bottom,

She could bend her knees,

Tuck her body down,

She could make herself streamline,

And she could head in a straight line and power down the slope,

But once she reaches the bottom,

All she's going to do is have to get on the ski lift,

To come back to the top again,

To ski again,

And she'd prefer to just savour the experience of skiing,

She doesn't feel a compulsion to ski fast down the slope,

But rather to just enjoy being outside,

Enjoy the environment,

The moment,

Sights,

The sounds,

The feeling of skiing,

And really taking her time with that experience,

And after skiing on that slope,

She skis on a couple of the other slopes,

Some of them head through,

Which could almost be described as a forest among the ski slope,

Except that it's a very sparse forest,

But there's enough trees to give you the sense that it's a bit like skiing through a forest,

But it gives you the chance to just ski and feel like you're going a little bit through something different,

Weaving between those trees as you descend,

And the trees are spread out enough for plenty of snow to make it down and around the ground,

Around each tree,

And she explores the different slopes,

And every day of her holiday,

She goes out skiing on the slopes,

And during every day,

She takes some time to relax,

To just watch the world go by,

To sit in a little bit of peace,

In a bar,

Outside,

Looking over the slopes,

Watching the sun set over snowy mountains,

Noticing the night sky,

Those stars in the sky,

Towering high above the mountain tops,

And at the end of her holiday,

She heads home,

She enjoys a moment of reviewing the photographs that she'd taken while on holiday,

And the memories that she thinks of while seeing those different photographs,

And heads to bed,

And drifts and floats so peacefully asleep,

Thinking about the skiing holiday that she just had,

And when she may next go skiing again,

And what holiday she's going to choose to do next,

As she gently drifts and floats so peacefully,

So comfortably asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background.

And this is a sleep story,

About a woman who's walking along the most beautiful beach,

And as she walks along this most beautiful beach,

She can hear the sound of those waves lapping gently on the shore,

And feel the warmth of the sun on her cheeks,

And she can hear the sounds of birds in the background,

And she finds that her mind from time to time drifts and wanders to thoughts and worries,

Finds herself thinking about things that she thinks she needs to do and remember,

And that these thoughts and worries are distracting her from enjoying the experience of walking along this beach,

And she's so busy drifting in her mind,

Thinking about worries and things that she has to do,

When she has to do them by,

Has she remembered to do certain things,

What does she have to do later,

What does she have to do tomorrow,

What did that person mean when they said this,

What did this person mean when they said that,

Finding her mind so busy,

So racing,

That she's missing out on the experience,

And so,

While she's walking along,

She decides she needs to do something about this,

And so she finds a location to sit down,

She rests back on the sand,

And she's a little way from the seashore,

She can hear those waves still rolling up onto the shore gently,

She can still hear those birds overhead,

And she can still feel the warmth of that sun,

And she closes her eyes,

With her eyes closed,

She can notice the warmth of the sun on her eyelids,

She can see the glow of the sun with her eyes closed,

And she begins to focus on breathing in and breathing out,

Making her breathing deeper and more comfortable,

Making her out-breaths longer than her in-breaths,

She'd learned this technique for how to calm an active mind,

And find inner peace,

And then,

As her breathing calmed,

So she had this sense of peace passing through her head,

Imagine that passing down her neck,

And across her shoulders,

Down her back,

Down into her arms,

She could feel,

As she did this with intent,

Those arms getting heavier and deeper relaxed,

And that relaxation spreading down her back,

Her chest,

Her sides,

All the way down to her lower back,

Her stomach,

Having a sense of that relaxation spreading all the way through her body,

And once she had this feeling like her body was just resting there getting heavier and heavier,

As she was going deeper and deeper relaxed,

And it was time to now relax the mind,

So she started counting back to herself from 20 to 1,

Telling herself that she'll only go 1 20th of the way deeper relaxed with each count,

And not to relax too deeply too quickly,

But just to relax 1 20th of the way deeper with each count,

And with her breathing she started counting back from 20 to 19,

18,

17,

16,

15,

14,

13,

And she found herself beginning to relax so deeply,

So comfortably through her body,

And now through her mind with her thoughts,

Becoming increasingly still,

12,

11,

She now started to allow herself to drift,

To a pleasant reverie to deepen her sense of inner calm even further,

She imagined herself sitting on a bench in a country garden,

Enjoying just being present in this garden,

Hearing birds overhead,

Seeing butterflies and bees flying from plant to plant,

Myriad of colours of plants around her,

The waving of the grass across a lawn,

The rustling of the leaves in bushes and trees,

The most beautiful sound of songbirds,

The gentle breeze against her cheeks,

And her hair,

And the back of her neck,

And the stillness to the experience,

Being absorbed in that stillness,

And she held on to this for a while,

Savouring the feeling of the experience,

Before,

Beginning to drift back slowly opening her eyes,

Raising her awareness of being on the beach,

But now,

Being on this beach,

And being present and in the moment on this beach,

Having a still mind and body,

And a sense of presence that she hadn't had before,

Where she could focus on the sounds of the water,

Or a sound of a bird,

Or the feeling of the sand beneath her,

Or the warmth of the sun,

And her attention would be just on that which she pays her attention to,

And after enjoying some time on this beach,

Now feeling refreshed,

Calm and peaceful,

She headed off the beach,

Got on with the rest of her day,

Enjoyed the rest of her day,

And that night,

Found that,

Because she had been so relaxed,

She easily and effortlessly,

Without racing thoughts or ideas in her mind,

Drifted and floated peacefully,

And deeply asleep,

So relaxed and restful all night long.

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close,

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this sleep story is about a woman who's lying in bed one night,

And as she's lying in bed,

Drifting comfortably asleep,

She begins to dream,

And in her dream,

She imagines herself,

Walking through the most incredible fantasy land,

And through this fantasy land,

She can see in the distance,

What looks like a giant ice palace,

Surrounded by snow and ice,

But it's location is strange,

Because surrounding the snow and ice,

Is meadow and woodland,

That all looks like it shouldn't be cold,

And in her dream,

Where she is,

Isn't cold,

She's looking out,

From the top of a hill,

Looking out over this view,

And she feels warm,

She can feel the warmth of the sun on her face,

And she walks down that waving soft grass,

Following a path down through the woodland,

And she's heading towards that palace,

And she walks down and through that woodland,

And she can hear some running water in the distance,

She continues to walk along this path through the woods,

And as she walks,

She can hear the running water sound getting closer and closer,

And eventually she discovers a fast flowing stream passing through this woodland,

And she crosses a stone bridge,

And heads back into woodland the other side of the stone bridge,

Noticing the dappled light in front of her,

As she continues to walk through the woodland,

She can hear the rustling leaves,

As the winds blowing a breeze on the tops of the trees,

And yet she can notice the stillness of the air here in the woodland,

That that breeze doesn't make it down to the bottom of those trees,

And apart from the dappled light,

It's quite dark in the woods with those dense trees around her,

But that all leads to a certain stillness,

And she heads through that woodland,

And as she comes out the other side of the woodland,

She finds herself walking through a meadow filled with daisies,

And dandelions,

And tall grass,

And some pink flowers that seem to be almost like marshmallows dangling from sticks,

And some plants that are a little bit like candy floss waving in the breeze,

She walks through this meadow,

The most beautiful smells of the flowers,

And she can see that there's a point during the meadow where the grass goes from lush green grass and all the meadow flowers,

To frost covered grass,

That seems like it gets colder and colder the closer and closer to this ice palace that you get,

And as she approaches,

She reaches a point where she notices that the grass becomes slightly crunchy underfoot as it's iced up and the air cools down,

And she continues walking towards that ice palace,

And what was once lush green and colors gave way to a very white environment,

And the environment felt even stiller here,

Among the ice and snow,

All that frost,

And so she walked towards the palace,

And she had to wrap her arms around her a little as the temperature seemed to drop,

She continued to walk the palace,

And eventually she arrived at the palace gate,

And as she arrived at the palace gate it was opened for her,

And she headed in through that gate,

Walked through this ice palace grounds,

All the way to the palace itself,

And as she arrived at the entrance to the palace,

So the door was opened again,

She walked in through that entrance,

And inside the palace she was greeted by an ice queen,

And this queen said that the land had been cursed,

That the curse was placed directly on her and this palace,

And that it's turning the land cold,

Spreading out from the palace,

Gradually,

Slowly spreading out across the land,

Working its way out across the meadows,

Towards the woodland,

And that if this curse isn't lifted,

Then the whole land will end up turning cold and icy like the palace,

And the ice queen said that the only way to lift this curse is for an outsider to come inside,

And that outsider has to look into the mirror that's in the center of this palace,

And the outsider has to be pure of heart,

Compassionate,

With only a desire to help,

With no expectation of reward,

And it's only when there's someone in this land,

Who has the qualities that many in the land had been lacking,

Due to an earlier darkness which had fallen across the land,

It's only then that the curse will be lifted,

And the land will stop being cold,

The ice will stop spreading,

And positivity and peace and tranquility will spread throughout the land,

And the woman thought to herself,

She doesn't know if she's the right person,

She's got flaws,

She's made mistakes,

She's just a normal,

Average person,

But she was willing to give it a go,

And when she stood in front of the mirror,

The strangest thing happened,

There was a pulse of purple light emanated from the mirror,

In all directions,

That pulse of purple light seemed to spread through the walls of the palace and out across the land,

And a voice from the mirror said,

You are the one,

And that part of being the one,

Was that she was aware that there was nothing special about her,

She accepted there was nothing special about her,

She didn't think she was the best,

She also didn't pretend to be the worst,

She just felt that she's an average person with room for improvement,

And that this was a large step towards being the right person to change this curse,

And to trigger peace across the land,

And as the purple light pulsed out and then began to fade,

So she noticed that what was once ice walls of a palace,

Was now grey stone of a palace,

That what was once cold was now comfortable,

And that the ice queen,

Now no longer looked like an ice queen,

But instead just looked like you would expect a queen to look,

And as she headed out of the palace,

After being thanked for her help,

She saw that everything around the palace was lush,

Green,

Vibrant colors of plants,

Plenty of bird life,

Butterflies,

Bees flying from plant to plant,

And she could see way off in the distance,

A dragon circling overhead,

And various other creatures as she looked around,

And the queen said that she's restored the land back to the way it rightfully should be,

And the woman headed back,

In the warmth of the sun from this palace,

Began to make her journey back the way she came as she drifted and floated,

Even deeper and more relaxed with a sense of pleasure in her mind,

Asleep,

So deeply,

So soundly asleep,

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 deeper to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it will be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift to sleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this sleep story is about a woman who has been staying in a monastery high up in some mountains,

And she's been in this monastery to find herself,

And every day she wakes up,

Before the sun begins to rise,

She heads out into the monastery grounds,

She very slowly and purposefully walks around the monastery grounds,

Gently brushing in front of her feet,

And she walks barefooted,

And she can feel the cold solid ground,

Beneath her feet with each step that she takes,

And in a very measured,

Controlled way,

She walks around the monastery grounds,

And then,

As the first signs that sunrise is approaching,

Just that slight hint of a red hue in the sky,

She sits on a large grey stone,

Surrounded by a garden of beautiful raked white sand,

She crosses her legs,

And she faces towards the rising sun,

She rests her hands on her thighs,

Closes her eyes,

And begins to have a sensation of breathing in the energy from this early morning sun,

As the first glimmers of sunlight strike temple,

And with the cold brisk air,

She can notice that hint of the warmth of the energy of the sun,

And she has this sense almost like the energy of the sun is being absorbed into her third eye,

Absorbed in through her forehead,

And passing down through her body,

Bringing a deep sense of peace,

Of calm,

Tranquility and a stillness to her mind,

Her body and the world around her,

And she remains in this position,

While the sun appears from below the horizon,

As it rises up until it is fully above the horizon,

And the sky has gone from dark,

To shades of oranges and reds,

Through to the most beautiful blue,

And the sun has gone from being unobservable,

To orange through to almost a brilliant white light in the sky,

And once the sun has fully risen in the sky,

So she then leaves this stone,

She heads back around the temple,

She joins others who are here,

None of whom are speaking,

And in a very meaningful way,

And with a sense of deep gratitude,

She eats breakfast and drinks an early morning drink,

And while she drinks the drink,

So she takes a sip,

She then turns that cup 15 degrees,

Takes her next sip,

And very slowly lowers the cup from her mouth,

Turns the cup 15 degrees,

And takes the next sip,

And she continues this process,

While she drinks,

And whenever she takes a break from drinking and puts the cup down,

She turns it 15 degrees as she places it down on the table,

When she's perhaps focusing on eating the food,

And each mouthful of eating the food,

She does in an equally as measured way,

With a specific ritual to what she's doing,

And it's not that she's going to follow this ritual in the future,

When she's away from this temple,

It's just that following these specific structured processes,

Helps her to really become absorbed in the experience,

In the act of doing these different tasks,

Adding meaning to the process of doing the tasks,

Rather than just mindlessly doing those tasks,

She's aware that when she drinks a drink at home,

She just picks up the drink,

Drinks it at whatever speed she wants,

And when she's finished the drink,

She just puts the cup down,

But here,

She drinks slowly,

Sip by sip,

In a very measured way,

She does an action between each sip,

That almost turns the process into ritual,

And all of this together,

Makes the whole experience deeper,

And more profound,

And then after,

Having breakfast and drink,

She helps with doing chores,

It could be washing the dishes,

It could be washing clothes,

In the fresh,

Cold mountain water,

And at some point during the day,

She will bathe in that cold,

Fresh,

Brisk mountain water,

Almost like climbing into an ice bath,

And then as the end of the day approaches,

Everyone here,

Will sit outside,

Cross-legged,

Facing towards the setting sun,

And a guide here,

Will sound a resonant bell,

And they'll sound that bell three times,

As the last of the sunlight disappears over the horizon,

And the idea is for people to listen for the full duration of the bell,

To that last moment,

When it's audible,

Hearing the full range of the ringing,

And then once the sun has fully set,

They meditate while the sky darkens,

Until there's no hint of sunlight left,

No gentle glow on the horizon,

Just an inky sky peppered with twinkling stars,

And then they head to bed,

And she undergoes this same routine every day,

During this retreat here,

High up in a mountain,

Knowing that just a week of this retreat,

Helps to centre her,

And helps her to be able to have some rest,

Something to draw on and come back to,

When she's back in her everyday life,

And all the chaos of everyday life,

And the uncertainty of everyday life,

That she has something in her mind to draw on,

To cope with daily life,

And every night she settles down in bed,

And finds that here during the retreat,

She sleeps more profoundly,

Deeper and more peacefully,

Than she's ever slept before,

Drifting and floating so peacefully,

So comfortably asleep,

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 asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

You can have a sense of a woman who is somewhat of an adventurer,

And she's travelling down an incredibly rapid river,

Through a dense forest,

And as she's travelling down this rapid river,

She's heading deep into the forest to find a long lost temple,

And so she's using all of her focus on an inflatable raft,

Steering with the oar,

As she weaves that raft,

Almost effortlessly around large rocks dotted along this river,

Navigates her way down waterfalls,

Some fast white water,

Rapidly moving waterfalls,

Full of large boulders,

And others steep waterfalls,

Whereas it drops off the waterfall,

She has to lean back,

Pulling up the front of the raft,

To carefully make sure that it lands down on the next bit of river,

Safely,

As she then continues to navigate along this river,

And she finds while navigating along this river,

That it significantly increases her focus,

That she's totally in the zone,

Totally in the moment,

As she navigates and steers,

Dodging obstacles,

Managing to keep control of that raft,

And she can feel the amount of effort it takes for her to be piloting this raft down such a challenging river,

But eventually she's rewarded with the rapids slowing,

And giving way to a wider area of river,

Of slower moving water,

Where the river is wider and deeper,

And gentle,

And she knows she still has a way to go,

But after the experience that she's had,

And all the effort that she's exerted to this point,

She puts the oar in the boat,

She knows that the rest of this river for her journey is now smooth and slow,

And she then just rests back in her boat,

In that inflatable raft,

And just focuses on breathing,

Focuses on calming herself down,

And feeling that deep sense of relief that you feel after exercising,

Or exerting a lot of energy,

And she just gazes up at the sky,

And out of her peripheral vision she can see the tops of the trees passing by,

And she can see fluffy white clouds high overhead,

Just slowly,

Gently moving across the sky,

And she just enjoys drifting and floating along on this raft,

Just letting the slow moving water take the raft further along towards her destination,

She knows that rowing with the oar would get her there quicker,

But she's just been doing a lot of rowing,

So now she's happy to relax back and let the water do the work,

And take a little longer over the journey,

But be far more relaxed,

And so she watches as the clouds pass overhead,

As the tops of the trees pass,

And here on the water,

The air is just a little cooler than it is away from the water,

As it blows across the surface of the water,

So she just lets that raft drift,

And although she's letting the raft drift,

She's also keeping a close eye on the trees that she can see around her with her peripheral vision,

Aware that if she gets too close to one side or the other,

She can just pop the oar into the water for a moment,

And with perhaps just one paddle,

One push through the water,

She can direct the raft back out to the centre of the river again,

But she finds that she doesn't have to do that,

The raft just continues to gently drift down the centre of this river,

And she has a device telling her where she is in relation to her location,

And the device is set to beep when she gets within a mile of the location,

And so she just rests back on this raft,

Until eventually after some time,

She then hears that beep of the device,

And once she hears that beep,

She stops the device beeping,

Sitting herself up,

And gently rows her way over nearer to the bank of the river on the side that she needs to exit,

And looking at the device,

She moves her way along the side,

Until she's where she needs to get out of the raft,

She pulls the raft over to the side,

Exits the raft,

Pulls it up onto the shore,

She then continues the rest of her journey on foot,

Following her way through that jungle,

Having to occasionally hack her way through,

Until eventually,

She notices the ruins of a temple,

She's found what she's come here looking for,

To explore this temple,

And so she explores the temple,

She takes photographs,

She writes copious notes about the layout,

The location,

The direction that the temple's facing,

What the temple looks like now,

And what it likely looked like in the past,

She looks for additional signs linked with the temple,

Like any paths or roads near the temple,

That have perhaps become overgrown hundreds and hundreds of years earlier,

So that she can just get an idea and draw a bit of a map of what she thinks this area used to look like,

She heads into the ruins,

She photographs any symbols that she sees,

Any writing that she sees,

She does some rubbings as well as taking even more notes about the inside of the temple,

And after she's explored this temple,

The sun's beginning to set,

And so she sets up camp for the night near the temple,

She eats some food to campfire,

Settles down,

Drifts and floats comfortably asleep,

She spends the next day exploring this area further,

Before beginning her journey back,

And she knows the return journey is going to take longer than the journey to here,

Because she can't take her boat,

She can't take that raft back up all of the rapids,

So she's going to reach a point where she has to take the raft ashore and then make the journey on foot,

So whereas she was there within half a day,

She knows it'll take a few days to get all the way back to where she came from,

Before she can then head home,

But she knows this trip has truly been worthwhile for the information she has been able to gain,

And she knows that she'll pour over that information for a long time,

To try and work out more about the history of this ruined temple and its location,

And once home she feels so relieved to be able to go back and sleep in her own bed,

And so she settles down in bed and comfortably and deeply drifts and floats so peacefully asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift and float so peacefully asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who has a plot of land,

And she had purchased this plot of land to build her own property on it,

And she had designed this property,

And she now was in a caravan on the edge of this land,

While she began her building project,

And so she starts by clearing the land,

And the land is all overgrown with grass,

With a couple of trees,

And various flowers,

And so she doesn't clear everything,

But she clears the area that she needs to build a property on,

And her idea is that once she has the property built,

A lot of the land that she has bought will be left to appear to be wild,

But it'll actually be plants that she has selected specifically for its benefit to wildlife,

So anyone seeing it will think it just looks like wild land,

And so she clears a space,

And then she begins to dig foundations,

And this is a long project for her,

And it takes her a long time just to dig those foundations,

And every night she heads back to her caravan,

She drifts and floats so peacefully so comfortably asleep,

And every day she gets to work first thing in the morning,

With building her own house,

And after she's done the foundations,

Prepared for where the building will be,

Vehicles begin to arrive carrying parts of her house,

And she's making this house with eco-friendly materials,

That's almost like putting together flat pack furniture,

Where everything has been pre-created off-site,

And the role is for her to assemble it here,

And so the walls arrive,

And with the help of the work people who are delivering these walls,

She places them into the foundations and sets them in place,

And the roof arrives and she places the roof on top,

And then a few days later,

The windows arrive and the door arrives,

And at this point,

Although the ground largely looks messy and muddy,

And like a work site,

The building itself already looks like it could be lived in,

But it isn't complete yet,

It's just a shell in a location,

And every night she heads back to her caravan,

And she sleeps in the caravan,

And every day continues working on the property,

And she heads into the property and oversees some trades people,

Who are fitting in the electric,

Sorting out the plumbing,

And other important tasks,

And she can see that this property is coming along so nicely,

And that her vision is coming along,

And that the reality is very much like how she imagined it would be,

And then once the property has all the fundamental work done,

She begins the process of adding finishing touches,

And it's still not electric here just yet,

But she starts to make sure the walls look how she wants them to look,

She starts to make sure the floors in the different rooms in the property look how she wants them to look,

She feels like she could probably already stay in the property although there's no electricity yet,

All the wiring in the property is done and ready,

And then she has a day where solar panels are fitted to the roof,

And a windmill is placed in the garden,

And then the electricity is wired up,

But the solar panels and the windmill generate electricity,

Which actually powers a water feature in the garden,

That water feature pumps water up to the top of the water feature using the electricity,

That's generated by the wind generated by the solar panels,

To pump that water up to the top of the water feature,

And then as that water flows down from the top,

So that passes through a turbine which generates a steady amount of electricity,

And that flow of water from the top of the water feature down across the turbine into the bottom of the water feature,

Gets controlled so that the flow can be released to flow faster,

Or restricted to flow slower,

And it has a feedback loop,

So the system is aware of how much electricity the property is using at any given moment,

And when there's more electric being used,

So the water flows faster,

More water flows from the top to the bottom,

And when less electricity is being used,

So the water flows much slower,

Generating less electricity,

And an advantage of this setup,

Is that sometimes it'll rain,

And the rain will add to topping up the water feature,

Which is almost like giving the property some even more free electricity,

Because that rain that ends up in the top of the water feature,

Is more water that can flow down to the bottom,

Triggering even more electric,

And the way that the property is designed,

Is that any water which lands on the roof and runs off to the guttering,

Flows down and joins the water feature in the top of the water feature,

Again adding to being able to generate more electricity,

But from the outside,

Most people visiting the property would just think it's a normal water feature,

And not really realise that that water feature is what is powering the entire property,

And after many weeks,

The property is all done,

It's all furnished,

And the woman can finally,

Sleep in a real bed inside the property,

And she continues for some time,

To have some areas of the land around the property,

Made to look like a lawn and a manicured garden,

While then leaving other areas looking wild and natural,

Planting specific wildflowers,

Sowing different seeds,

To be able to encourage specific wildlife to the garden,

And then she,

Ends up eventually completing the property,

Being so proud of the property,

Being able to sit in an evening gazing over her property,

Hearing that gentle trickling of the water of the water feature,

Knowing that that's what's powering her house,

And at night,

Being able to settle down in her new bed,

And drifting and floating so peacefully and comfortably asleep,

Aware of all that she has achieved building her own house like this,

Drifting and floating so peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll 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 this is a sleep story about a woman who is,

Out one day walking around a park,

And it's a normal park,

Similar to any park in the middle of a town,

It's a nice green area to go when there isn't much greenery around,

And this is quite a large park,

And she walks into the park,

And as she walks into the park she passes through a black gate,

That's on a black fence that goes around the outside of the park,

And she follows the path into the park land,

And around the outside of the park is a tall hedge,

Just on the inside of the fence,

And in front of the hedge is rows of different flowers,

And little rock gardens dotted around the entire park,

And among the flowers and the hedges,

Are relatively evenly spaced trees,

But they look like they were placed to try to look like they were just randomly placed,

But in trying to place them randomly,

They still look evenly spread out,

That if they were truly random,

They wouldn't be so evenly spaced,

But it's to try to give an impression of natural countryside,

In a location that isn't natural countryside,

That's in the middle of a town,

And those trees planted decades earlier,

And were now wide and tall,

With lush green overhanging leaves on the branches,

And the woman followed along the inside edge near the flower beds,

And the grass is well manicured,

Cut really short,

She can notice that faint smell of the mowing that had obviously taken place,

Perhaps a few days earlier,

When this grass was last tended to,

And she can see a gardener tending to some of the flowers on the far side of the park,

And whenever she enters the park,

She notices that most mornings on entering the park,

You'll see a gardener somewhere in the park,

Tending to something,

And that it seems that pretty much year round,

They have something to be doing,

And she walks around the inside of this park,

And she's heading to her favourite bench,

And she sits down on her favourite bench,

And she likes this bench because it's right next to a rose bush here in this park,

And so she gets to sit here,

Smelling the beautiful rose smell,

While watching the world go by,

Watching people walking their dogs,

Watching children playing,

Parents playing with their children,

Watching joggers,

Often running in pairs,

Running into the park,

Around the park and then back out again,

Watching some people just ambling along through the park,

Watching some people walking with intent,

As if they're going out on a daily exercise walk,

Seeing some people sitting down on the grass,

Others on picnic blankets,

And when it's sunny weather,

Seeing some people laying down on the grass or on blankets in the sun,

Sunbathing,

Soaking up that sun while it's there,

And she likes just coming here,

Sitting on this bench near the rose bush,

Being able to smell those roses while reading a good book,

And then after reading for a little while,

She likes to just rest that book on her lap,

And then rest her arms on the book,

And just breathe comfortably and be lost in the experience of observing the goings on in the park,

How relaxed that is,

And so she reads for a little while on that bench,

Finding herself taking the occasional deeper breath,

To get a sense of the smell of the roses,

Because she notices after a few moments of sitting by the rose bush,

She habituates to the smell and stops noticing it,

And the only way to notice it again is to take some deeper breaths,

And so she enjoys the smell of the rose bush,

Occasionally breathes deeply to reignite that smell,

While resting there watching the world go by,

And then after an extended time of resting here,

She continues just to wander around the park,

She likes to do at least a complete lap of the park,

Not so much for the exercise but for the experience of walking past all the flowers,

And so she wanders around the park,

And she finds that this is a good way to start a day,

Heading into the park,

Sitting reading for a while,

Allowing your mind to just be absorbed in watching the goings on in the park,

Paying attention to the sights,

The sounds of nature,

Before then heading off to work or to whatever else she has going on that day,

And then at the end of the day she likes to come back to the park,

And walk through the park before heading home,

Just to have that sense of peace,

And to separate from walking around all the man made built up areas,

That she has had to do throughout the day,

Just to get a bit of nature again before going to bed,

And then she heads home,

She has herself her tea as normal,

She makes sure that the lights at home are turned down,

So that everything is cosy and comfortable,

Before then heading to bed,

Where she drifts and floats so peacefully,

So comfortably asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it will be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is going on a holiday,

And she arrives at a hotel in the middle of nowhere,

And this hotel is like an old fashioned building,

And it's slightly up a hill among countryside,

Surrounded by woodland,

And the woodland is surrounded by hills,

And she arrives at this hotel,

She heads into the hotel and the first thing she notices,

Is the oak wood smell within the hotel,

The walls are panelled with wood,

There are wooden beams across the ceiling,

There's a chandelier hanging down in the foyer to this hotel,

And it's a rustic old hotel,

And she walks across the wooden floor,

Noticing the way her footsteps echo while she's walking on the wood,

And have a dull thud when she walks across rugs that are on the floor,

And off to the left in this hotel,

Is a bar area and a snug,

With comfortable looking chairs,

A few tables,

And a fireplace so big that she could probably fit inside it standing up,

And in front of the crackling fire is a dog just sleeping on a rug,

She can see it's belly moving up and down gently,

And she checks in to this hotel,

And when she checks in she's told to sign the visitor's book,

And as she flicks through the visitor's book she sees names which make her curious,

She sees that the visitor's book is really thick,

And seems to have names going back about 150 years from the first entry into this book,

Through to the current entry that she's making,

And she signs in,

She takes her stuff upstairs to her room,

Lets herself into her room,

Places her bag down on the bed,

Looks out the window over the view,

Over the back garden of the hotel,

Over the trees beyond the back garden,

And over the hills beyond the trees,

She sits on the bed and as she does,

She bounces twice just gently up and down on the bed with her bottom,

Just to kind of have a feel of the tension of the mattress,

And she sorts her things out in her room,

Sits on the bed for a few moments,

Before deciding that she wants to go back downstairs,

Back to the sign-in book,

And she goes to that visitor's book,

She asks if she can just take a look,

She wants to see some of those early names,

She wants to see those people who checked themselves in 150 years ago,

And she goes back to the first page,

And generally this hotel is quiet,

They don't have many people checking in,

And so she starts looking at those entries,

And she looks at what the handwriting looked like 150 years earlier,

That it looked like it was written with a slightly more scratchy pen,

In flamboyant cursive writing,

She looks through the first few entries,

Seeing that these people visited in the 1800s,

And tried to imagine in a mind's eye what those people may well have looked like,

How they would have dressed,

How they would have spoken,

What kind of baggage they would have carried,

And she was really curious about this,

And interested,

And she kept looking through,

And she found some really interesting fancy names,

Names that sounded like they may have been posher people coming to stay here,

And she imagined those people making trips here with horse and cart,

Arriving,

Pulling up outside,

Probably having someone helping to bring their belongings into the hotel,

Maybe even all the way to their rooms,

She imagined that the hotel probably hadn't changed all that much since then,

She could notice that it structurally seemed to be about the same,

The same wooden paddling,

The same wooden beams on the ceiling,

The chandelier seemed like it had probably been there for years,

The snug and the bar area looked like they probably hadn't changed in all that time,

So she could really get a sense of what it would have been like,

That coming into this hotel is almost like a time capsule,

The only difference now is that there are also emergency lights,

That are new types of lights,

And there is specific signs up,

Like exit signs,

Other health and safety signs and information,

That is unlikely to have been something like it 150 years earlier,

But other than that,

And a couple of other modern things like seeing a wifi extender,

In the top corner of one of the rooms,

And seeing the smoke alarms,

That other than these key little pieces,

This hotel hasn't really changed in 150 years,

And she got talking to the owners,

She got talking to them about how long they had owned this hotel,

What the history of this hotel was,

And they explained that the hotel had been in their family since the 1800s,

That it initially was a family home,

But then the family fell upon slightly tougher times,

They had gone from being wealthy,

And having plenty of money to live in this large family home,

To needing to find a way of making ends meet,

And they really didn't want to sell their family home,

So their great great grandfather,

Decided that what they would do is,

Move the family to one part of the home,

And work on making rooms that people can come and stay in,

Who want to visit the area,

And the hotel was born,

They started to raise awareness in the local town,

And in the nearby cities,

That if you wanted a country break,

You could come out to this hotel,

And they started to get people coming out and visiting,

And they would do what they could to make guests feel comfortable and happy,

And looked after,

And at the same time,

Allowing guests the freedom and their own space within the hotel,

And they explained about some of the places that you can go and explore around here,

Telling the woman that there's a stream that's down just through the trees a little way,

That cuts down through the hills,

And that there's other areas that are really nice to visit around here,

And go for walks around here,

And so the woman enjoyed her stay here,

She enjoyed the breakfast that they supplied,

The dinner that they supplied,

She enjoyed her whole break away,

And the thing that she enjoyed most,

Was how the bed seemed to be so incredibly comfortable,

That within minutes of resting her head on the cool soft pillow,

She just instinctively found herself drifting and floating,

So peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep,

So easily and so effortlessly,

That she really didn't want to leave at the end of her holiday,

That the mattress was almost like sleeping on a cloud,

And that she found here she had the best night's sleep,

And she could understand with such a good night's sleep,

Why they managed to last with this hotel so long,

And that she would definitely be back,

And so on her last night in the hotel,

She really savoured the opportunity to have that last night's sleep,

The pleasure of drifting,

Floating,

So peacefully and comfortably asleep,

And sleeping so soundly,

And so relaxed all night long,

Knowing as she fell asleep that she would awaken in the morning,

Feeling so refreshed,

Revitalised,

Full of energy for the day,

As she drifted and floated,

Peacefully and comfortably,

Asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story,

About a woman who is on a canal boat,

Travelling along a canal on holiday,

Across British countryside,

And every day,

She travels a little bit further along the canal,

And from time to time,

During the day,

She pulls the canal boat over to places to moor up,

And she gets used to when to apply the brakes,

When to begin to allow the boat to slow down,

And drift towards the mooring,

And parking it just in the right place,

And then,

She often goes for walks in that location,

And the land is very flat,

With fields and some areas of woodland,

And so she goes and walks and explores,

Around those fields,

Around the woodland,

She often sets up a comfortable chair,

And reads and sits on the shore of the canal,

And then by night,

She'll make sure that she's moored up somewhere,

She'll settle down into the canal boat,

She'll make herself something to eat,

And she'll rest for the evening in the canal boat,

Listening to the water just lapping so gently on the underside of the boat,

And every day,

She travels along the canal,

Hearing the chugging of the boat,

As it very slowly travels down that canal,

And she arrives at locks,

And has to slow the canal boat down on approach to the lock,

Tie the canal boat to the shore just before the lock,

Disembark from the canal boat,

Head to the lock gate,

Allow the water to flow into the lock,

Levelling out the water that the canal boat's in,

With the water on the inside of the lock,

And she just patiently waits,

As that water flows in,

Evening out the lock,

With the water that the boat's in,

Before opening the lock,

Heading back to the boat,

Untying it from the shore,

Travelling on the boat into the lock,

Tying the boat to the side again,

Getting off the boat,

Heading to the lock,

Closing the lock gate,

And then slightly opening the lock gates in front of the boat,

To allow water to level out with the water the other side of the gates,

And again just very patiently resting,

While waiting for that water to even out,

Before then untying the boat,

And travelling through the lock,

And then closing that lock behind her,

Before continuing on her canal journey,

And this solo canal holiday,

Is just a relaxing experience,

Involving patience,

And a very slow holiday,

Where she can enjoy just travelling from one end of the canal,

Through to her destination at the other end of the canal,

Over a number of days,

Through multiple locks,

And her only real goal is,

That every day she has specific points to head to,

Where she can moor up for the night,

So she heads on to the next point,

She moors up for the night,

Before then travelling on to the point after that the next day,

And when she has time,

She wanders off,

Explores the woodland,

And wanders around the meadows,

Takes photographs of the different wildlife,

The different scenery,

And just enjoys this peaceful,

Relaxing break,

And eventually she arrives at her destination,

Where her canal trip ends,

And she checks in the canal with the relevant company,

Before heading to a hotel,

That she'll stay in for one night before heading home,

And she places her belongings in the hotel room,

Heads back out and explores this area around this small little village,

This tiny hotel,

And the canal leads all the way to a river,

And so she follows that river on foot for a little while,

She watches as different birds fly around near the river,

She sees a stork standing gracefully in the water on the other side of the river,

And she crouches down and carefully takes a photograph of that stork,

Holding her breath as she does to reduce the wobbling of the camera,

She takes some photographs of ducks,

And of other birds on this river,

She takes some photographs of some dogs,

Running around and sniffing around on the riverbank,

Often running a little way ahead of their owners,

And after she has explored for a while,

She heads back to the hotel,

Spends the night in the hotel,

Relaxing,

Drifting,

Peacefully,

Asleep,

Before heading home the next day on a couple of trains,

Taking a train from this small village to a major town,

Where she changes trains and makes the long train journey home,

And at the end of the day when she arrives home,

She heads into her house,

Unpacks her belongings,

Enjoys a few moments of sitting down,

Relaxing following her journey home,

And that evening she has something to eat before heading to bed,

And relaxing down in bed,

And drifting and floating,

So peacefully,

So comfortably asleep,

Just take a moment to allow your eyes to close,

And just allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who's eating dinner in a restaurant that overlooks the ocean,

And she's sat there just enjoying the ambience of the restaurant,

The soft sound of pleasant,

Relaxing music playing in the background,

The chinking of the sounds of people's cutlery and glasses,

As they eat their food and drink their drinks,

And place their used cutlery down on the plate,

And the occasional sounds from the kitchen just faintly in the background,

And the mumbling sound indistinctly of voices of people at other tables,

And the comfortable low light of the restaurant,

And she's sat near the window so that she can gaze out over the ocean while eating the dinner,

And she can smell the different foods that people are eating on the other tables,

And the stronger whiff of food as waiters and waitresses walk past,

Carrying food from one table or to another,

And while she rests there just gazing out the window,

She can notice under the moonlight,

The way the water of the ocean is lapping onto the shore and curling over as it reaches the shore,

With the silvery glistening of the moonlight highlighting the raised waves as they roll in,

With the troughs between the waves being darker as they are obscured from the light of the moon,

And aware that from inside the restaurant,

All this is taking place without any sound,

There's no sound to those waves rolling into the shore,

But she has this sense,

Almost like she can hear the sound,

Because her brain knows what the sound should be that's happening right now,

A little bit like,

She thinks to herself,

The optical illusion,

Where it's a repeating image of something that looks heavy,

Lifting in the air and thudding to the ground,

And although it's just a silent repeating image,

There's just a second or two worth of footage,

Cycling over and over again of something that looks heavy,

Rising in the air and thudding to the ground,

Your brain knows that it should make a thudding sound,

So you have this sense,

Feeling as if you actually hear the thudding,

Even though there is no sound to the image,

It's just your brain's way of trying to make sense of the observation,

Trying to make sense of what the senses are perceiving,

And the brain does a very good job of filling in the blanks,

To try and make reality,

The reality that you expect to experience,

As opposed to the reality that's actually there,

And so,

She watches as the water rolls up onto the shore,

And after she's finished her dinner,

She places her knife and fork together on the plate,

Her plate gets taken away,

She takes a few moments to relax,

To finish her drink,

Before settling up the payment for the meal,

And then heading outside,

Heading out into what is a surprisingly warm night,

And walking down from the restaurant,

Down to the shore of the beach,

And she takes her footwear off,

And carrying her footwear in her hand,

She walks along the warm sand,

With her feet sinking into that sand with each step,

The incredible softness of the sand,

And she walks along that sand,

Listening beside her to the waves lapping on the shore,

She sits down on that sand for a little while,

Just enjoying being in the moment in this evening,

Having had a good meal and a drink,

And now just enjoying the sea rolling in to the shore,

And the sparkling of the moonlight on the surface of the ocean,

And the deep blue colour of the sky,

Stars overhead,

The slight glowing light of the restaurant lights wrapped around and in trees behind her,

The distant mumble of some other people walking around,

And their slight clippy-clop of their footsteps as they walk,

As others are out,

Similar to her,

Enjoying the evening,

Making the most of such a warm and wonderful,

Calm evening,

Perhaps after meals that they've had,

And she enjoys this experience for a while,

And before she heads back home,

She walks down to the seashore,

Right down to the water's edge,

The sound of that water rolling in,

Louder than it was before,

The sound of the water pulling the sand back out to sea,

As those waves roll in and the water pulls back,

And she walks from the dry sand down into the wet sand,

Noticing a quick transition from dry sand to wet sand,

And how the patch of sand just around her feet as she puts her feet down,

Seems to turn a little lighter with the weight of her foot,

As she walks all the way down that wet sand to the water's edge,

And walks into the water a little way,

Just up to where the waves are lapping,

Splashing against her ankles as they roll in on the shore,

And she walks along the water's edge for a little while,

Walking parallel to the seashore,

And then after a while of walking,

She heads back into the sand,

Walks along the sand for a while,

And the weather here is very warm,

And so over the next 10-15 minutes,

Her feet continue to dry while she walks along the sand,

Along the sandy beach,

And she sits down,

Brushes off the sand,

Puts her footwear back on,

And makes her journey home,

And at the end of the evening,

After a lovely evening,

She settles down in bed,

And feeling satisfied,

And pleasant inner feelings,

Relaxed in her mind,

She drifts and floats so peacefully,

So comfortably asleep,

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close,

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably fall asleep,

You can have a sense of a woman walking along a street,

And as she's walking along this street,

So there's traffic driving along beside her,

She's got the tall buildings around her,

And she's walking along,

And she encounters somebody who asks if she has some spare change,

And they say that they require some change,

So that they can place some money into a parking meter,

And they have a note on them,

And so the woman stops,

And she goes through what money she has,

To have a look and see if she has some change for that note,

And she finds the change that she has,

And she finds that she has enough change,

So she swaps her change for the note,

And the person is incredibly grateful,

And she then continues on her journey walking down the street,

And she heads along the street,

Travels off the main street down a quieter side street,

And continues on walking,

Until she arrives at a museum that she's visiting,

And she heads up into this museum,

And it's a public museum,

And she goes into this museum,

And as she walks into the museum,

So she can instantly notice the changes to the sounds,

The way her footsteps echo and reverberate,

Around the inside of the museum along with everyone else's footsteps,

Echoing off the walls,

The ceiling,

Around the room,

And so she continues to explore in this museum,

And the museum doesn't have too many people in,

And so there's plenty of space for her to stop,

To look at different things in this museum,

Sometimes stopping at some artwork,

Other times stopping to look at some ancient artifact,

That's been found in the city at some point through the city's history,

And she wanders around fascinated by the different things that she can see,

And it takes her some time to walk around the museum,

And while she's walking around this museum,

So she can just hear that faint indistinct mumbling,

Almost whispering of other people in this museum,

Talking among themselves about what they're looking at,

And after exploring the museum for a while,

She settles down in the museum's cafe,

Rests down at a table in the cafe,

And sits there with a drink in front of her,

And while she's drinking the drink,

She has that note that she was handed outside,

And she takes it out of her purse,

And she just starts folding that note,

She folds it in half,

Then in half again,

She folds the two sides towards the middle down,

Making it almost like a triangle on top of an extended rectangle,

And then she folds the bottom up at the front and the back,

And the edges over,

And then turns it kind of inside out,

Before folding the front and the back up,

And then carefully pulling them down,

And then she has an origami boat,

And she places that origami note boat,

In front of her on the table while she's drinking her drink,

And she gazes at that note,

And imagines it almost like a real boat,

Travelling along,

Beginning to drift into a reverie,

Into thoughts of travelling on an old longboat like she had seen the remains of in the museum,

And how the old longboat would have to survive sometimes rough water,

And what that would have been like for those who were on that boat,

She imagined the type of people who used to travel on longboats,

How they dressed,

Who she felt that they were,

What type of people she felt they were,

What their personalities were,

She imagined how they would have spoken,

And imagined the journeys that they used to make,

Imagining that longboat arriving at the shore travelling down the river to where this town is,

And they would have placed that longboat somewhere,

And that over the centuries many longboats probably arrived,

And other boats as time went on would have arrived from many different locations,

And she just allowed her mind to wander and drift to what this place looked like back then,

When they would have arrived and seen wooden structures,

Wooden moorings,

Jutting out in the river,

They would have seen circular buildings made of wood,

And smoke perhaps rising up from the centres of those buildings,

And just a small community nothing like the town that's here today,

And she wondered whether they would have all spoken the same language or not,

And how they would have all understood each other,

And what their different accents might have been,

And how much greenery and woodland and meadows would have been around those communities at the time in this location,

When it was just a small settlement on the edge of the river,

And after imagining all that and drinking her drink,

She continued her exploration of the museum looking at different items through this museum,

Before leaving the museum and heading home,

And once home she went into her conservatory,

She got out a canvas and an easel,

And she started to paint that impression that she had of what she felt the town would have looked like in the past,

When it was just a small settlement of basic circular structures,

And she painted the town,

Painted that settlement,

With people and animals in that settlement,

And the longboat arriving mooring up,

And the woodland in the background,

And after painting the painting it started getting late,

So she left that to dry,

Placing it out of line of where the sun would reach,

And went up and headed to bed,

And settled down and drifted so peacefully,

So comfortably and relaxed,

Asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who heads down to the beach with a friend of hers,

And they arrive at the beach,

And they both have a kayak each,

And they drag their kayaks down to the seafront,

And they change into suitable clothing for kayaking in the sea,

And then they walk with their kayaks just a little way into the sea,

Before climbing into their kayaks,

Just pushing the oars on the floor,

Pushing away from the seashore,

And beginning to push their way out through those waves that are lapping onto the shore,

And then once they were just far enough from the shore,

Paddling with the oars out even further,

And they paddled along a little way,

Heading along almost in line with the seashore,

The boats just gently rising and lowering as waves passed in underneath their boat,

And they could see those waves roll past them towards the shore,

Before curling over and collapsing under their own weight,

Rolling up onto the seashore,

Pulling back out to sea,

And then repeating that process over and over again,

And they chatted and enjoyed the silence,

Enjoyed the peace out here,

The warmth of the sun,

The stillness of the ocean waves,

And they're just gently lifting and lowering the kayaks with those waves as they passed underneath their boats,

And they headed along parallel to the shore for a while before turning towards an island,

That was a little way from the shore but in reach of the kayaks,

And the two of them kayaked towards that island,

And the further from the shore they got,

The quieter any sounds from by the shore got,

The sounds of birds quietened down,

The occasional sound they could hear of people on the shore quietened down,

And they arrived at the small island,

And the island had some trees on it,

Had a lot of soft sand around the island,

And some grass and shrubs,

And so they arrived at that island,

Rode their boats up just onto the shore into the sand,

Letting them glide and letting the waves take them up onto the beach,

Hearing them as they scraped up through that sand,

Parking themselves on the shore,

They then got out of their boats,

Pulled the boats even further onto the shore away from the water's edge,

And then set up a campfire,

Set up two small tents,

And they had something to eat,

Something to drink,

And then sat chatting,

Laughing,

Joking with each other,

While the sun travelled across the sky and began to set,

And as the sun gently set,

So the woman got out a small telescope,

Pointed the telescope up towards the sky,

And the telescope had a digital finder,

And she tapped in some coordinates,

And the telescope searched and found the object,

It was very slowly tracking that object,

And she attached her camera to the telescope,

And over here on this island away from the shore,

Was the most incredible view of the night sky,

Away from any lights from the mainland,

And while the two of them sat there and chatted,

The sky got darker and darker,

And then as the final red from the sky faded away,

From the long past sun,

They put out the fire,

Moved their chairs to the telescope,

And sat near the telescope,

As the telescope tracked a comet across the sky,

And using a remote,

The woman took some photographs with her camera through the telescope,

That were immediately shared wirelessly onto a laptop,

And they had the laptop in one of the tents,

And so after taking a number of photographs,

They went to the tent,

They took a look on the laptop of what the photos looked like,

And they decided whether to take more photos or different photos,

And then went back and adjusted the telescope and the camera accordingly,

Sometimes taking much longer exposure photographs,

As the telescope tracked the comet across the sky,

And while the camera and the telescope were working,

And they were just having to press the button occasionally,

Changing settings,

Pressing the button,

Taking some more photos,

They just chatted with each other,

Enjoyed their time,

Relaxing with each other on this island,

And then after a while,

The woman decided to take the camera off of the telescope,

And she set the camera up separately,

To take wider shots of the night sky while she had the chance,

Taking some photos of the whole night sky,

Some with shorter exposures,

Having the stars hanging in place,

And others with longer exposures,

With the stars trailing,

Arching across the field of view on the camera,

And after taking their photographs,

They packed the telescope and the camera away,

And they sat and chatted in their tents,

Wrapped up in the entrance to the tents facing each other,

With sleeping bags up around them,

Drinking drinks,

Enjoying the evening,

Almost not wanting to go to sleep,

Feeling almost a sense of wonder,

Like a childish wonder,

Of camping,

Almost like having a sleepover,

This rare time when they get together,

To be able to do things like this,

Because normally they're busy with their everyday life,

And so they chat,

Until they notice that there's just the slightest tinge of daylight,

Creeping into the horizon,

And they know that it's only a matter of a couple of hours,

Before the sun is going to begin to rise in the sky,

And they haven't yet been to sleep,

And so they decide to settle down in their tents and fall asleep,

And they slept so soundly and peacefully and comfortably,

For a few hours as the sun rose in the sky,

And then mid-morning,

They came out of their tents,

They had themselves some breakfast,

They enjoyed just chilling out and relaxing on the island for a while longer,

Before packing everything away,

Getting back into their kayaks,

Pushing off from the side,

And paddling back to the mainland,

And back on the mainland they headed back home,

And when the woman arrived home,

She took a look at the photographs that she had got,

She marked which ones she was proud of,

Which ones she might just make a few minor edits and adjustments to,

And then which ones she was going to share,

And she shared the photos with her friend,

And she thanked her friend for a great two days out,

And for being kind enough to join her,

And then she went to bed and settled down,

And peacefully and comfortably drifted and floated and relaxed asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is exploring an old town that she's come on holiday to,

And as she explores this old town,

She's working her way around windy roads,

She's looking at the different buildings,

She's noticing how many of these buildings are centuries old,

And she's trying to work out while exploring,

What the reasons were for the specific layout of these buildings,

And whether perhaps there were buildings which were actually in relation to something else,

But there may be land that was just gardens for some of these buildings,

Was sold off and other properties have been built in them,

And maybe that's why the buildings seem to be all over the place with winding roads,

And sometimes very strange sudden turnings,

And this was a very quiet village,

With very few people roaming around,

And the air was fresh but warm,

Her footsteps had just the faintest echo off of the buildings around her,

And there was a certain comfort that she felt,

While exploring this small village,

And eventually she found her way to the village church,

And around the church was a large graveyard,

And she walked through that graveyard to the church,

And having such a large graveyard,

Gave the church a feeling of isolation,

That the wall around the outside of the graveyard was so far from the church,

That it was as if all the houses,

All the different buildings were so far away,

And it was just isolated here in the middle of nothingness,

And she headed into the church,

Her echoey footsteps,

Revealing her arrival,

And the echo as the door closed behind her,

And the light was dim but pleasant,

With the way the sun shone in through the stained glass windows,

And the colours illuminating the sky,

And the colours illuminating the ground,

And the air around her,

And a stillness in this church,

And a silence when she stood still,

And the church was totally empty,

And it was unlocked for anyone to come in and explore,

And there were times of the day when someone would be here,

Holding different church events,

But for now it was just quiet and empty,

And she looked around this church,

She could smell that wooden smell of the pews,

And the wooden beams within the church,

And this church was many hundreds and hundreds of years old,

And as she explored the church,

She ended up discovering behind a staircase,

A very narrow door,

And she was curious about this door,

And she leant on the door and it just unclicked and opened,

And so she thought that as it wasn't locked,

And there's no signs to say she's not allowed through this door,

She's going to head through it and see where it leads,

And so she walks through the door and the other side of the door,

She discovers that the spiral staircase that this door was into,

Seems to continue,

That that spiral staircase seems to end as if it ends on the floor that she was on,

But walking through the door there's a spiral staircase beneath that spiral staircase,

Going down under the church,

And so she begins to descend that spiral staircase,

From 20,

19,

18,

17,

16,

15,

14,

13,

12,

Going all the way down the staircase,

11,

10,

9,

8,

7,

6,

2,

All the way to the bottom,

1,

She steps off the bottom step,

And finds herself in a dark room,

The air incredibly still,

As if it's remained undisturbed for hundreds of years,

The only light currently being the glimmer of light making its way down the spiral staircase,

And emitting into this room,

And she takes her phone out of her pocket,

Turns the torch on on the phone,

And begins to explore in this room,

And although it seems like this is a stone room,

Her footsteps seem to just be dull somehow,

There's just a slight dull thud to each step she takes,

No echo of the footsteps off the walls or the ceiling or the floor,

So she explores for a little while,

And most of this room seems empty,

But in the middle of the room,

She finds that there seems to be a plinth,

And on that plinth is a large closed book,

And she carefully opens the book while holding her phone in one hand,

And she can just about understand the writing in very old English,

She can just about understand what is being said on the different pages,

And the first character on each page is almost ornately painted,

And sometimes looks like gold leaf has been used to embellish that first character,

And there are bits of artwork drawn onto some of the pages,

Especially pages which make up the beginning of chapters in this book,

And so she carefully reads those pages,

Carefully turning those pages,

And she discovers that this book seems to be sharing ancient knowledge and wisdom,

That seems to have been handed down through thousands of years,

Initially orally handed down,

Before being recorded by some religious people many,

Many hundreds of years ago,

And then that has been copied as the documents have grown older and worn out,

To ensure this knowledge continues to be passed down,

And so she reads through this book,

Absorbing as much of the knowledge as she can,

Finding it fascinating,

Its talk of consciousness,

Of spirituality,

Of wisdom,

Of human behaviour,

Of all sorts of ideas that many people ponder,

But sharing the thoughts of wise people who had also pondered these questions thousands of years ago,

And she takes lots of time going through that book,

Really absorbing the knowledge,

Taking a few photographs of some of the pages,

Sure that hopefully she'll get a chance to revisit here,

In this time that she stays here,

And that maybe she can talk to someone about what this book is,

And after a long time of reading that book and absorbing the knowledge,

She heads back up to the main part of this church,

She leaves the church,

Heads back through the village,

And begins her journey back to where she's staying,

And that night,

While reviewing the knowledge in photographs that she had taken and in her memory,

She drifted and floated so peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who wakes up one morning,

And while she's having breakfast,

She hears the postman delivering letters,

And she goes to the front door and sees those letters lying on the ground,

She picks them up and she begins to flick through those letters,

Thinking junk mail,

Junk mail,

Leaflet,

Leaflet,

Leaflet,

Junk mail,

Junk mail,

Bill,

Bill,

But one of the letters is in an unusual envelope,

With her name and address handwritten in the most beautiful handwriting on the front,

And so with curiosity,

She heads back to the table,

She places those other letters down and she carefully opens this letter,

And as she opens the letter,

So she can notice that the paper that has been written on is very slightly fragrant,

With a slight lavender smell to that paper,

So she picks up that letter and opens it up,

And smells it slightly before reading it,

And puts the envelope aside and starts to read this letter,

And as she reads the letter,

She realizes that it's from an old friend that she hasn't seen for many,

Many years,

And as she reads,

So she begins to feel nostalgic and a smile comes across her face,

And using the contact details in the letter,

She contacts that old friend and they agree to meet up,

And a few days later,

She meets up with that old friend and she travels to the town that the old friend lives in,

And she's never been to this town before,

So she enjoys exploring around this new town,

And then she finds the coffee shop that she's agreed to meet that friend in,

And she's sitting in the window of the coffee shop,

The sound of the coffee being made in the background for different customers,

The chinking sound of cups being stacked to move around,

And the other crockery,

And the sounds of other drinks being made,

And the mumbling sound of other customers in the background,

As she just sits there gazing out of the window over the street,

Watching people walking by,

Wondering whether she'll recognize her friend,

This person she hasn't seen for years,

And after just a short while,

She sees someone walking towards the coffee shop,

And as they walk towards the coffee shop,

She has a strange feeling of familiarity with this person,

Although they don't look entirely as she remembered,

And as they see her through the window,

So they smile in her direction,

And they come in to the coffee shop,

And they recognized her as quickly as she recognized them,

And they hugged,

And then her friend sat down,

And she got them a drink,

And the two of them started to catch up,

Talking about how long it has been,

What's happened over all those years,

What have you been doing with yourself,

And time seemed to fly by while they discussed,

Their history with each other,

And after many hours in the coffee shop,

The woman said,

Do you want to just go for a walk,

Stretch our legs while we chat,

And so they walked out of the coffee shop,

And the friend said they know a good place to go,

And they walked along the street,

Turned down a side street,

Cut across a small park,

Went through a gate in a hedge,

And came out at the top of some hills,

And there was a bench just the other side of this gate,

Overlooking the most beautiful view of rolling hills,

All the way down to the distant coast,

And they sat down together,

And the woman commented on the view,

And on what a wonderful place this is,

And the friend said this is somewhere they like to go when they want to clear their mind,

And find some peace and inner tranquility,

And they continued to talk and reminisce,

They talked about others who they knew,

And whether either one of them had heard from the different people they went to school with,

And they shared various stories,

And shared what they're doing nowadays,

And realised they have a lot in common,

And the friend said that as so many years had passed,

They just felt that they'd neglected those in their life,

That they drifted away from those people they really liked,

Because they were too busy with other tasks,

And so they decided that they wanted to get in contact with the people that they liked from their past,

Meet up with those people,

And make time for those people,

And connect again with them,

And they're aware they may not get on with everyone nowadays,

But at least they would know that,

And they'd be able to move forward based on how they actually get on with people,

Rather than based on not engaging with people for years and years,

That life can sometimes rush ahead of you,

Leaving you behind,

And you can end up neglecting that which is so important to you,

And not necessarily even realise how important it was or is,

Until it's too late to have it back,

And that the last thing anyone wants is a life of regrets,

And missed decisions and opportunities,

And this was a decision that they had made to connect,

And the woman said that she was glad that they did,

That she hadn't thought about her for years until she received that letter,

And on receiving the letter she suddenly thought,

I wonder how they're doing,

And I wonder about others I used to hang around with when I was younger,

And so it had stimulated her thinking into those who she had moved on with her life from,

And just not kept in touch with,

And they discussed how they don't need to keep in touch with everyone,

But it's good to see who should be in your life,

And when you know who should be in your life,

Make sure that you interact with those people and keep them valued,

So that they want to stay in your life with you,

And share your journey forward,

And the two of them spoke until the sun began to set,

And it was the most incredible view of the sun setting over the very distant ocean,

Beyond the hills of the countryside,

The sky turning from blue to shades of yellows,

Oranges and reds,

And then beginning to have a deep dark blue on the opposite side to the setting sun,

And at this point the two of them walked back to the main town area,

And they said their goodbyes,

And went their separate ways home,

With details to be able to contact and meet up in the future,

Which they promised they would do soon,

And the woman went home,

And that night,

Before bed she went through some of her old photographs,

Looking and reminiscing about the people in the photographs,

Putting aside some of the photographs that she wanted to share next time she met up with that friend,

Before heading to bed feeling so pleasant and comfortable and drifting and floating,

Deeply and relaxed,

Asleep.

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close,

And allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to relax,

I don't know whether you'll drift to sleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably begin to fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this sleep story is about a woman who is sitting in a cafe drinking a coffee,

And as she's drinking her coffee,

She's watching two people under a tree,

And she's a police officer who is often on missions of having to go undercover or stake things out,

And she's curious about what those two people are doing,

And then one of them hands the other a brown envelope,

And as she finishes up her coffee,

They begin to walk away,

So she leaves the cafe,

And begins to follow the one with the envelope,

And she walks along towards the tree that they were stood under,

She follows that one along the edge of a park,

She follows as they turn and head down towards the seafront,

And she continues to follow but hanging back to keep out of sight,

And as she follows them,

So she notices that they head all the way to a small little shack on the beach,

And she walks nearer and nearer to that shack,

And she can't see what's going on inside there,

So she tries to get a closer look,

She moves closer and closer,

And perches herself just down on the ground beneath one of the windows to the shack,

But she still can't quite tell what's going on,

And she has a microphone that she attaches to her mobile phone,

And she carefully raises her hand up lifting the microphone up,

And she has her hands free mobile phone kit,

And that has a microphone,

So she carefully lifts that up and stands up slightly to peer in the window,

And she can see that no one's looking towards the window,

And there's a fan in the top window,

So she carefully places her mobile phone microphone,

Her hands free microphone,

Poking just into the fan,

And she can see that there's a curtain just the other side of the window,

And she's hoping that the curtain will prevent them from just looking over and seeing that something's in the fan,

And she turns on audio recording on her mobile phone,

And begins to record through the microphone that she's wedged into the fan,

Turns up the recording volume,

And she listens to what they're saying inside this hut,

And she can hear them talking about a deal that's going to go down that night,

And they talk about how it's going to happen a little way from the coast,

Where no one will suspect anything,

That they'll take a boat out off the coast,

And the other boat will travel from its location,

It'll take about an hour to arrive here,

And it'll be after dark,

And it'll pull alongside their boat,

And they'll do the deal,

And then both boats will travel off,

And after this is all agreed,

And the details are handed over in that envelope to the other person,

The two people leave the shack,

And as they leave the shack and she hears the door closing,

She quickly stands up,

Removing her microphone,

Turns the microphone off,

Has the recording,

And quickly heads back up the bank,

Heading around away from the shack,

In the opposite direction to those people,

And she radios through,

And she organises for that night to be able to get some police boats out,

To intercept this deal as it goes down,

But the police boats will have to hang back,

And keep away from the shoreline,

Because if they're seen as being anything other than parked where they should be,

Then the deal might not go down,

So they have to look just like they're normally parked where they would be,

But ready to go to intercept both boats and the deal,

And after the woman organises this,

She comes back later,

In good time before the deal is due to take place,

She wants to see which boat will be used to go out,

She sees one of the people that she recognises,

And they're hanging around a specific boat just along the shoreline a little bit,

Moored up a little further down,

And so she sneaks down towards that boat,

And as they're loading the boat up,

And preparing for their deal,

She walks past the boat just as if she's any other person walking along the seafront,

Before turning back and sneaking around,

And while they're off the boat gathering up the next bits to load,

She jumps up on the far side of the boat at the front,

Scrambles up and climbs onto the boat,

And hides under some material that's at the front of the boat,

That's there to keep some of the cargo dry,

And she waits there as she can hear them still loading the boat,

Carrying more stuff onto the boat,

Placing it down,

Heading off,

Picking more stuff up,

And then she rests there and just waits,

Patiently,

Until they return to the boat a few hours later,

As it is beginning to get dark,

And she hears them talking on the boat,

Discussing the deal that's going to go down,

Making sure that they're clear on the plan of action,

And after sunset,

When the sun has fully sunk in the sky,

She feels the vibrations of the boat starting up,

As the boat pulls away from the shore,

And heads out to its meeting point,

And she watches from her location,

Peering through a crack,

As the deal starts to go down,

And cargo is swapped from their boat to the other boat,

And a suitcase of money is handed over,

And then she can hear the sound of engines in the distance,

And so she knows that they'll probably notice those engines in a moment too,

And at the point that she starts to hear the engines in the distance,

She quickly shows herself,

Shows her badge,

And tells them they're under arrest,

They're surrounded,

And moments later,

The lights come on on the plane,

Police boats and sirens sound,

As the boats come in and surround the two boats,

Before they have a chance to get away,

And one of the police boats comes alongside,

Attaches itself to the boat,

An officer comes on board to support her in arresting these criminals,

And together they arrest the criminals on both boats,

Busting this deal,

And the woman knows that she has a lot of paperwork to do now,

So after the deal she gets a lift back to the shore,

She heads back to the office,

She spends many hours typing up her paperwork,

As the criminals are taken to relevant cells to be held,

And processed into those cells,

And she says that she'll interview them in the morning,

After having a night's sleep,

That they can wait in the cells until then,

And she heads home,

Pleased with her day's work and her success to this point,

Knowing there's still more case to go,

But for now the hard work is done,

She gets home and settles down,

Relaxes down in bed,

And drifts and floats so peacefully,

So calmly and relaxed,

Asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And while you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who is out camping one night,

And she has hiked through some woodland,

And found a clearing just as the sun's beginning to set,

And so she sets up a tent,

She goes just to the nearby tree line and chops herself some wood,

And carries that wood back to her tent,

And she chops that wood up smaller,

And she carefully makes a space for a fire,

And then places that wood down and starts her fire,

And she sits just inside her tent,

Feeling the warmth of that fire,

Sound of the crackling fire,

The dancing of the light,

And the night time sounds of distant animals,

And she finds the experience so deeply pleasant and relaxing,

That she just rests there for a little while,

And she has herself a warm drink,

And after having that warm drink,

She sits back a little bit further into her tent,

As the air outside is beginning to cool down,

And she wraps herself up warm,

And she just looks outside the tent at the sky,

At that fire,

Enjoying the early night,

And then she turns on a torch she has hanging inside her tent,

And sitting just inside her tent,

She starts to read a book,

With the comfort of that flickering fire in the background,

As it begins to burn down to embers,

And after a few hours of reading her book,

With that fire burning down to embers,

And just glowing outside the tent,

She settles down in the tent,

And drifts and floats so peacefully asleep to the sound of the slightly waving and moving sides of the tent in the breeze,

And falls into the most peaceful and comfortable sleep,

And the next morning she awakens early,

Feeling so refreshed and so revitalized,

She heads out of her tent,

She restarts the fire and has herself some breakfast,

And just continues to enjoy this camping experience,

And leaving her tent set up,

She goes on a little wander,

Wandering around into the woodland nearby,

Exploring that woodland,

Having a relaxing break from everyday life and stresses and strains and troubles,

Just really enjoying the experience of being out in nature,

Of being able to rest here,

Being able to camp in this location,

And as the day continues on,

She heads back to her tent and has some lunch at her tent,

Before heading off again in a different direction,

Just going out and taking time to explore the environment around her,

Then,

As this day comes to an end,

She camps another night,

And after a couple of nights of camping,

She then begins to make her journey home,

And although she really enjoys camping,

And likes to occasionally just take a couple of days away,

To have no technology,

Other than just a torch,

To not be using any other technology,

And to just being able to be in nature,

To be able to be out of contact with people for a while,

To be able to just read and focus on being in the moment,

Without worrying about if there are things you should be doing and paying attention to,

She likes when she eventually makes it home,

And regardless of how pleasant camping is,

Nothing beats that moment,

When you can change into your own nightclothes,

And settle down into your own bed,

Relaxing in bed,

And reading some book before falling asleep,

And then closing the eyes,

And beginning that process of drifting and floating into an inner reverie,

And as she rests there in bed after a couple of days of camping,

She finds that her mind drifts and dreams,

And she dreams about flying over that location that she was camping,

She starts off having this slight feeling as if she might be falling,

But then it turns into her catching an updraft,

Almost like an eagle,

Catching some warm wind,

Flying up and circling around over that location,

Being able to gaze down over the woodland,

Over the meadows,

As if she can see herself down there,

With her tent,

The fire,

Camping down there,

While she gets this view from above,

Gaining the bigger picture of where she was in the environment,

And how she was in the environment,

Having this dream of drifting and flying and floating as an eagle,

So easily and so effortlessly,

And her dreams continue to deepen from flying as an eagle,

To finding herself diving down as an eagle,

And before she reaches the ground,

She suddenly hears this massive splash around her,

And realises that she's landed in water as a dolphin,

And she now is swimming as a dolphin in the sea,

So gracefully and playfully,

And noticing the way the sound changes from high up in the air,

To down here underwater,

And her dreaming only deepens more and more with each passing moment,

As she dives down into the depths as a dolphin,

Becoming more calm and peaceful as she goes,

Noticing the silence that can begin to set in around her underwater,

As if everything is slowing right down,

As if time is slowing right down,

And as that seems to occur,

So she begins to find that she's swimming along the bottom of the ocean,

With blackness all around her,

And then,

In the most incredible,

Seamless transition,

She discovers that she's drifting in a spaceship in space,

With the earth below her,

Just floating around the planet,

So calmly and effortlessly,

As she continues to drift deeper and deeper asleep,

Into a deep,

Comfortable,

Healing,

Recuperative sleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll fall asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is sitting on a beach,

And as she rests there on that beach,

She's listening to the sound of the waves lapping on the shore,

As they roll up onto the sand and then draw back out to sea,

And the sound of the seabirds flying overhead,

And feeling the warmth of the sun on her face,

And the feeling of the ground beneath her as she rests there just lying on the beach in the sun,

And as she rests her hands down beside her,

She can feel the warm sand under the palms of her hands,

And when she curls up her hands,

Curling up her fingertips,

She can notice that sand running and flowing through her fingertips,

And the way the sand just beneath the surface is so cool and comfortable,

And as she rests there she finds her mind wandering,

Finds herself beginning to drift and float so deeply,

So comfortably into a reverie,

And she drifts and floats deeper and deeper inside her mind,

And notices that her breathing begins to slow down,

Her body begins to feel heavier and more relaxed,

And her mind continues to drift and wander,

And as her mind drifts and wanders,

So she begins to hear an unusual sound,

And it's coming from out in the ocean,

And so she looks over towards the beach,

And so she looks over towards the sea,

And she sees something moving,

Like the water is beginning to rise up,

And as that water rises up suddenly,

A giant jellyfish seems to break free of the surface of the water,

And it's glowing and shimmering as it rises up as that water flows off the top of that jellyfish,

And a larger wave begins to roll towards the shore,

And that jellyfish rises up higher and higher,

The sides of the jellyfish undulating,

With coloured light passing up and down the sides of that jellyfish,

As the jellyfish continues to rise higher and higher into the sky,

And the underside of the jellyfish looks like it has dense frills,

Which are also glowing and changing colour with dancing coloured light,

And then beneath those frills are long tentacles hanging down beneath the jellyfish,

With coloured light passing and pulsating down those tentacles,

As that jellyfish rises up higher and higher until the whole jellyfish is up in the sky,

Seeming to almost float and fly so gracefully in the sky above the ocean below,

With the side of the jellyfish continuing to pulse in waves as if to keep it swimming up in the sky,

And then the woman notices,

In the distance a bit further,

A second and then a third and then a fourth and then a fifth jellyfish beginning to rise up in the same fashion,

And they all seem like the same kind of jellyfish,

And they rise up higher and higher in the sky,

And she notices that there are many people who are now coming down to the seafront,

Who are stopping what they're doing,

Who are gazing out to sea to watch this spectacle unfold,

And then that wave from the first jellyfish breaking through the water arrives at the shore,

And just makes a slightly larger wave rolling in on the shore,

Followed by another couple of large waves before the water begins to come back down to normal,

And they all watch as those jellyfishes seem to rise higher into the sky,

And there seems to be more and more of them,

And then she hears a rumbling,

Almost like distant thunder,

A long distant rumble in the sky,

And that rumbling gets closer and closer while continuing to sound very high up in the sky,

And the rumbling ends up coming to a halt with silence,

As if it had stopped rumbling just above the beach,

Just slightly off from the shore,

And the woman continued to watch those jellyfish hovering in the sky,

Those giant jellyfish managing to somehow pulsate and fly through the air,

And then suddenly there's a flash of light coming from through the clouds,

It gets broader and broader,

Widening out more and more,

And then the clouds begin to disperse as something is coming down through those clouds,

And the woman watches as what looks like a giant unidentified flying object,

Potentially some kind of spaceship appears in the sky,

That's so large that she can barely see the far side of it,

And in the light suddenly the jellyfish all begin to rise up,

And they begin to enter the underside of that UFO,

And then the UFO seems to move to another location,

To another area of a patch of jellyfish,

And the same happens again,

The beam of light shines down to the water,

And then she can see way off on the horizon,

Jellyfish rising up in that beam of light,

Into the craft,

And then almost in a flash it changes position again to another location,

And then she sees way off further in the distance that it looks like there is another craft,

And she realises that there's more than one craft collecting these jellyfish,

And she wonders from where all these jellyfish came,

And almost as quickly as the experience started,

So the experience passes and the craft seem to close whatever was open on the underside of them,

The light disappears,

And with a deep thunderous roar of sound,

Like distant thunder,

The craft seem to vanish upwards as if they've just shot straight up back into space,

And as she looks around everything looks just as it did,

As calm as it did before the experience she had just witnessed,

The only difference was that now everyone was still stood transfixed staring out to sea,

In the direction of the scene that they had just observed,

With no one talking to each other,

Just staring almost in disbelief,

And then after a few minutes that seemed like hours,

People began to talk to those around them asking did you just see what I saw,

Did you just see that,

Questioning each other and talking about what they saw,

And seeing if their stories of what they saw co-operate,

As if they can believe their own eyes if someone else says they saw the same thing,

But prior to someone saying the same thing they doubt their senses,

And the woman lies back down,

Closes her eyes and begins to drift deeper and more relaxed into a reverie on this beach,

And then after a while she awakens on this beach,

She packs her things up and takes a look around and everything seems calm and normal,

She can see way down the beach some children laughing and playing,

Some families talking and some couples and some others just gazing out to sea and acting as if nothing has happened,

And she wonders whether what she had seen had really happened or whether she just had an incredibly vivid reverie,

And she thinks to herself that she'd feel a bit stupid asking someone did you see giant flying jellyfish in the sky,

So she decides not to ask anyone and thinks that maybe if this really happened it'll be reported and she'll hear about it,

But she leaves the beach unsure of whether she had actually seen and experienced what she believes that she saw and experienced,

Or whether it was something just in a reverie,

And she heads home and towards the end of the day she still can't seem to see any information about that bizarre experience,

But as far as she's aware it felt 100% real,

And so she's sure it must have happened and yet there seems to be no record of it,

No one seems to have taken photographs or filmed it or reported on it,

But then maybe everyone was stunned into disbelief,

Maybe people who've reported it have had their reports pulled down by the government,

She's unsure,

But she thinks about that experience as she settles down in bed,

Thinks about what it is she saw and tries to go through a timeline of events to try to work out what she believes happened,

And as she does that she peacefully and so comfortably begins to drift asleep and relax,

Sleeping peacefully and soundly all night long,

Knowing she'll awaken in the morning feeling refreshed,

Revitalised and full of energy,

Drifting and floating so deeply,

So comfortably asleep.

Ok 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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who visits a town,

And she explores this town,

And while she's exploring she gets told about a model village that's on the outskirts of the town,

And it's a model village of the town,

And so she decides to visit that model village,

And around the outside of this model village is a train track with a train that has someone sat on the front,

It's a very small train and then it has carriages,

And children sit in those carriages,

And the train toot toots around the track,

And it travels around the whole outside of the model village,

And as it travels past the entrance to the model village,

So a little crossing gate comes down,

And little bells go ding ding ding ding ding ding,

Alerting the members of public not to go past,

And the children seem to really enjoy this part,

Making the crossing go down and the bells ding,

And then it passes and they can carry on walking across the path again,

And the woman walks into the grounds of the model village,

And the average two storey houses come up to just above her knee,

As she walks around the streets,

And she can see the incredible detail in this village,

The incredible detail of the shops,

Even down to what looks like little wanted notices,

And for sale notices,

And job listing notices in some of those shops,

And it almost looks like it could be the real village,

It's so incredibly detailed and accurate,

And with fascination she walks around among the different properties,

There's the church in the village which is almost as tall as she is,

And she carries on walking around,

And there's the park,

And the park seems to have some people playing with dogs,

And people walking through that park,

She's fascinated by how detailed those tiny little model people and dogs are,

And she continues to walk around and crouches down to look inside the different windows,

Looking in the shops,

Looking in the windows of houses,

And there are many model people,

Who seem to be dotted within the various buildings,

She thinks to herself that's a little unnecessary,

Because unless you crouch down and peer in a window,

You can't even notice that they are there,

And so she continues to take a look around this model village,

She takes a few photographs and she decides to get right down on her belly,

To take a photo down one of the streets,

Thinking it would make a really interesting photo,

Having the camera on the ground,

Taking a photo down a street,

And she decides that she wants to see if perhaps,

She can then stand in that same street in the actual village,

And potentially get a very similar photo,

And then compare the photo from street level in the real street,

With a photo that's the equivalent of from street level in this model village,

And she decides to walk around the model village,

To where the model village is,

And surprisingly she sees that the model village has been built on the model village,

That there's even smaller versions,

With the same scale in relation to the model village,

As the model village is in relation to the real village,

And she decides to look even closer,

And is even more surprised to see that there's a model village on the edge of the model village of the model village of the real village,

She wonders how far it goes,

How detailed they made it,

And she tries to have a look around,

And see if she can find out who specifically created this model village,

And decided to make a recreation of the model village,

In the location that the model village is in relation to the village,

And then a recreation of the model village on the model village on this model village,

And she couldn't figure out who had built this village,

She was just told that it's something that has been here for hundreds of years,

That it's continually updated to look as it does today,

And she was given some vague answer,

And at closing time they're all told to leave,

And so she left here,

But she decided a few hours later,

After just having a wander around and walking around the park,

And sitting in the park for a little while just enjoying being on holiday,

Enjoying some time outside in nature,

She decided with curiosity to go back,

See if the model village has any lights,

She was curious because it was so detailed,

She wondered whether the model village has lights in the buildings,

Whether the street lights turn on,

And whether just for fun,

This village has that model village having the lights on at night,

So that you can stand at the entrance,

Although you can't go in there because it's closed,

You could stand at the entrance and take some photos of that village with its lights on,

And she felt that that could potentially look nice at night time,

And so she went back to that village,

And it was very quiet and there was no one else around,

And the lights of the village were on,

And so she set up her camera,

And she first of all just took a photo,

Not on too long an exposure,

Just to have the various lights of the village showing,

She had a camera set up on a tripod,

And then she decided to get a few more photos,

And decided to use a longer exposure,

And to her eyes all she could see was just the street lights and the house lights in the model village,

And she did a longer exposure,

And then one that was an even longer exposure,

To see what it would look like under different exposures,

Showing more of the buildings with each exposure,

And then she went and took a look at her camera,

To review those images,

And as she started reviewing the images,

She was shocked by what she saw,

In one of the longer exposure photos,

She noticed a blurring on the street,

She noticed a slight blurring in one of the windows,

But she wasn't sure what it was,

And she looked at some of the other photos,

And her longest exposure photo revealed even more blurring,

But what she was really shocked to see,

Was that one of the blurs seemed to end,

And where it ended was what looked like a person,

As if it was people walking around that were creating the blurring,

And so she turned on the torch on her mobile phone,

And very quietly climbed over the gate,

Into the grounds of the model village,

Very quietly crept to the model village,

And when she arrived at the model village,

Having crept all the way up to the village,

She shone her torch over into the village,

And she could see people walking around,

People walking into the bakery,

People walking to the cafe,

People moving around in their rooms,

And realised that this looked like ordinary people,

And then somebody noticed her,

And looked startled,

And so she spoke to them,

And asked who are they,

What is this place,

She thought it was just a model village,

And they said no,

This is a fractal village,

That there's a rip or something of that nature,

In space and time in this location,

That seems to replicate this village over and over again,

And during day time,

When there's a lot of people out and about,

They keep themselves to themselves,

They hide what's truly here,

That the locals in the village,

Know about this secret,

But visitors to the village don't,

And then once it gets to night time,

They come out and they lead their lives,

And they can lead their lives during day time,

During the winter and when there's no visitors,

And they just try and hide who they are,

Because they don't know what people would think,

Seeing multiple sets of a village of people,

And that these specific people,

Are key people in each village,

That when this rip in space and time,

Or whatever it happened to be,

Occurred in the past,

It was like the rip shrunk down and tore,

Almost like a fractal,

All the way down replicating almost the same,

The same thing down to a minute scale,

And that the villagers who were here,

When this rip occurred,

Are who they are in this village,

But they're also exactly the same people,

As the villagers who were there in the big village,

In the proper full-size village,

That they seem to have been made timeless and immortal,

They don't age,

And so they are the key folk in the village,

And occasionally others come and go to the village,

But the only available accommodations in the village,

Are accommodations for coming on holiday,

They don't allow anyone else to move into the village to live,

So that way they try and keep their secret,

And they all live independently of each other,

But they can't leave their respective village,

They just live on and on and on,

And they say that it's the same for the small village off their village,

And the small village off that village,

That there are villagers who are exactly the same villager,

But they've gone their separate ways,

They all started out as the same individuals,

But now they all have led their own lives within their own villages,

So although they had a shared past for centuries,

They haven't continued to share the past,

They've diverged from each other,

And if it wasn't for the woman noticing,

They said,

They would continue to remain hidden with no one knowing,

And that they ask the woman to please not tell anyone what you've discovered here,

There's nothing they can do to fix this,

Nothing they can do to change what's occurred,

And they don't know what the future holds,

And they'll continue trying to work towards the future,

But for now,

She's just stumbled upon a rip in space and time that no one will believe,

And that the kindest thing would be to allow them to continue to keep their secret,

That no one in hundreds of years has ever come back after dark,

And even if they've been nearby after dark,

They've never noticed that there's anyone on the streets here,

That it's a quiet village normally,

And the woman says that she'll keep their secret,

And she heads out of the village,

And she feels that she'll remove the long exposure photos,

But she wants to keep the one of just the street lights at night,

And she explains to them that that's what she'll do,

And she heads off to where she's staying in this village,

And goes back to her room and settles down,

And peacefully and comfortably drifts and floats asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift deeper to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this story about a woman who is walking along through a town centre one day,

And as she's walking along,

She sees this curious looking man,

And this man is wearing a brightly coloured tie-dye shirt,

And she finds this man curious,

And so follows him through the town centre,

Finding that there's something very unusual about him,

And as she follows him,

He turns off down towards the seafront,

And he walks from the town,

Down a side street,

Joining a path that heads down to that seafront,

And she follows him all the way down to the seafront,

And as she approaches the seafront,

So she can hear the sounds of the seabirds,

Hear the sound of the waves as they lap onto the shore,

And the sounds of some people out on this beach,

And she follows that man down onto the beach,

Really curious about who he is and what he's doing,

And she sees him walking along the beach,

And as he walks along the beach,

He reaches a point where he starts to look around himself,

As if he perhaps expects that people would be following him,

He starts to look left and right,

And he peers over his shoulder,

Turning slightly around as he continues walking forward,

And the woman stops and starts gazing out over the sea,

Keeping him in the corner of her eye,

As if she's just standing around looking out to sea,

Perhaps has been here for a while,

Then she notices that he's turning back and continuing to walk,

And she sees him walk all the way down to a small little cabin near a jetty,

That's sticking out a little way into the sea,

And he heads into that cabin,

And she follows,

With curiosity,

She walks over to that cabin,

And it's a very small inconspicuous cabin,

It seems like it's just a single room,

And she peers in through the window,

Trying not to be noticed,

And as she peers in,

She's surprised,

Because when she looks in,

The cabin is empty,

And she walks around the other side of the cabin and looks in another window,

The cabin is still empty and it's just a single room,

And she walks around to another window,

Not expecting things to be any different,

But almost with a compulsion of disbelief,

And as she walks around to that other window,

She now walks around far more bold than she had been when she snuck to the previous windows,

And she looks through the window,

And just as before the cabin is empty,

So she walks around to the door,

She opens the door,

And this cabin looks like it expects occasional visitors,

Perhaps to ask whoever it is that normally uses this cabin,

For directions or for advice,

Or to use the telephone,

She looks around the inside of this cabin,

And it doesn't take her long to look around the inside,

She looks towards one wall and there's a desk,

Lots of paperwork on the desk,

A map of the coastline on the table,

And on the wall behind that desk is a calendar,

And a few bits of paper pinned to the wall,

And she looks around on the other walls and there's some pictures,

But there's nothing to reveal what happened and where this man has gone,

And this just made her curiouser and curiouser,

And so she went over to the desk,

She took a look at the items on the desk,

She pulled the swivel chair back and sat down,

And looked around while spinning slightly around,

Trying to think where could the man have gone,

Then she saw a picture on a wall that was at a slight angle,

And so she stood up and straightened that picture,

But as she straightened the picture,

A doorway in the floor opened up,

And revealed beneath that doorway were steps going down under the cabin,

And so she followed those steps carefully and quietly heading down under the cabin,

And as she headed down under the cabin,

She noticed that there was a tunnel that was illuminated,

And she followed along that tunnel,

And at first everything was quiet,

And so she remained quiet,

And she walked along that tunnel,

Until she came out to a vast chamber,

And she could see that man walking around the outside of this vast chamber,

And as he was walking,

He was taking off the clothing that he was wearing,

Only he wasn't just taking off the clothing as she discovered,

Because as he raised his arms up and took his clothing off over his head,

He revealed himself to be some kind of a creature,

And in the middle of this vast cavern was a triangular spacecraft,

And there was some mist or smoke hanging low beneath this spacecraft,

And this man placed what looked like a human suit down beside himself,

He then went up through that mist or fog and entered the spacecraft,

And a couple of other similar beings also entered the spacecraft,

And then the light in this room changed,

And there was a red light,

It was almost like a hazard light,

Spinning in the ceiling,

And there was a noise like a noise just letting everyone know to keep clear,

And the triangular spaceship raised up slightly from the ground,

Turned itself around,

And was facing in the direction of the ocean,

And then the wall in front of that spacecraft opened up,

And it revealed under the sea,

But the seawater seemed to be held back by a force field,

And the ship slowly moved through this chamber,

And started to pass through that force field,

And none of the seawater came through the force field into the chamber,

And yet the force field seemed to allow the ship to pass out through it into the sea,

And as soon as that ship cleared the force field and was under the sea,

Almost in a flash it seemed to speed off,

And she could just see a fine mist of bubbles under the sea,

Following the trail of where that ship had been,

That seemed to head out some distance before curving towards the surface,

And she imagined that that ship must have broken the surface and launched up into the air,

And there were still some people who she now assumed were probably aliens walking around,

Working on consoles within this chamber,

And the wall closed back up again,

Closing up,

Hiding the view of the ocean,

The red light stopped flashing,

And normal lighting resumed,

And the alarm stopped sounding,

And the woman was unsure of exactly what she had seen,

And could almost not believe her eyes and her senses,

As she quietly and carefully backed out of this cavern,

Back down that tunnel,

Back up into the cabin,

As she walked back she noticed that the entrance to the cabin had closed,

But as she walked towards the steps so it automatically opened,

She ascended those steps into the cabin,

Within a few moments that tunnel under the cabin closed again,

She then left the cabin,

She was really curious about her experience,

She walked along the beach a little way,

She tried to look out to see,

To see if she could see that craft,

Or see any signs of the craft,

She asked a few people if they'd seen anything unusual in the sky,

And no one seemed to have seen anything,

And after exploring for a while and waiting to see if that person appears again,

When they didn't appear and the sun was setting she decided to head home,

And so she headed home,

But all she kept thinking about was this unusual experience that she'd had today,

And whether there was a way of finding out more,

She felt that it would be too exposed to go and revisit that location again,

Going all the way down under the cabin,

And she didn't want to tell anyone else,

Because she didn't know the outcome of that,

But she thought that over the coming months,

She would just explore and see if she can learn more just from her observations,

And maybe if she sees the same person again,

Or maybe one of the other people who she's now seen,

Who she now knows are aliens in disguise,

That she'll try and eavesdrop,

Try and see if she can learn something from them and about them,

And at home while still having all this on her mind,

Fascinated and curious,

She drifted and floated so comfortably,

And so peacefully asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who is out walking one day,

And she's walking through some woodland,

And while walking through this woodland,

She can hear the sounds of birds flying overhead,

She can hear the sounds of songbirds among the trees,

She can hear the rustling of the leaves,

She can notice the way light dances,

As it dapples through those leaves and branches onto the path in front of her,

And the sound of each footstep that she takes,

And she continues to walk through this woodland,

And after a little while of walking through the woodland,

She comes out the other side of this woodland into a meadow,

And the first thing she notices,

Other than the increased light of walking into a meadow from the woodland,

Is the smell of the flowers,

And how beautiful those natural flowers smell,

As she walks through this meadow,

Enjoying the relaxing pleasant experience,

Continuing on down through the meadow towards a tiny village,

And as she approaches that tiny village,

She sees this little play area,

And this play area just brings a warm fuzzy feeling to her heart,

That feeling of comfort and nostalgia,

With just a traditional looking roundabout,

And rocking horse,

And some traditional looking swings,

All items that look like they've been unchanged but well kept for a number of decades,

And she feels herself just instinctively drawn to want to head into that tiny little park area,

And although it all looks so well kept,

There are no children here currently using any of these items,

And she sits on the rocking horse and gently starts it rocking,

And is surprised at how heavy this rocking horse feels,

And remembers with a smile that she used to have to get a parent,

When she was young,

To help her to move the rocking horses like this,

That the parent would be at the back,

Gently pushing on the back of the rocking horse,

But as a child,

She'd be moving her hips,

Having a feeling like she's the one who's causing the rocking horse to rock,

And now she knows that it really was more of the effort of her parent than it was of her movement,

And after a little while on that rocking horse,

Feeling that it was far more uncomfortable than she had remembered,

It was more solid,

It had a metal handle to hold onto while rocking backwards and forwards,

And the wooden shaped horse's head,

And she touched the horse's head with her hands,

Felt that familiarity from childhood,

And then got off of the rocking horse,

Went over to the roundabout,

And as she walked towards the roundabout,

She remembered in her mind's eye,

That as a child she would be holding onto the bar of the roundabout,

She'd put one foot on the roundabout,

And with the other foot,

She'd push on the ground,

Pushing and pushing,

Spinning that roundabout around faster and faster,

A bit like having a foot on a skateboard and pushing on the ground,

To make the skateboard go faster and faster before placing both feet onto that skateboard,

To just let that skateboard carry you some distance,

And so she recalled how she used to push with one foot,

Making the roundabout go faster and faster and faster,

And then when she felt she couldn't make it go any faster,

She'd place that foot on the roundabout,

And she'd hang on really tightly,

And it would spin and spin and spin,

And she'd feel this rush,

This sense of pleasure,

And then as the roundabout would slow down,

She'd stagger off the roundabout feeling dizzy,

But feeling like it was so much fun,

And then after a few moments she'd stop feeling dizzy,

And then do the whole thing again,

And she walked all the way over to the roundabout,

She pushed it with her hand,

And as the bars passed her hand,

She pushed a few more times on those bars,

Spinning that empty roundabout faster and faster,

And then she slowed it down by grabbing onto the bars,

And just grabbing on and letting go,

Bar after bar,

Until at a speed she felt comfortable just grabbing and holding the bar to stop it completely,

And at that point she decided,

I'm going to have a go at this,

And she got onto that roundabout,

Held onto the bar,

Had one foot on the roundabout,

And with her other foot she started pushing on the ground,

Pushing that roundabout faster and faster around,

Spinning faster and faster,

Speeding up faster and faster,

Until she started going so fast she felt her knuckles going white with how tight she was now clinging on to that bar,

And she lifted her other foot off the ground,

Put that on the roundabout,

And just let that roundabout spin and spin,

And she decided that as an adult this really wasn't the experience for her,

She didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as when she was a child,

And so she,

As it was still spinning,

Put one foot out of the roundabout just gently onto the ground,

Her foot skidding across the top of the ground,

Almost like a brake slowing that roundabout down,

Until the roundabout came to a halt,

And she then left the roundabout,

And as she stood up and left the roundabout she felt dizzy and was staggering,

And thought this really isn't as pleasant as I remember it,

But within a few moments she was fine and had recovered from the spinning,

But decided it was something that was a lot more fun when you're a child than when you're an adult,

And she decided that perhaps the best item to go on here is actually just the swings,

Just for a nice gentle relaxing swing,

And she sat on the swing,

And as she sat down on the seat she could see the seat beside her which was a seat for a small child that had the bars and the bit through the middle for the legs to go through,

And she remembered sitting in one of those and having a parent push her on that swing,

Trying to encourage her to swing her feet in a specific way and at a specific time,

So that she would power herself and make herself go higher and higher,

And for now she just felt so relaxed sitting and swinging backwards and forwards on that swing,

Feeling the breeze on her face,

The warmth of the sun,

Smelling the flowers around here,

Just enjoying relaxing on that swing,

And she allowed her eyes to close and just absorbed herself in the moment,

In the pleasant sensations of swinging backwards and forwards here,

And after a while of swinging backwards and forwards on that swing,

Thinking this is a really good end to her time in this park,

She left the park and continued on into the village,

And in the village she headed to a B&B that she was staying at,

She checked in and she went to her room,

And when it reached the evening and she settled down,

She relaxed in bed and was reviewing her day in her mind,

The things she enjoyed,

What she'd been pleased to notice,

She took just a few moments to think about what she's got to look forward to tomorrow,

What she plans to do tomorrow,

Before then reminiscing about playing as a child,

About what playing she enjoyed as a child,

As she comfortably and relaxed drifted and floated so peacefully asleep,

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close and allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to relax,

I don't know whether you'll relax deeper to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is in the woods,

And she's walking through these woods,

And she's heard that in these woods is a secret tree village,

And so while walking through the woods,

She's looking up towards the tops of the trees,

She can hear the rustling leaves,

She can notice the shards of light dancing in front of her,

As the sun breaks through those branches of the tree,

And through the leaves,

She can hear the sounds of her footsteps and smell the scents within this woodland,

But she can't yet seem to notice this village in the trees,

And she quietly walks through this woodland,

And she sees a squirrel scampering up the side of a tree,

Then another squirrel jumping onto that tree,

And chasing the first squirrel around as they circle their way up higher and higher,

Spiraling around that tree up into the canopy,

And while she continues to walk,

The light is dimmer within the woods,

But she's aware that outside of these woods,

The light is very bright by the way the shards of light are shining and dancing around her,

And then through the trees,

She catches a glimpse of a stag standing so still,

As if to try and hide from this person walking nearby,

And so she stops and stands very still watching,

Wishing that she had a way of taking a photograph,

And capturing this moment,

But aware that she can capture the moment in her mind,

And then the stag lowers its head,

Turns away and begins to walk off,

As if her stillness made her almost invisible to it,

And so she continues to explore,

And she almost gives up exploring,

When she discovers what looks like a toy staircase built around a tree,

It's a very tiny staircase,

Leading,

Spiraling around and up the trunk of the tree,

And as she follows it up with her eyes,

She sees that it does seem like it leads up to some pathways,

Up higher in the tree,

And that those pathways look like they lead to buildings and platforms,

And she feels a bit of disappointment,

Because she was expecting a village in the trees that she could visit,

And yet this village in the trees just seems like something that was almost made like a toy village,

Just happened to be in woodland,

And then she continued walking on,

But as she walked on she heard a noise,

A squeaky voice calling her back,

And she turned around,

And saw this tiny little gnome standing on the ground,

At the foot of the staircase,

And she was a bit taken aback and surprised,

She didn't believe in gnomes and so she doubted her eyes,

But she investigated anyway,

And as she went forward to investigate,

So she could hear this gnome talking to her,

And she could understand what it was saying,

And the gnome was saying do you not want to come and visit,

You look like this is what you've been searching for,

And she crouches all the way down,

Being level with the gnome as best as she can,

And she says yes,

I really wanted to find the village in the trees and visit,

And the gnome says so it shall be,

And they take out a purse from around their waist,

They open the flap on the purse,

They pull out a piece of cut mushroom from that pouch,

Close the pouch again and rest it beside them again around their waist,

And they say eat this and you can visit the village,

And the woman says but I don't know what that is,

And they say it's a piece of mushroom,

Eat this and you can visit the village,

And the woman says but I'm really not sure,

And the gnome says well it's entirely up to you,

You can eat this and visit the village,

Or you can just carry on walking,

And so the woman puts out her hand,

The gnome places that piece of mushroom in her hand,

She picks it up with her thumb and forefinger,

Puts it in her mouth,

Chews it a little and then swallows,

And it had a sweet taste to it,

And no sooner had she swallowed that,

And suddenly she found herself in glowing mist rising up all around her,

Almost spiralling around her from her feet all the way up above her head,

With the brightness of this glowing coloured mist getting brighter and brighter,

And the mist spinning faster and faster,

Until after a few moments the mist started to clear,

But as the mist started to clear she realised that she seemed to be almost eye to eye with the gnome,

And recognised that she was now the same size as this gnome,

And at first she was startled but then the gnome just said come on follow me quick,

You don't have long,

And so she followed this gnome as the gnome began to run up those steps,

And so she ran up the steps after the gnome,

And they ascended those steps higher and higher up to the canopy of the trees,

And high up here she realised that there was an entire community,

There were gnomes walking around,

Up here there were what looked like pubs or bars,

Places where these gnomes met and drank and socialised,

There were what looked like houses for the gnomes,

And they all seemed to be having so much fun and interacting with each other,

And the gnome took her along and showed her around,

Showed her to one of the bars,

And she drank a drink with that gnome outside one of the bars,

And the gnome kept on checking how long the woman had been here,

Until after a while and she'd enjoyed herself here,

The gnome said it's time to begin to make your way back down again,

The woman said,

But I'm really enjoying it,

I'd like to be here longer,

And the gnome said no,

The mushroom will wear off very soon,

And when it does you'll be full size again,

And so she heads down following that gnome all the way back down to the woodland floor,

And on the woodland floor she's talking with the gnome,

Who describes that they have many of these villages in different woodland,

In forests,

In places all over the world,

And they talk for a little while,

Until that mist forms again around the woman,

And as it clears so she notices she's back full size again,

And she thanks the gnome for the experience,

And the gnome leaves and she continues through the woodland,

And heads back out of the woodland,

And she finds her way home,

And that night while she's drifting asleep,

She thinks about the experience that she's had,

About visiting that village in the trees,

And more so about the mushroom she took,

Wondering what mushroom it was and how it was able to shrink her down,

And while she ponders these thoughts,

With curiosity,

She drifts and floats so peacefully,

So comfortably relaxed asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift deeper to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is sitting on her porch,

Looking out over her back garden,

And she's enjoying the gradually setting sun,

And she has her cat resting on her lap,

And she's stroking that cat as it purrs so sweetly,

So gently,

And she can feel its soft fur beneath her fingertips,

And while the cat drifts and floats comfortably asleep,

So she feels more and more relaxed,

And as she feels more and more relaxed,

So the sun continues to set in the distance,

And while the sun is setting,

So she can hear the last of the songbirds,

As they seem to be singing to each other,

To say goodnight to each other,

To be letting each other know where they're settling down for the night,

And she can smell the smells of the flowers in her garden,

And she can smell that lavender that's near her porch,

That gives off an almost sleep-inducing smell,

Helping her to want to relax even more,

And while she rests there in that chair,

Enjoying this early evening of the setting sun,

She can notice how the temperature of the air is beginning to change,

And a slight coolness tickling her cheeks,

While she remains wrapped up warm and comfortable,

Continues to stroke her sleeping cat resting on her lap,

And beyond her back garden is some woodland,

And every now and then,

When the wind blows a gentle gust,

She hears the leaves of the trees in the woodland rustle,

And a little way away is a river,

And along the river is an area where people moor their boats,

And so when those gusts happen she hears the rattling of the tops of those boats in the breeze,

And she finds all these different sounds so peaceful,

So calming,

Making it increasingly difficult not to drift off asleep here on the porch,

And as she just rests there this evening enjoying the setting sun,

She waits until the sun's fully over the horizon,

As the night sky follows,

Almost like the sun is tucking itself into a blanket for the night,

As the stars seem to get brighter and twinkle more in the night sky,

And she rests back in this chair looking up at those stars as they appear brighter and brighter in the sky,

Occasionally seeing shooting stars pass overhead,

Almost thinking that she can hear them as they pass by,

Even though she knows that they're passing by from her perspective silently,

And she remains outside long enough for the songbirds to have settled down,

And she'll just hear the occasional bird making a tweet,

But generally a silence begins to set in to the night,

Where the only sounds are the occasional rustling of the leaves and the jangling of the tops of the boats in the distance,

When the wind blows a breeze,

And her garden darkens more and more,

And she hasn't turned on her lights in her property because she's been sat outside before the sun had set,

Before she needed to turn any lights on,

So everything gets darker and darker around her,

And after a while of things getting darker and darker,

She decides to head inside her house,

She heads in from the back garden into the back room of the house,

Turns on a couple of small lights to give the most comforting glow within these rooms,

As she walks through a couple of the rooms that she'll be in,

Turning on those small lights to give those rooms just that nice relaxing glow,

She then draws the curtains at the back of the property,

Draws the curtains at the front,

Relaxes down into a chair,

And the cat comes over and climbs back on her lap again,

And she sits in that chair with the cat on her lap,

Picks up a book from beside her and begins to read some of that book,

And as she reads for a little while,

She continues to feel more relaxed as bedtime approaches,

And then when she knows it's now time for bed,

She places that book down and lets the cat down,

And the cat goes over and settles down in its bed,

And she watches as the cat begins to drift off asleep,

And she smiles and thinks to herself that's exactly what she's off to do now,

And so she then heads up to bed,

She settles down into her bed,

Feels the comfort of sliding into cool sheets,

Relaxes under those sheets,

Pulls the sheets up and tucks them under her chin,

Resting her head down on the pillow,

Her hand under the pillow,

Lying on her side,

Facing to the outside of the bed,

And breathing more and more relaxed,

As she drifts inside her mind and begins to float gently asleep,

And she drifts and floats so deeply,

So comfortably and so peacefully asleep,

Sleeping all night long,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who's been driving through a desert,

And as she drives through this desert,

She sees what looks like a garden in the middle of the desert,

She can't see the garden itself,

But there seems to be a really tall hedge visible from the road,

And next to this garden is some kind of building,

And so she decides to pull in at this location,

Stretch her legs,

And maybe investigate what this is,

And as she pulls in at that location,

She goes to the building and she gets some water,

And she drinks some of that water,

And carries some of that water on her,

And she places some water in her car for the future,

And then she heads back towards that garden,

And she sees that this isn't really a garden,

It's actually a maze,

And that you pay to enter,

So she pays the fee to enter,

Thinking this will be something to do that's a bit stimulating,

That breaks up the monotony of all the driving she's been doing through the desert,

And she can see as she approaches the entrance,

That there's signs that they have to do a lot of watering to maintain this,

And as she looks around,

She sees what looks like its own little reservoir,

And she doesn't really know much about how this all works,

But she imagines that that water,

However it gets into that reservoir,

Is probably what they use to make sure that this maze is well watered,

And she heads into the maze,

The first thing she notices is that once she has these hedges,

Which are taller than she is,

Surrounding her,

It instantly seems to make the environment seem cooler than it seemed the other side of the hedges,

And the paths between the hedges are very wide and comfortable,

And the ground of the paths is grass,

And along the inside edges of the hedges is a low colourful flower bed,

And those flowers are giving off the most incredible beautiful smell,

Some are so incredibly sweet smelling that she almost wants to eat them just from their scent,

And she walks along the first bit of the maze,

And it's a long path that goes along almost as long as the length of the maze itself,

As if that first path really is just another part of the entrance route,

Rather than a part of a maze itself,

She can't really get lost walking in a straight line,

And once she reaches the end she turns right,

And heads down another shorter path,

And then right again,

Heading along parallel to the first path,

And while she walks so she touches the hedge with her hand and feels what the hedge feels like,

Feeling the leaves and the branches,

And just admiring how well manicured and looked after this area is,

And then decides to walk past a left turning,

Continuing on,

Taking a second left turning,

Following that a little way before taking another left,

And then after a little bit she takes a right,

A right again and then a left,

And she tries to keep a sense of where she is in relation to the entrance,

And where she knows the exit to be in her mind's eye,

She has a sense that she's probably parallel to that first path again,

And so she heads along,

And then gets to a section where it seems to almost be like a semi-circle,

With paths coming off at different angles rather than just clean turns like she'd taken to this point,

And so she picks one of those paths and follows that down,

But ends up at a dead end and so she returns back to before the previous turning,

And takes a different route instead and again reaches a dead end after a few turns,

And so returns back to that spot again and takes a third of the paths here,

And this one doesn't lead so quickly to a dead end,

But what she notices is that after a little while of walking,

The path strangely begins to zigzag,

And so she follows that path and then zigs along one way and then zags along the other,

Follows that zigzagging path,

And at the end of the zigzagging path,

She turns left when she knows she's got a choice between going left or right,

And she follows this left path right to the end,

And at the end it turns right,

She follows it right and then it turns right again and she follows that,

And it comes out in a circular space and in the middle of this circular space,

There's a water feature,

There's a little bit like a pond and in the centre of the pond,

There's a plinth and on the plinth,

There's a statue,

And then there's water coming out of that statue,

Which is pouring back into the pond,

And she can smell that fresh water smell here,

And there are some benches around the pond,

And so she sits down for a little bit taking a break on a bench,

She's aware that she's over two thirds deep into this maze,

And they probably expect that by now people will want to take a little bit of a break,

Before continuing for that final third,

And after her break,

She heads on beyond this circular area,

And finds the first curved bit of path,

Which smoothly curves around until it's pointing back the direction she's just come from,

But a little bit higher up in the maze than where she came from,

And she follows that and then encounters a narrow zigzaggy spot again,

And she zigzags left and right through the zigzaggy area,

And then follows a path along,

And she knows that she's now nearing where the back wall of this maze should be,

And the exit is on the far right hand side,

If you were looking at the maze from the front in the top corner,

And so she continues to follow through this maze,

And she occasionally finds herself at dead ends,

But then backtracks to the last time when there was an option to take more than one turning,

And follows a different path,

And she feels that it's helpful that she thinks of herself as having pretty good spatial awareness abilities,

And then after a while she finds her way to a path which she can see just leads straight down to the exit,

And she follows that down,

Heads down to that exit,

Out of the exit,

And she realises that it's been a few hours that it's taken her to explore that maze and find her way out,

And she felt that was really good value for the money she had paid for the time she remained searching,

That it was a pretty large maze with some easy bits,

Some more complex bits,

That it seemed to be able to judge those in the maze quite well,

Knowing roughly at what points they'd probably like to sit down and rest,

And what points they would like to carry on,

And she felt that it had got the balance between the complex sections and the easy sections just about right,

And so she headed back down to the front,

She told the person at the front that she enjoyed the maze,

It was a nice break from her monotonous drive,

She then continued her drive for a number more hours before arriving at the town she was heading to,

And once at that town she headed to the hotel she was checking into,

Checked into the hotel and really looked forward to settling down for the night,

And she settled down in the bed and comfortably and peacefully drifted and floated asleep,

And as she drifted asleep she was just wondering whether she could ever design a maze like the one she'd been in today,

As she drifted and floated so deeply asleep all night long,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you drift comfortably asleep I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is walking in the countryside,

And as she's walking in the countryside so she is strolling along the side of a river,

And while strolling along the side of a river she sees an unusual sight,

She can see in the distance that there is a unicorn leaning down,

Standing just into the water,

Drinking from that river,

And at first she questions what she can see,

And whether she can really see what she thinks she can see,

But as she gets closer she realises that it is exactly what she can see,

And when she nears the unicorn it doesn't run away or seem to be bothered at all by her presence,

And she walks up to that unicorn carefully and gently and pets it on the side of the neck,

And it just remains drinking some water and mildly paying some attention to the woman,

As if it's not fazed at all by her presence,

And after it's had some drink of water it begins to walk away from the river,

Up onto the shore a bit more,

Up onto the bank,

Walking along the bank a little bit into the meadow,

Begins to eat some of the weeds in the meadow,

Carefully with its lips almost picking the tops of some of those flowers,

Picking the tops of some daisies,

Picking the tops of some dandelions and some other little flowers in this meadow,

And while the unicorn is eating,

So the woman is curious about this experience and where this unicorn has come from,

She'd never seen a unicorn before and would never have believed they exist if it wasn't for her own eyes,

And while she's thinking about this,

A being who almost seems to be glowing,

Almost seems to be a being of light,

Heads over towards her,

Seems to almost appear from behind some trees,

And as they get closer,

So the light dims down and they appear like a wizard in white,

And as they're standing there as a wizard in white,

They greet her and talk to her in such a friendly voice,

And they explain that this is their unicorn that they ride on,

It's also one of their best friends,

They journey everywhere together,

And that right now there is something that actually maybe she could help with,

That they're too well known for a specific task,

Whereas she's not known at all that a message has to be passed on to a specific dwarf,

But they can't pass the message on because,

As they are magic,

They're not allowed into a specific land,

They're not allowed into the land of the dwarves,

And so the woman asks,

Well what can I do?

And this wizard says that I'll give you the message,

And you can ride on the unicorn to the land of the dwarves,

And they're likely to let you through,

And then you can find the dwarf you're looking for,

And deliver this message,

And she agrees that she'll do this,

And so she gets given the message,

She asks where the land of the dwarves is,

And the wizard says that the unicorn knows,

If you just nudge that unicorn gently while resting on his back,

They'll take you all the way there,

If they stop,

Want to eat some food,

Want to eat some of the weeds on the ground,

Just nudge them a little bit,

They'll pick their head up,

They'll carry on their journey,

And you'll know when you've arrived,

Because there's a large doorway,

And there's a gatekeeper,

And you have to be able to be accepted in through that entrance,

And so the woman climbs onto the unicorn,

Gives it a little nudge,

And the unicorn begins to trot along,

And trots through the meadow,

Following the river at first,

Before turning off from the river,

Heading in from the meadow through to the woodland,

And starts to trot gently through the woodland,

And every now and then the woman just has to give it a little nudge,

To remind the unicorn to keep going,

To keep on track,

The unicorn heads through that woodland,

As the woman,

Listening to the sound of its hooves,

Trotting through that woodland,

A kind of dull thud of each step,

As she absorbs the movement,

With the way her hips move,

While she rides on the back of the unicorn,

And then passes through the woods,

And once back out in a different meadow,

The unicorn again lowers its head to eat,

And so after a moment or two,

The woman nudges the unicorn on,

And it continues on through this meadow,

Passing through this meadow into some more woodland,

But it seems to turn off the usual path through the woodland,

And the woman feels that she needs to just trust the unicorn,

She's been through many of these bits of woodland before,

And she's never seen some dwarf land,

So she just trusts the unicorn,

And from time to time has to nudge it on to keep it on track,

Unsure where it's going,

And it heads through this woodland,

And it heads towards a cliff at the back of the woodland,

And the woman can see this cliff getting closer and closer,

And yet the unicorn isn't slowing down,

And as it arrives at the cliff,

The cliff just seems to shimmer as the unicorn passes through,

And it passes through like there's not even a tunnel,

It's just a bit of a shimmer,

And then it's continuing in woodland,

Only this woodland has glowing light rising up,

Like millions of sparkles rising up from the ground,

Hovering orbs of light of varying sizes throughout the trees,

And some seeming to fly with intent,

And each footstep now of the unicorn was leaving behind shimmering light on the ground,

And the sky had gone from daylight to an unusual night time,

And as they passed out of the woodland,

She realised that this night time didn't look at all like the pattern of stars that she's used to seeing in the sky,

And after a while,

The unicorn arrived at what looked almost like a vast castle front,

With a huge gate,

And the unicorn stopped,

The woman dismounted and walked up to the gate,

Banged on the gate to get attention,

And the gatekeeper came to the gate asking who she was and what she wanted,

And she said that she's from a different land and is here to deliver a message,

And she held up the message she was there to deliver,

And then she heard a latch followed by another latch and another latch and a creek,

And the huge gate was opened and she entered,

And she searched around in this location,

Looking for the street and the house she'd been told to find,

And she found that location,

Delivered the message,

And the dwarf asked her who she was,

How she knew the wizard,

And understood without even having to ask why the wizard couldn't come here,

But that the message did need delivering,

And after delivering that message,

She left this location unsure how much time had passed,

And headed back on the unicorn which was still waiting just outside that gate,

And travelled back on the unicorn all the way back through that woodland,

Passing through a shimmering path,

Finding herself back out in her normal woodland that she was familiar with,

Noticing that it was still daylight,

And not a huge amount of time seemed to have passed,

And she followed that path all the way back,

Making her journey all the way back to the wizard,

And it took a little while but she journeyed back,

Told the wizard she delivered the message,

Dismounted from the unicorn,

And the wizard thanked her and said that he'll be meeting up with that dwarf now that the dwarf knows where for them to meet,

And that hopefully once they've arranged that location to meet,

There won't be many times where he needs to communicate with the dwarf in a similar way to now,

And the woman continues exploring,

Continues her walk,

Continues her relaxing journey,

And then much later that day once she's back home,

As the day draws to a close,

She heads to bed and thinks about the experience she's had,

And about what it reveals about how there's more in nature than she realised,

And wonders whether she'll ever see dwarves again or the wizard or the unicorn,

And will ever get to learn more,

And whether she should go and investigate and see if she can pass through that cliff,

And enter that magical land,

And as she thinks these things she then begins to drift and float,

So peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is walking along the beach on a day out with the one that she loves,

And the two of them are walking along together,

Hand in hand,

Smiling at each other,

Listening intently to each other,

Absorbed in each other's worlds,

And they're so absorbed in each other's worlds that they're almost unaware of what's going on around them,

They're almost unaware of how much time is passing,

And they walk along that seafront heading down to the sea,

Taking their footwear off,

Walking together through the shallow sea water along the shoreline,

Feeling the comfortable warm water lapping over their feet,

Splashing gently through that water as they walk,

And after a while,

Heading away from the water's edge,

Sitting down together on that warm sand,

Resting on that sand,

Continuing to talk to each other and enjoy each other's company,

And then,

After what seemed like only a few minutes but was actually a few hours,

The sun was beginning to set,

And so together they set up a tent on this seashore,

They set up a campfire in front of the tent,

They settled down in the entrance to the tent,

Sitting close enough to that campfire to feel its warmth as they rested there,

Listening to it crackling and popping,

And cooking some food on that fire while continuing to enjoy each other's company,

And then the sun was continuing to set below the horizon,

The moon rising into the sky,

Casting its silver glow across that calmly moving and undulating ocean that gently lapped on the shore,

That sounded so complementary to the crackling and popping of the fire,

And the dancing orange light glowing on the sand,

And the occasional slight breeze on the tent,

Blowing and flapping the sides of the tent just ever so slightly and gently,

And as it got later and later so that fire began to burn down to embers,

And quietened down as it did so,

Briefly going through a stage of popping a little bit more,

Before just being a quiet,

Gentle,

Warm glow in front of the tent,

And as the night continued on,

They backed into the tent and zipped up the tent,

And settled down for the night,

Drifting and floating so peacefully and so comfortably asleep together,

And then the next morning,

They woke up feeling so refreshed and revitalized,

As the light from the morning sun shone through the walls of the tent,

And they unzipped the door to the tent and opened that door,

And breathed in the fresh morning air,

Could hear that early morning sea lapping on the shore,

Noticing how calm the water remained,

And they made themselves some breakfast,

And then the loved one said I've got a gift for you,

You know how much I love you,

Well I've had this especially made for you,

And they took out a box,

And it was a long box,

Across two hands,

And they held it out,

As if to imply that they're happy to continue holding it while it's open,

So that the woman didn't have to hold it with one hand and open it with the other,

So the woman carefully opened that box,

And she saw the most beautiful perfect necklace in the box,

She carefully picked that necklace out of the box,

And their loved one took that necklace in their hands,

As she moved her hair out of the way and turned her back to them,

And they carefully placed it over their head,

And carefully did that up behind her neck,

As she patted it down almost with one hand,

Almost seeming to try and imprint it into her body gently,

Touching it as if she didn't believe it was real,

And they turned towards each other,

And she gave a loving kiss and hug,

And then they packed everything away,

But remained on the beach a while longer,

Just enjoying the atmosphere,

Enjoying each other's company,

Not wanting this moment to end,

Wanting to try and stretch this out as long as they can,

And after the experience,

The two of them head off from the beach,

And the loved one comes back to her place with her,

And back at her place,

She makes them dinner,

She thanks them for the wonderful trip,

For the enjoyable camping experience,

For the present of that necklace,

Enjoying every moment when she captures a glimpse of herself in a mirror,

And sees that necklace and thinks it's such a perfect and kind gift to have given,

And then at the end of the night,

After the most perfect few days,

With a smile on her face,

And a warmth in her heart,

She enjoys the experience of drifting and floating so peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background.

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is on a tropical desert island,

And she's relaxing on that tropical desert island,

Relaxing under the shade of a tree,

Enjoying the sounds of the water lapping on the shore,

And the warmth of the sun,

And the sounds of the birds,

And after a while of relaxing on this island,

She decides to have a little wander around the island,

To explore the island,

And it's only a very small island,

It would only take a handful of minutes,

To walk in a straight line across the island in any direction,

And so she begins to explore the island,

And while she explores,

She sees something that really intrigues her,

Something she's not seen before,

She sees an unusual yellow bird in a banana tree,

And she stops and she watches that yellow bird for a little while,

Watching as it seems to peck into the bananas,

And eat the inside of the bananas,

That it's beak seems to be designed perfectly for that task,

And she finds this intriguing and enjoys just resting and being quiet,

Watching,

Not disturbing the bird,

Seeing what the bird will do next,

And after the bird has had its fill at the banana tree,

It flies off,

And so she sets off after it,

Following that bird,

Seeing where it goes,

The island isn't very big,

So there's not many places that it can go here,

And she follows that yellow bird to a bush,

And the bird is now eating some berries in the bush,

But it seems to stand out as a yellow bird,

So much more while eating at this bush,

Than it did when it tucked itself away among bananas,

And after the bush,

The bird headed off to another tree,

And it was a tree with hanging coconuts,

And she watched that bird as it flew up high in the coconut tree,

And it was standing on a coconut,

Just trying to work out exactly what it was doing,

And she realised that it was using its beak,

To try and free that coconut,

And after a little while,

The coconut and the bird began to fall from the tree,

And as they fell,

So the bird stretched out its wings and started flapping,

And that slowed its descent,

Until it was flying fine and landed on the ground,

And hopped towards where the coconut,

Which had now split open,

Had landed,

And the bird was drinking some of that liquid that was inside the coconut,

And the woman was thinking how incredible this bird is,

How intelligent it seems to have been able to figure all this out,

To know how to access the liquid inside a coconut,

And after the bird had had some of that liquid,

It seemed to carefully drag the largest piece of the coconut that contained some liquid still,

Over to a side out the way,

Tucking it just around the back of a tree,

And then it went and grabbed the other main bit of coconut,

And seemed to drag that over there too,

And then before it headed away from the coconut,

It pecked a little bit at the inside of the coconut,

Eating some of that inside,

Before leaving that there,

Like it was planning on coming back to it if it got hungry again in the future,

And then the yellow bird flew off from that location,

And the woman continued following,

And she followed that bird,

As it now headed over to a rock on the seashore,

And it perched itself on that rock,

It stretched its wings out and it lowered its head,

Tucking its bum in the air and its belly forward and its head forward,

And it faced the sun,

Seeming almost like it was absorbing the sun's heat,

Sun's energy,

And it remained relatively motionless on that rock,

Seeming to be sunbathing for a while,

Then as the sun began to set,

So the bird stopped sunbathing,

And the woman continued to watch that bird,

Still incredibly intrigued by it,

And as the sun set,

She noticed that the bird seemed to be glowing slightly,

Almost as if the sun's energy had somehow made the wings,

The feathers of the bird,

Luminous,

As if something within those feathers,

Some pigment perhaps,

Was photosensitive,

And this glowing bird took off,

Began flying around the island,

And it flew into a dense bush,

And she followed to that bush,

And she saw deep in the bush,

The faint glow from that bird,

She could see the bird as she looked closely in the bush,

And she saw that it had a little family,

And the bird then flew off,

And was picking up some of that coconut,

And flew back,

And was feeding it to the chicks,

And was seeming to use the fact that it was glowing,

As a way of both making sure that it could confuse any predators,

But also that it could illuminate its path to where it needed to go,

And what it needed to do,

That it could see in the safety of this bush,

While feeding its young,

And she found the whole experience with this bird fascinating,

But then had to settle down for the night herself,

And so she headed back to a tent that she had on the seashore,

Settled down in the tent,

And being curious about that bird and what she might learn more about it the next day,

She drifted and floated,

So relaxed and so peacefully asleep.

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is walking along a seashore one day,

And as she's walking along,

So she becomes fascinated by a rock pool that she sees,

And the tide had pulled out,

And as the tide pulled out,

It left these pools of water behind,

And she crouched down and was looking into the rock pool,

And as she looked into the rock pool,

She could see anemones at the sides of that rock pool,

She could see some shellfish in the rock pool,

She could see some crabs,

And some little fish,

And little shrimp like creatures,

And a few other creatures in the rock pool that she just didn't recognise,

And she watched as these various creatures went about their daily routines,

Whatever it was that they did,

Between the tide leaving the pool here,

And the sea coming in again,

Making this rock pool just another part of the ocean,

And while she looked in this rock pool,

Fascinated by what she could see,

She thought to herself how there are some people who are so lucky that even as children they get to go to a beach,

And they get to see things like this,

And she noticed the way the sun was obviously warming certain parts of the rock pool far more than other parts,

That whereas the sun shining on water normally doesn't make a huge difference in any one specific location in an area,

In a rock pool,

Because the water is generally shallow,

In those shallows where the sun is shining strongest,

It can make patches of the reasonably still water become very,

Very warm compared to the more shaded areas of water,

And she watched as the different creatures in the rock pool took advantage of that warm area,

But were also aware of being more exposed when they're outside of the shade and the safety of crevices,

And while watching in this rock pool,

The woman noticed the most incredible looking starfish slowly moving along the bottom of the rock pool,

And she watched that starfish for a little while as it crept along the bottom of the rock pool,

She watched how it interacted,

What it did,

And she watched some of the other creatures here,

She saw some snails in the rock pool,

And until she saw those snails in the rock pool,

She'd never even considered them as something to be under water,

She'd always imagined snails being something on your leaves in your garden or tucked under a log,

She never imagined them as being submerged like this,

But found them really fascinating,

And she found it quite fascinating that most of the creatures in the rock pool moved quite slowly,

And that even those which could move faster generally moved slowly unless they were nervous,

And so she would watch crabs that would walk slowly around,

Seeming to be picking particles out of the water,

And she couldn't really see what they were picking,

All she could do was tell that their pincers were grabbing up bits and pieces and moving them to their mouth,

But she was also aware that if a crab was in a more well-lit part of the rock pool,

And her shadow suddenly covered that crab,

It would scamper incredibly quickly off in the direction of the rocks and crevices,

And would hide out of sight for a little while,

Before venturing back out again,

And she thought to herself about how long the creatures had to remain in this unique isolated ecosystem,

Between the tide pulling back,

Leaving this exposed,

And arriving back again,

Filling it in,

Connecting it with everything else,

She wondered to herself how much of what is living in this rock pool,

Decides to always stay in this location,

Even when it's got the freedom to travel beyond the rock pool when the sea has rolled in,

And how much is just in this rock pool because this is where it was when the tide pulled out,

And so she explored these ideas in her mind,

And as she was exploring these ideas in her mind she thought she noticed something out the corner of her eye,

But when she tried to look she couldn't see anything,

And then she thought she saw some movement,

And realised that blending in among the rocks at one side of this rock pool,

Was some kind of octopus,

Just a very small octopus,

That seemed to shape itself and colour itself to blend in with the rocks,

And it would then creep a little bit before becoming still again,

Fully blending in,

That every time it became fully still,

If you didn't know it was there or if you looked away and then looked back,

You wouldn't be able to see it or recognise it,

And she continued to watch this rock pool and the life isolated in this rock pool,

Until the tide was beginning to come in,

And the first signs of the water were occasionally pouring into the rock pool,

As some of the waves stretched across the shore,

And when this began she headed around the other side of the rock pool to give herself as long as she could,

And she saw that as the water came in,

So some of the creatures decided to leave the rock pool,

And take advantage of this flowing water,

Some of them let themselves be caught in the flowing water,

Dragged up shore a little bit and then pulled back,

Often seeming to guide themselves within the flow,

So that as they get pulled back they could land in a different rock pool,

One they hadn't been in all day,

And she watched with intrigue and fascination at these creatures,

Until eventually the tide had come in beyond the rock pools,

And had come in so far that she was having to back away from the rock pools,

And was too far up the beach to be able to look into where that rock pool once existed,

And she knew that in half a days time,

The tide would be back out again and a rock pool would be there again,

And she wondered if she came back then,

Or in a days time,

What would she see in that rock pool,

Would it look the same,

Would it seem to be the same creatures with just a few different ones,

And she wondered about this,

And had never really had the chance to explore rock pools like this before,

Had never explored them while growing up,

But enjoyed the idea of being able to do that now as an adult,

And after the tide had fully come in,

She set off for home,

And once home she settled down in bed,

And drifted and floated so peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep,

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close,

And just allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be the spaces between my words that help you fall asleep so deeply and comfortably,

And as you begin to fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is on a train journey,

And she's on a train heading through the Alps,

And while she's on this train,

She's got the most beautiful views through the train window,

And the windows of this train are from about waist height or just below waist height,

All the way up to the ceiling,

And then they curve across the roof a little bit,

The idea being that as this train travels through and around the mountains,

And the mountains are incredibly tall,

Those on the train are able to see the full range of the mountain,

Because the train sometimes gets very close to mountains and goes along the edge of some mountains and through others,

And so,

On this train,

You've got plenty of window to see where you are and to get a good view,

And although outside of the train is covered in snow and looks really cold,

The inside of the train is so warm and comfortable,

And this train continues on this journey,

And the woman is alone,

And the woman is travelling alone on this train,

She decided to go on a trip by herself,

Having a nice,

Relaxing and peaceful,

Quiet journey,

And the journey takes many,

Many days,

It travels along by day and pulls in at different towns on its journey,

Where those on the train disembark and check in to a specific hotel set aside for part of this journey,

And towards the end of every day,

There'll be a town that the train will stop at,

Where passengers check in to a specific hotel,

And the next day,

After breakfast,

They continue again,

And they eat their lunch on the train,

And this train feels so spacious,

It's warm,

It runs so smooth on the tracks,

It's almost like being in your own comfortable holiday hotel room,

That if it wasn't for watching the scenery passing by,

You wouldn't even realise you were really moving,

And so the train continues along the tracks,

And at one of the locations that it stops at,

It pulls in after dark to a town,

And as it's approaching the town,

So the woman can notice the lights from that town on approaching,

And it seems like a very small town,

And probably one of the main business opportunities for this town,

Is when these trains arrive and the passengers disembark,

And the train pulls off the main track where it stops for the night,

The passengers head to the hotel,

And the air is crisp and cold,

And the woman and the other passengers crunch their way through snow,

And then walk along well looked after paths to get to the hotel,

Which is only a short walk from the train station,

And the train station itself looks old fashioned but very well maintained,

And looking old fashioned seems to add to some of the charm of this station,

Seems to fit with the look of this town,

Or at least what the woman can see of it in the night,

And on checking in to the hotel it's an incredibly easy process,

That the company that's organising everything does a lot of the help with the checking in,

A lot of the help with making sure that luggage gets to the hotel,

So that passengers only need to carry what they choose to carry,

And what they want left on the train gets left locked on the train,

And she settles into the hotel,

Into her hotel room before heading downstairs for dinner,

And it's the most beautiful dining room,

Appearing incredibly rustic,

Suiting the period that the building looks like it was made in,

With the largest crackling fire in the corner,

Where she can feel the warmth from that fire even half way across the room,

And the low light,

She enjoys her dinner,

The mumbling sound of a few other people and their tables,

The sounds occasionally of plates being gathered up and taken away from tables,

The distant sound of a piano being played in a lounge in another room in the hotel,

And after her dinner she heads to bed,

And drifts so peacefully asleep,

And then the next morning she awakens,

Heads downstairs for breakfast,

Enjoys her breakfast options,

Consuming what she fancies for breakfast,

Before the announcement for everyone to head back to the train,

And as everyone leaves to go back to the train,

So they have someone who checks off people as they pass by,

To make sure everyone is heading back,

And then back at the train,

Everyone's checked back on board and the woman heads back to her carriage,

And she watches through the window,

As the train heads out of the station,

And pulls away from this town and continues its journey,

And as it continues its journey,

So it pulls around through an incredibly long tunnel through a mountain,

And on exiting the tunnel it hasn't really exited the mountain,

It's just that there is no right hand wall to the tunnel,

The mountain still seems to be on the left beneath them and above them,

But there's just pillars on the right hand side and supports,

Where the mountains have obviously curved slightly,

And the straight tunnel has cut through a side of a mountain,

Where a long part of it was entirely dark and buried within the mountain,

But as it exited it continued in a straight line,

Meaning that gradually the tunnel became more exposed to the elements,

Until the train was travelling around the base of the mountain again,

And then pulling away a little bit from the mountain,

And following a path down,

Almost through a valley area with pine trees that were dusted with the white snow,

With shades of green just faintly poking through the white,

And she enjoyed this trip,

Enjoyed making this journey,

This holiday over many days,

Stopping at towns just for the evenings,

More to sleep than anything else,

And that this trip,

This holiday was truly about the journey,

And she had always remembered being told as a child,

That the journey is part of the holiday,

And that so many people think of the holiday as being from a destination to when you leave the destination,

Rather than thinking of the journey to the destination as being part of that holiday,

And this is like the ultimate example of that,

Where there isn't even really a destination you're going to arrive at,

The holiday is the journey,

The train travels over many days,

Thousands of miles,

And when it reaches its destination,

It just turns around and comes back again,

And that for the passengers is the holiday,

And the enjoyment is a very relaxed trip,

That's more about the observations you make about being relaxed and watching scenery,

Than about doing anything,

It's about taking time to not do something that the woman feels a lot of people miss in everyday life,

A lot of people spend all their time doing and not enough time not doing,

And a trip like this gives the opportunity to not do for a long period of time,

You don't get to do too much in the towns you stop off at,

Just whatever you choose to do for an evening,

But she generally just chooses to look around the hotel,

Enjoy being in the hotel,

Maybe walk outside and stretch her legs a little bit and get some fresh air in the night time air,

But generally she settles down after dinner,

And enjoys a good night's sleep,

Looking forward to enjoying the next leg of the journey,

The next day,

And then the journey is what she enjoys,

Looking out that window,

Watching the scenery,

Walking about on the train,

Getting some different looks,

Getting some different views from different parts of the train,

Being able to walk all the way to the front to an observation post near the front that peers out towards the engine of the train,

Being able to walk to an observation spot at the back that looks out over the back of the train,

But most of the time,

Just seeing the world go by for the whole journey,

And after her railway holiday comes to an end,

And she's back home,

The thing she really enjoys is unpacking,

And then settling down in her bed,

And before she sets off,

She always makes her bed with fresh linen,

Especially so that on arrival home,

It's so fresh and cool and comfortable to snuggle down into,

And just peacefully and comfortably drift asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is living on a space station in the clouds of Venus,

And she's a scientific researcher,

And here in the clouds of Venus,

There's a certain amount of gravity,

As this space station,

Which perhaps couldn't even really be called a space station,

More of a cloud station,

Hovers at a comfortable level above the planet's surface,

And it is made with giant inflatable balloon-like structures,

Almost like a train carriage placed between the balloons of two giant airships,

And those balloons are made with a protective material that is difficult to puncture or damage,

And there are numerous safety features built in to this station,

That means if anything happens,

An emergency happens,

They can instantly head to the escape pods,

Which launch at high speed,

Almost like rockets,

Launching into space from a few specific locations around the station,

And in orbit around Venus,

Is a space station that's manned,

Which is designed for,

In an emergency,

The acceptance of up to as many people would be crewed on that station,

And there's a procedure for how,

Once they reach orbit,

They can auto-dock with the station,

And then there's a craft that can take them,

As an emergency,

Back to Earth,

And so this woman is one of the first to be on this station in the clouds of Venus,

And if you go too close to the surface of Venus,

It gets incredibly hot,

Hot enough to begin to melt metal,

And it gets incredibly dense,

Like being very deep under the ocean,

With the pressure of the atmosphere,

But there's a point in the atmosphere,

Where the temperature is about the same as an average day standing on Earth,

In a comfortable climate,

And so not much has to be done,

To maintain the temperature on the station,

But there's an awful lot of wind in these clouds,

And so the station travels around the planet,

At high speed,

And it's designed so that it can control its direction,

It can adjust itself to cope with changes to the wind,

It has some sail-like features,

Which help to increase and decrease the speed relative to the wind,

So that it can make itself more streamlined or less streamlined,

And can fine-tune that,

So that when it's windier,

And that could perhaps make it so that it's travelling faster or accelerating,

At a rate which could be a bit uncomfortable or jerky for those on board,

It can fine-tune and adapt,

To keep it so that generally it's relatively stable floating in the sky,

And what this woman is here for,

Is to carry out research onto whether there is anything living here on Venus,

That for years the focus has been that there's probably life on Mars,

And in the very early days there was an assumption that Venus was just like the Earth,

That it probably had a civilisation,

That it probably had an ecosystem full of millions of different plants and animals,

And that it was just incredibly cloudy on Venus.

It was felt that perhaps there was a lot of plants at least on Mars,

That maybe there was even civilisations on Mars,

But since then it was discovered how hot Venus is,

And the pressure of Venus' surface,

And it was assumed that there's unlikely to be any life there now,

Even if there was in the past.

But since then,

They've discovered that there's a temperate zone in the atmosphere of Venus,

And that if life had found a way to survive,

It's likely to have found a way to survive in the atmosphere of the planet.

And so this woman is here,

Gathering samples from the clouds,

And as they travel around the planet,

They gather multiple samples to see if it's different in different places.

But as well as gathering samples and doing the research she's here to do,

They're also proving a proof of concept,

That it can be possible to set up bases in very varied locations on other planets,

Whether it's in the clouds of Venus,

And there are also bases under the ice in the oceans of Europa,

That are studying potential microbes in the seas of Europa,

And then there are bases on Mars in domes,

Which maintain a comfortable living temperature,

Which allow the sun through,

But filter out a lot of the UV radiation.

And they're working on creating environments on Mars,

Under those domes,

For growing crops,

And other plants,

And trees.

And within those domes they begin to operate like greenhouses,

Where the temperature begins to rise,

To higher than outside of the domes.

And that allows them to begin to get a precipitation cycle,

And have lakes of water,

And they begin to be able to increase the density of the atmosphere within the dome.

Having a comfortable density,

And the density of the atmosphere is increased beyond the density of Earth's atmosphere,

To help to balance out some of the difference in the gravity,

To try to make it feel more like walking on Earth,

But rather than it being due to an increased gravity,

It's due to the increased weight of the air above you.

And so this woman is a part of a larger project for beginning to explore and settle on worlds within the solar system,

That are the early steps for mankind to stretch out into the stars,

To go beyond the solar system,

And to learn to live in small communities,

To get along for extended periods of time in those small communities,

And find out how to overcome challenges that are unknown until you're there doing that.

The woman finds this incredibly exciting.

And every night,

She settles down in her bed on the station,

Looking forward to when she wakes up the next day and continues her research.

And she settles down and drifts and floats so peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep.

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'll 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 this is a sleep story about a woman who is sitting on a picnic blanket in a meadow,

Up on a hill.

And she's resting in a clearing of this meadow,

And a lot of this meadow is very overgrown and wild,

With a myriad of different colourful flowers dotted through the meadow.

And while she rests back on that picnic blanket here in this meadow,

Just resting next to a grand oak tree.

And she rests back,

Where the branches and leaves of this grand oak tree soften and dapple the light that pours down on her face.

Helping to reduce the brightness of that light,

Making the experience of resting here even more comfortable.

And as she rests there,

She can feel the warmth of the sun on the rest of her body that is beyond the reach of the overhanging branches.

And this is how she likes it,

Where her body can feel the warmth of the sun.

But the branches overhead break up that light,

So that she just gets the most gentle dappling of light,

Moving and dancing through her eyelids while she rests back here on this picnic blanket.

And while she's aware of the dancing of the dappled light through her closed eyelids,

She can hear the sounds of songbirds,

She can feel the slight breeze on her face,

She can also feel almost like the faintest pressure of the sunlight as it's dancing around her face.

As she rests and relaxes and finds herself drifting deeper and deeper into a reverie here in this meadow,

And as she drifts deeper into this reverie,

She has an unusual experience.

She starts to have this sense that she's tiny,

That she's no bigger than the blades of grass.

And she starts to explore the meadow being that size.

And as she explores the meadow,

She encounters a talking dandelion,

And the dandelion tells her that it grows up here every year.

And as it grows up,

It grows its yellow top,

And it's proud of stretching out its yellow top,

And attracting other insects to come and share in its joy of life.

And then as it continues to grow,

And as the year continues to move forward,

Its yellow top turns grey,

And the grey top is wispy and so light and airy and fluffy.

And with this white top,

The slightest breeze blows bits of its top out from its head.

And those bits catch the breeze and drift and float and fly away,

And travel around,

Destined to settle down in strange new worlds,

Settle down all over the place,

Sometimes far,

Far from here.

And once they settle down far,

Far from here,

So they then stretch down their legs,

Plant themselves in place,

And begin to grow up,

Until they have their own yellow tops,

Which each year attract insects,

And each year then turn grey.

And the cycle continues,

And they talk about how they remember when they were flying through the air,

And they were drifting so high,

They could see meadows below them,

They could see woodland,

All those trees.

And then as a breeze that they were flying in began to die down,

And the air began to cool,

They found themselves drifting and floating down to this location.

They didn't know where their home would be,

And they landed near this tree.

And they settled down,

And once they landed,

They sunk their feet into the ground.

They allowed themselves to stretch and drink and grow and eat,

And get larger and larger,

And secure themselves in place,

Relaxing in this location before,

Growing taller and taller,

Developing their yellow top,

And then realising that they developed the grey top which became the young of the future,

And that after all the young have left,

They allow everything that's not essential to fade away,

While they settle down and sleep,

Until their next season,

Until the next time that would be good to awaken.

And so that when the time is right to awaken again,

They do so,

And they continue this cycle.

They said that they've heard some call them weeds,

But they think that they're beautiful,

And the woman agreed,

And she enjoyed this unusual reverie,

This bizarre experience of seemingly becoming small and talking,

With this dandelion near this grand oak tree,

And on awakening from her reverie,

She opened her eyes gently,

She looked around her as her eyes adapted to being open and to the light,

And she could see that dandelion resting beside her,

Still with her yellow top,

And she was sure she saw it seeming to almost bend over and give her a nod with its head,

But imagine that just must be her imagination.

As she settled down,

As she realised that it was time to head home,

And so she packed up her picnic blanket,

Cleared her things away,

And made her journey all the way home,

Where she thought about the experience she'd had and the unusual reverie,

And while thinking about that,

Once bedtime came around,

She settled down in bed and drifted and floated,

So peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep all night long.

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 asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And as I tell this relaxing sleep story,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And while you comfortably drift asleep,

You can have a sense of a woman who is walking through dense jungle,

And as she's walking through that dense jungle,

She's having to occasionally hack away at bits of vegetation that poke out and get in her way,

And it's hard work to be hacking through and walking through dense jungle,

And she's surprised at how hot and sweaty the jungle is,

And how the jungle is full of so much noise,

And so she's relieved as she exits the jungle on the bank of a river,

And she can now follow along the edge of the river,

Following along that river bank,

Where she doesn't have to keep hacking through the jungle,

But it's still incredibly hot,

And so she has an item of clothing that she can wear,

Which cools her body using the energy that she puts in for movement of the garment,

Converting that energy into almost turning the inside of the garment into a refrigerator,

That turns the inner material cold,

And that inner material turning colder is just enough to keep her body at a comfortable temperature while she continues walking,

And as she walks along the edge of the river that's passing through the jungle,

She's mindful and keeps aware of what's around her,

She can see some crocodiles in the water,

And she can see that they're not paying her on the bank any attention at all,

But she knows that it's sensible to be sensible and be observant,

And after a while of walking along the edge of this river,

She finds what it is that she's here looking for,

She had had a letter arrive many weeks earlier,

That said that in this jungle on the edge of the river,

There's a location where there seems to be a cave,

And a person,

The one that wrote the letter,

Had just been exploring and they found this cave,

And the cave was sealed,

And so they unsealed the cave and headed inside to see what was in there,

And when they went down into the cave,

They were surprised by what they found,

And they said that what they found,

She wouldn't believe if they told her,

She had to see it for herself,

And so she headed down into this cave,

Having to remove that stone from the entrance again,

And she headed down deeper and deeper underground here,

And the cave seemed to turn under the river,

And she could hear the dripping of water from the roof of the cave,

Dripping down to the cave floor,

And her echoey footsteps,

And she used a torch to light up this cave as she walked,

And so far the cave seemed fairly standard,

So she continued to walk deeper and deeper into the cave,

But then she encountered what she assumes they were talking about,

She saw some strange markings in a circle on the wall of the cave,

And that circle of markings was larger than a person,

And she shone her light on those markings to try to read what they said,

To see if she could decipher it and understand it,

And as the light hit the markings,

The markings gradually began to glow as if they were absorbing the light,

And the markings glowed brighter and brighter,

Until eventually they were bright white,

Like bright white writing forming a circle on this cave wall,

And the woman didn't understand at all how this was possible,

And she couldn't decipher those markings,

But at their brightest a blue haze began to form in the centre,

Spinning and swirling,

And the bit of cave between the markings started fading in that blueness,

Until there was just an electric blue swirling light in the centre of the markings,

And as that swirling blue light got faster and faster,

So it seemed to get deeper and deeper,

As if the centre was moving away from her,

Almost like it was forming a tunnel,

And it continued to seem to be moving away,

Further and further into the distance in the centre,

And then broadening out as it went,

Creating almost like an electric blue tunnel,

Until all of a sudden,

Almost like there had been some kind of a snap,

Like a rubber band breaking,

The blue light had vanished,

And between the markings just seemed to be doorway to another land,

And she looked through and could hear the sounds of what sounded like birds of prey,

She walked through this gap,

And it was like walking out into daytime,

In some kind of a strange land,

She started to explore this land and realised that it was a land of dinosaurs,

She could hear the thuds of dinosaurs and then see above the treetops,

She could hear the thuds of dinosaurs and could see these enormous sauropods walking around,

And they looked like they were walking so slow,

But as each step was so large,

They were still covering quite some distance,

Even with slow stepping,

And then she heard this squeaking noise,

And she headed towards that squeak,

And she saw this nest,

And she tucked herself among some ferns,

Looking out towards that nest,

And she saw in the nest some eggs,

And one of the eggs had already hatched,

And there was a tiny little fluffy dinosaur like creature,

Squeaking in that nest,

And then another one hatched,

And there was a tiny little fluffy dinosaur like creature,

Squeaking,

And then as they squeaked,

She could hear some thudding footsteps,

And she saw this two-legged dinosaur heading over to that nest,

And as it reached the nest,

It seemed,

Despite looking scary,

To so delicately and gently feed its young,

And they looked so cute with their fluffy bodies,

And she watched for a while while remaining quiet,

And keeping away from the nest,

And after exploring this area for a little while,

She headed back,

She'd been told in the letter,

That she'll know once she's found what she's looking for,

And it gave her a time limit of how long she had to explore,

And she didn't understand that until now,

So she headed back to that exit,

And headed through the exit,

And as the time limit came up,

So those symbols began to fade again,

As if the light,

From fully charged,

Only powered it for a certain length of time,

And then it faded and turned just to a normal wall,

And she felt that she was going to want to explore this further,

And so she set up camp in this cave,

Set up a little campfire,

Set up a tent,

And she camped for the night,

And as she drifted and fell deeply asleep,

She was aware that she was going to be here for a little while exploring this cave,

Exploring this strange land,

Recording her findings,

But unsure of what she would do with those findings,

Because she didn't want to end up with this land ruined by too many people visiting it,

And maybe finding ways to exploit it,

But at the same time,

She didn't want to miss the opportunity,

To be able to record this discovery,

And so she thought she would just record everything now,

And work everything else out later,

And for now she relaxed down in the tent,

And she felt so incredibly calm and peaceful here,

In the silence of the cave with just that gentle dripping of the water,

And the crackling of the fire,

As she drifted and floated so peacefully,

So comfortably,

Asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman,

Who is going to give something a go she's always wanted to do,

And has never had the chance to do it,

But to do it,

She's had to go on holiday to a specific location,

And so she arrives at a small little hotel,

In a very hilly part of British countryside,

And this hotel is at the base of a valley,

And so she checks in and sleeps over the first night,

And enjoys breakfast the next morning before heading off into the valley,

And heading to the location of this adventure activity that she's never done before,

But to get to this adventure activity,

She has to walk from the hotel,

So she walks out of the hotel,

Heads along through the valley,

Following a stream that flows through the base of this valley,

Enjoying that fresh water smell of the stream,

The sound of the flowing rushing water,

Walking along the edge of that stream,

Before following a path over a small wooden bridge over the stream,

And continuing to follow that path up into some pine forest,

And she walks through this pine forest,

Noticing how the ground is so different to walk on,

Than the soft almost bouncy grass that she'd been walking along,

Now she's walking along slightly crunchy ground as she walks through this pine forest,

And can smell that pine fresh smell,

And hear the slightly strange sound of the pine trees,

When the wind blows across the tops,

It's almost like lots of needles rubbing together,

With a strange sound that's very different to the sound of when wind blows across broader leaves of different trees,

And some of these pine trees have plenty of space between them,

They're far narrower than some other types of trees,

And she walks through those pine trees following that same path heading out the other side,

As she heads out the other side,

So she follows the path,

As it begins to ascend the steep hills,

And these are really tall steep hills,

And she ascends zigzagging up the hill,

The path doesn't just head straight upwards,

It zigzags which means that it's a much longer route but a much easier climb,

And once that path reaches the top of the hill,

So she walks along the path along the top of the hill,

And she can see other people who are here for the same reason,

And they're all heading to the same building at the top of the hill,

And so she heads to that building as well,

And she arrives at the building and she checks herself in and says that she's here,

And they tell her to go and meet with an instructor,

And a number of people including this woman head off to meet with that instructor,

And she gets told what to expect,

That she'll be given what she needs,

And then she's told how to use what she needs,

And she's got a nervous sense of excitement and anticipation,

Looking forward to this experience,

And she gets handed what she needs and it's heavy in a bag,

And she carries it to the location she was told to go to,

And there's a handful of locations where different people are told to gather,

So that each route down these hills,

Only has a small number of people who are going to be going down each section,

And an instructor for each section,

Plus some additional instructors just dotted around,

In case anyone needs additional support,

And she opens the bag and inside the bag,

Is a large see-through plastic looking ball that she has to inflate,

And she attaches it to the inflation device,

And it very quickly starts to inflate,

Inflating that clear giant ball,

Which has a clear space in the middle,

A ball-shaped space,

And a little tunnel into that middle ball,

And the idea is that when it's her turn to go,

She has to climb inside that ball,

Into that inside bit of the ball,

And then once she's inside the ball,

She has to follow the instructions she was given,

And she'll get a recap of those instructions,

For being able to roll in that ball,

Bouncing her way down that steep long hill,

And so she gets that recap of the instructions,

She gets it confirmed that she's okay with doing this,

She's comfortable,

She understands what's going to happen,

And she's excited and really wants to get started and wants to do this,

And she gets to the edge,

Gets told it's her go,

And she leans her body weight forward slightly,

And starts to roll,

And for some of it she's running on the inside of the ball as it rolls down,

And then after a while she can't run at the speed the ball's rolling,

And so she kind of bounces around inside the ball,

And gets to hang on a bit on the inside,

And rolls all the way down safely inside the ball down the hill,

And they've got protection mats at the end,

Which the balls strike to stop them,

And the ball reaches the end,

And she wants to go again and again,

And so they have the opportunity to take the balls back up to the top,

And do a few more runs of this across a few hours,

And after her experience of rolling down these steep long hills in those see-through giant balls,

She heads back to the hotel excited by the experience she's had,

She enjoys her dinner that evening,

Before heading out for a little walk around the area around the hotel,

And then heading back into the hotel and heading off to bed,

Where she drifts and floats so peacefully so comfortably asleep,

Knowing she'll be heading back home in the morning,

Having had this experience of rolling in a ball down a hill,

She drifts and floats so peacefully so comfortably so deeply asleep,

So just take a moment to close your eyes and allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is on an orienteering challenge,

And she's been dropped in the middle of nowhere,

In a marshy area,

And she has to navigate her way to a cabin,

There are people placed equal distances from the cabin,

But in different locations around this countryside,

And they all have the same task of orienteering and finding their way to that cabin,

With the first ones to arrive being the winners,

And so she confidently sets off,

Map in hand,

They have no technology on them,

Just a map and a compass,

And so she begins to walk in the direction that she knows the cabin is in,

And she decides that she wants to take the most direct route as much as possible,

So she heads through that marshland,

And this marshland she fills is the most dangerous part of the whole journey,

For although she can do the orienteering,

And she's capable of navigating and knowing which direction she's to head,

When traversing the marshland,

She has to be careful of where she steps,

And how she navigates here,

So she carefully and safely navigates through this marshland,

Occasionally she ends up ankle deep in watery marsh,

But generally manages to keep to the drier patches,

And as she exits that marshland and continues to traverse this land,

She heads into some woodland,

And in the woodland,

The only way to navigate through some of the thick undergrowth filling the floor of this woodland,

Is to push through at unusual directions,

And it's so thick and difficult to get through that she can't have her map and compass out while she's physically pushing through this undergrowth,

There are thick brambles and dense vines,

And she pushes through that,

And from time to time she finds an area that is just a little bit clearer where she can get a compass out and get her map out,

She then puts the compass on the map and lines up,

And works out where she needs to head and course corrects,

Before pushing through further,

And she inevitably always finds that she's headed in slightly the wrong direction after a while of pushing through all of the undergrowth,

And so frequently has to course correct,

And although the marshy area was probably the more dangerous area,

This area so far seems to be the area that slows you down the most,

And is most exhausting for someone to have to navigate through,

But she also wants to win this competition,

And so she just keeps going,

Keeps pushing forward with all of her strength,

All of her mental strength,

And eventually she finds her way out of this dense woodland,

And that dense undergrowth heads across much easier meadows and hills,

That's very easy terrain to navigate,

And she follows her path over this terrain,

Enjoying the warmth of the sun as she continues on,

Aware of how much hard work this is and how she wants to take a break,

But she doesn't want to take a break just yet,

So she pushes on a little further,

And eventually she arrives at the woodland,

And she knows that the cabin is deep within this woodland,

And she pushes through this woodland,

And this woodland is as difficult as the previous woodland,

She suspects that it must start to clear as it approaches the cabin,

Because the cabin would have been built with access,

But again she wants to take the most direct route,

She's also aware that maybe if she didn't take the most direct route it would be quicker,

It may be longer,

But if she can keep moving at a faster pace that would make it quicker,

But on the maps it doesn't show any specific paths that can be followed,

And so she would only know of any paths if she stumbled upon them,

And while she continues pushing through the woodland,

She starts to hear others in this same woodland,

She can hear voices of other people,

And the sounds of others pushing through the same type of undergrowth,

So she pushes on and on,

Continuing determined to be the first to find the cabin,

And then she catches sight of the cabin,

She now doesn't need the map or the compass to get there,

She can see someone sat outside the cabin,

And she feels a little disheartened thinking that that means maybe she was beaten,

But she still pushes to try and do her best time,

That even if she is beaten,

The most important thing is knowing,

She did the best that she could and she couldn't have done better,

And she pushes through and continues heading towards that cabin,

Eventually arriving out of the undergrowth,

Able to finally walk on clear open surface,

And as soon as she can walk on that clear open surface,

She begins to run towards the cabin,

Wanting to get there as quick as possible even if she hasn't won,

So she runs all the way to the cabin,

Gets to that cabin,

Dashes in through the door,

And reaches the table in the cabin that she had to reach,

Where she touches that table,

As being here at the destination,

And exhausted she slumps down in a chair,

Thinking she came second,

But at least she did the best that she could,

And she grabs herself a drink,

She grabs herself some food that's in this cabin,

And once she feels a bit more rested,

She sees some others arriving and rushing to that table,

And she congratulates them and says that she'd only just arrived,

Only a few minutes earlier,

And she walks outside the cabin,

And the person sat outside the cabin,

Stands up,

Shakes her hand and congratulates her,

And says you were the first to arrive,

And she had thought that this person was one of the people,

Who'd been orienteering and was probably there before she was,

And now she discovers that they weren't,

They were here seeing who was going to arrive first,

They were here keeping an eye on the cabin,

And had set the cabin up for the arrival of the various contestants,

And she was the first one to arrive,

And so she won this orienteering challenge,

She received her prize for winning,

And she was really proud of how well she did,

But she was so pleased to finally get back to the hotel near here,

To be able to settle down in the hotel,

Resting her aching muscles,

And drifting and floating so peacefully,

And so comfortably relaxed asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this story about,

A woman who is walking around a gooseberry bush,

And as she's walking around that gooseberry bush,

So there's a child opposite her,

Who's doing the same,

And she's playing hide and seek with the child,

And it's a very young child,

And they're trying to find her,

And she's sneaking around that gooseberry bush,

Keeping just out of sight,

And the child's running around the bush,

Never quite managing to see her,

And then from time to time,

She'll stop as that child is approaching,

And she'll look back,

She'll go boo,

And the child will giggle and jump a little,

And then she'll run around the bush a little bit further,

And the child will try to find her,

And will be waddling their way around the bush,

Following,

And then from time to time,

She'll again stop,

Look back,

And go boo,

Around the bush,

And the child will jump and giggle,

And then try and find her again,

And they play this game for a little while,

Before eventually,

The woman decides that they should go do something else,

That it's only so long,

You can play a game where you're walking around a bush,

And then turning back and saying boo,

And so she starts to head away from the bush,

And calls the child over,

And says come on,

Come over here,

And they head over to a picnic blanket,

And they sit down at the picnic blanket,

And the child's mum is laughing,

And saying it looked like they were really having fun with you there,

And the woman says that it's okay,

But it's a bit of a basic game to play,

And the mum jokes about what are you expecting,

They're only three years old,

You can't be playing chess with them yet,

And the woman laughs and says that's a shame,

And the child is playing on that picnic blanket now,

With some toys,

They've got some dolls in front of them,

And they're playing with those dolls,

And then they're making fake cups of tea with a fake teapot,

Pouring nothing into some cups,

And giving those drinks to the dolls,

And giving a drink to the teddy,

And giving a drink to the woman,

And to their mum,

And the woman says that's a shame,

And says thank you,

And then pretends to drink that drink,

Buying into the reality the child is portraying,

And then the child picks up teddy,

Rests teddy on their lap,

And holds tightly to teddy,

While giving teddy some tea from a cup,

And then the child walks off and starts to pick daisies,

Almost grasping them with the whole of their hand,

And comes over and gives the woman the daisies mixed with a little bit of grass,

And gives their mum some daisies mixed with grass,

And then goes off to find more things,

And comes back with some squished berries in their hand,

And splodges them into the woman's hand,

And into the mum's hand,

And the mum and the woman both say thank you,

So appreciatively before looking at each other,

And grimacing in an amusing kind of way,

Before then placing it down on a plate between them,

And washing and wiping their hands with some towels that they have with them,

And they just chat a little bit while the child is running around in the sun,

And playing and being inquisitive,

Then after a little while the mum gets up,

And starts chasing the child around on the grass,

Pretending to be like a tickle monster,

Saying tickle monster's gonna get you,

Chasing the child around and the child's giggling and running,

And then the mum scoops up the child and tickles the child and spins the child around,

And gets that child onto her lap and is tickling away,

And the child's laughing and giggling,

And half trying to escape and half not wanting to escape,

And the woman's laughing and finding this amusing,

And then the child is playing again on their own,

Rolling around on the grass,

Trying to do roly polies,

And then trying to roll along on their side,

Occasionally having to look up to see what direction they're rolling,

Before rolling some more,

And the mum and the woman just having a good chat with each other,

Sitting on that blanket,

Enjoying the afternoon sun,

And after a while the child comes over,

Holding a children's book,

And puts that children's book on the woman's lap,

And then sits down,

And wants the woman to read that children's story,

And so the woman begins to tell that children's story to the child,

The child is resting there,

And the woman begins to read,

Once upon a time there was a little girl,

Who enjoyed playing in the woods,

And she used to run around in the woods,

She used to chase little birds,

She used to chase the squirrels,

And all the woodland creatures enjoyed playing with her,

They were all her friend,

And one day the little squirrel asked her for her help,

And so the little girl said,

I'll help,

I'll help,

How can I help?

And the squirrel said,

I need you to help me to bury all of my nuts,

In that bit of land over there,

That I haven't been able to get them all buried,

Before the winter,

And so I need your help,

And so the little girl had her little spade,

And the squirrel said,

These nuts have to be buried three footsteps apart from each other,

And so you can bury one here,

Take three steps there,

Bury one there,

Take three steps here,

Bury one here,

Take three steps there,

Then bury one there,

And take three steps here,

Before turning left,

Burying one in three steps,

Before walking three more steps,

And burying one again,

And taking three more steps,

Before the next,

And the squirrel gave its instructions,

And the girl was a little confused,

But the girl followed the squirrel's instructions,

And helped the squirrel to bury those nuts,

And while the girl was heading in one direction,

Burying those nuts,

The squirrel started in the opposite direction,

And in the middle of the clearing,

The girl and the squirrel met,

Burying the last nut,

And the squirrel was so pleased,

With having the girl's help,

That the squirrel climbed up the girl's leg,

Climbed up onto the girl's lap,

And gave the girl a little kiss on the cheek,

And said thank you,

It's very kind of you to help me so much,

That's going to help to feed me through the winter,

And then the girl went home,

And the squirrel went to bed,

And when the girl went home,

She told her mummy,

About that squirrel in the woods,

And how she is friends with all those animals,

And how she'd helped the squirrel to bury its nuts,

And the woman continued to read this story to the child,

But as she was reading so,

She noticed that the child's breathing had slowed,

The child had closed their eyes,

And the child had drifted and relaxed,

Deeply and comfortably asleep,

And so the woman closed the book,

And she continued talking with her friend,

With the mum,

And then when it reached the end of the day,

And the sun was beginning to set,

The mum picked up the child,

And placed the child into a pushchair,

And they packed everything away,

And they all travelled back to their homes,

And when the woman was home,

She sat down and thought,

How exhausting that day out was,

Running around with a child for hours,

Wondering how the mum does that,

Thinking the mum must be so tired,

Because the woman now doesn't have that child around,

And yet that mum still does,

She's still got more to have to go,

And the woman is so pleased when she's resting down in bed,

And she comfortably and relaxed,

And drifts and floats so deeply,

And so peacefully asleep,

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 asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman,

Who wakes up one morning,

And she's doing her make-up in front of the mirror,

And while she's doing her make-up,

Her mind is wandering and drifting to thoughts of what she's got to do that day,

And that she almost does her make-up on autopilot,

And it's almost as if her hands just do what they need to do,

And her eyes guide her hands,

But she's consciously not really paying a huge amount of attention,

And yet her make-up seems fine at the end of the morning,

She doesn't do anything too fancy with her make-up,

She just likes her face to have a natural,

Gentle look to it,

And after doing her make-up,

Which she almost uses her opportunity to sit still for a bit and be in her own mind,

She sets off for the day,

She leaves her house,

She wanders down the road,

She walks cutting through a park,

Hears the birds singing in the trees,

Sees some walkers with their dogs,

Hearing some distant dog barking,

Heads past the pond in the park,

Hearing those ducks in the pond,

Wishing that she had something she could feed the ducks,

She walks past that pond and out the other side of the park,

And continues on this other side of the park,

Down towards the train station,

And on arrival at the station,

She gets her ticket,

Heads to the platform and sits down on a bench on the platform,

And she can feel the cool air of the morning,

While waiting on this quiet platform for the train to arrive,

And there are no other passengers sitting on this platform waiting for this train,

And she sits quietly,

Patiently waiting,

And after a little while,

The train comes into the platform,

The doors slide open,

She boards that train,

And as usual for this time of the morning,

There are very few people travelling on this train,

She sits down at a seat,

She gazes out the window as the train leaves the station,

She watches as that station is left behind and the train begins to travel through the countryside,

And as it travels through the countryside it begins to speed up,

And the view flashes past faster and faster,

With those things that are near going by rapidly,

Those things on the horizon just seeming to move so slowly and peacefully,

She can see a mist across the fields as she looks out of the window,

And notices some deer standing huddled in one of the fields,

And continuing along on her journey,

And the train pulls in the station,

And no one else gets on at this carriage but she saw that there was a couple of people on the station who've probably got in to other carriages on this train,

And the doors close and the train continues its journey,

It speeds up as it heads away from that station,

And after a while it slows down again pulling into another station,

And no one gets on at this station,

And then the train pulls out again,

At the next station a couple of people get on,

And the train continues until eventually it's approaching her destination,

And so she stands up,

She heads to the door as it's approaching the platform,

The train pulls in at the platform,

She opens the door,

Disembarks from the train,

Walks through the platform as that train is leaving behind her,

She walks down a quiet street heading down towards the local town here,

Heading into that town,

Heading into her work in this town,

And she enjoys her work,

It involves her interacting with people who she likes,

Who are so incredibly kind and friendly,

And she spends her day working,

She looks forward to coming into work,

But she also enjoys when her work day finishes and she gets to go home,

And at the end of her work day she heads back to the station,

And she repeats everything but in reverse,

She boards the train and it's relatively quiet,

Just like her morning commute,

The train travels along from that platform out of that station,

Through countryside,

She sometimes notices sheep in fields or cows in fields,

Sometimes fields of sheep and cows in the same journey,

Sometimes she sees that family of deer in the same field or a different field,

They seem to graze and move around this area,

And then she heads on through the different stops for arriving back in her home town,

Train pulling in,

Leaving the train,

She then heads out of the station,

Crosses a crossing across the railway track,

And walks back towards that park,

Heading past that pond,

But unlike when she's going to work,

When she's on the way home from work,

She knows she's not in a hurry to have to be somewhere,

So she can stop by the pond,

Sit on a bench by that pond and watch those ducks swimming around quacking away,

Notice the way the evening sun is dancing on the surface of the pond,

The way there can be a very slight chill to the air as the sun is beginning to set,

Seeing some people out jogging around the park in the evening,

People who are walking their dogs in the evening,

She walks through the park,

And heads all the way home,

And after dinner and relaxing for a while,

She heads to bed and enjoys just drifting and floating so peacefully and so comfortably,

Asleep,

Sleeping so soundly all night long,

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 asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you begin to fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who had always wanted to learn to do something artistic,

And so because she wanted to learn to do something artistic,

She decided to take up an evening art class,

And each evening she would learn something different about art,

And on the first evening everyone was encouraged to just do whatever you want,

That there are no wrong answers,

There are no wrong ways necessarily of doing things,

But there are ways of improving on what you're doing,

And so the first step was just to draw what you feel,

To draw what you observe,

And start from there,

Using your own self expression,

And so it started off with just drawing fruit in a bowl,

And then in the same class it progressed to drawing some items on a table,

Which were placed at slightly different locations on that table,

Meaning that to draw them you had to begin to use perspective a little more than you did with the bowl of fruit,

And then in the same lesson there was more education around shading,

And other aspects of artwork,

And as the lessons progressed,

So the different types of things that those who attended did progressed also,

The woman had to paint a person who was posing,

And they had to get used to this strange idea that the eyes are actually in line with the centre of the head,

She had always drawn them nearer to the top of the head,

Because it seemed instinctive that that's where the eyes were,

And so she drew that person,

And she found some bits easier to draw than others,

She found things like hands and feet quite challenging,

Especially the fingers,

She found that trying to show age in the face was a challenge,

That as soon as she started trying to draw lines on a face,

It just looked weird like she'd scribbled over her own drawing,

But as the lessons progressed,

So she progressed on to doing artwork that was with paints,

Different types of paints,

And the idea of this course was to really give a taste of many different aspects of artwork,

To try and inspire the students who attended,

So that people could decide what resonated best with them,

And maybe there's one medium that they just liked working in,

Maybe they developed their own style around a specific type of artwork,

And so she painted some pictures with watercolour,

Painted some pictures with acrylics,

Did charcoal and chalk drawings,

Used pen and ink,

Used pencils,

She even tried crayons,

And then moved on to paper mache and wireframes,

And started working through creating 3D art,

She spent some time learning how to make things with clay,

Before progressing on to what she actually found most fascinating,

Which was wooden sculptures,

And on arrival of the class that day,

Each student had to pick some of the driftwood that had been gathered up,

That they would like to use to make a sculpture from,

And she chose a piece of driftwood,

Which already kind of resembled what she wanted to do a sculpture of,

The driftwood had been smoothed slightly by the sea,

And it was curved,

And reasonably evenly wide from one end all the way through to the other,

And there were a few nodules on the top,

And so she began to carve out a long slender dragon with this driftwood,

She imagined in her mind's eye what the dragon looked like,

And had this sense of just removing from the driftwood everything that wasn't a part of that dragon,

And the dragon she imagined was long slender with a windy tail,

Which didn't really have wings but had four short limbs,

And a long head and snout,

And she carefully carved away at that wood,

Carefully cutting away the bits of wood she didn't need,

And when it got to finer work on the wood,

She used very coarse sandpaper to sand down some of that wood,

And then as she got to completing the dragon,

She moved on to using finer sandpaper to smooth out the whole wood of the entire dragon,

Until she had this incredibly smooth dragon sculpture,

And then she just went over cutting in some detail,

And then carefully using smooth sandpaper to smooth down that detail,

And fitted in and blended in with the rest of the dragon,

Adding in some scales,

Some detail like frills around the back of its head,

Near its jaw and near its ears,

And whiskers near its snout,

And a frilly texture down both sides of its tail,

Towards the tip of its tail,

And leaving the underbelly smooth,

The top and sides scaly,

And slight lumps going straight down,

The back,

Almost like steps,

From the back of its head down to near the tip of its tail,

With those steps getting slightly larger as it moves down the neck,

Reaching an even peak which continues on all the way down,

Halfway down the tail,

And then those lumps getting smaller again,

Almost fading to nothing by the time they reach the tip of the tail,

And she found to make this she got so incredibly absorbed in the process,

And was so proud of the dragon she had created,

And although she then continued to make other things in future lessons,

This was the item that she displayed at home and was incredibly proud of completing,

And it was the start of a new hobby for her where she would go out on the beach,

And she would look for driftwood and she'd find different bits of driftwood with interesting shapes already,

That she could see something within that driftwood,

She would hold it up and think,

That looks like,

And then she would say to herself what she felt it looked like,

And all her job was as she saw it,

Was to work the wood until she revealed what she saw,

And she really enjoyed this new hobby,

This connection with her creative side,

And each night she'd find herself thinking about different ideas with driftwood she had collected,

And that would be playing in her mind as pleasant thoughts as she drifted and floated so deeply,

So comfortably relaxed,

Asleep.

So just take a moment to close your eyes and allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to drift comfortably asleep,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you drift comfortably asleep I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And this is a sleep story about a woman who is on a rowboat on a lake,

And she's gently rowing along this lake,

And round the outside of the lake are hills covered in tall trees,

And sounds from others boating on the same lake echo around this valley area surrounded by these tall trees,

And the woman continues to row on the lake,

And once she's in the middle of the lake she pulls the oars onto the rowboat,

And she just relaxes back on the chair in the rowboat,

And lets the boat just float so peacefully,

So gently on this lake,

And she can still hear some others who are rowing on the same lake,

And hear them talking,

Some with children who are a little louder,

But it doesn't bother her or disturb her because she's very good at absorbing herself in her own world,

And so she sits back,

She takes a book out of her bag,

She begins to read,

And she relaxes and reads some of that book,

As she bobs up and down on the lake in that boat,

Hearing the gentle sloshing and knocking of the water on the underside of the boat,

As the incredibly gentle waves roll past,

A slight rocking motion of the boat that's almost tempting her and lulling her into a deep sense of relaxation,

Like a parent rocking a crib with a baby to help a child to sleep,

And as she reads and gently rocks on the boat,

So those fluffy clouds seem to pass by in the sky overhead,

Occasionally interrupting the sun's light,

But not seeming to interrupt too much with the sun's warmth,

And the sounds of birds in the trees around the outside of the lake,

And when the wind blows a stronger breeze,

That sound of the rustling of those trees,

The leaves,

And all of this helps her to just feel more relaxed as she reads,

And while she reads,

She loses track of time,

It's as if time for her almost seems to stand still,

As if time becomes timeless,

She relaxes deeper and deeper into the book,

Then after she's read a number of chapters of that book,

She puts the book away and she looks up for the first time in a while,

To see where on the lake she is,

And she's drifted a little way from where she was when she stopped rowing,

Which is fine,

She's relaxing on this lake and nowhere is too far from the shore,

And so she then rows back gently towards the shore,

On arriving back at the shore,

She rows that boat up to where it needs to moor,

And a person on the bank takes hold of the boat as it arrives,

They attach a rope to the boat and the boat to the shore,

And then they hold that boat to steady it as the woman disembarks from the boat,

And she walks onto the shore,

And she wanders along the shore a little way,

Past all the ducks,

Swans and moorhens,

And cutting up around the hills through the trees,

As they rustle and blow in the breeze around her,

Walking through around the outside of the lake,

To the far end of the lake,

Walking over a stye at the far end of the lake,

Into a valley,

And this valley has steep hills either side,

That are even higher than the point she's already reached,

And on top of the hills is more woodland,

And she heads half way up one of the hills,

Places down a picnic blanket,

And rests down on that blanket,

And up here,

Along the valley a little way,

There's not really so many people around,

And so it's much quieter,

And she looks over and can see two birds of prey circling very high above the valley,

Just so gracefully circling,

She sees other birds flying lower down,

And can see some rabbits hopping around in the valley,

And up the hills in the distance she can see some sheep grazing,

And in a clearing beyond those sheep,

She can see a couple of deer,

She rests down on this blanket,

And she reads a bit more of her book,

Really absorbed in this book,

Wanting to finish the book,

And enjoying reading the book outside,

In nature,

Breathing in that fresh air,

Feeling the air on her skin,

The warmth of the sun,

Enjoying the atmosphere,

And the smells of plants,

Sounds of the rustling leaves of the trees,

Then after a while of reading,

Noticing that it's starting to get dark,

She heads back down the valley,

Heads back over that stye,

Starts following the path around the lake,

And now the boating on the lake is closed,

And there's no one here anymore,

Just a few people walking and standing around the lake,

Enjoying the evening lake,

She walks around that lake,

And heads off and starts her journey home,

And on arrival home,

She thinks about her day out,

She thinks about how pleasant,

How calming,

How relaxing her day was,

And after dinner,

She settles down to continue reading that book,

Sitting in a comfortable chair,

With nice low light,

Making the room cosy and relaxed,

And in this environment,

A cosy,

Relaxed environment,

Reading a book,

She finds that she becomes more tired and sleepy,

And so she heads to bed,

Tries to read a bit more book in bed,

But once she's sat in bed and starts reading,

It's as if as her eyes scan,

Down the page,

They want to keep going down until they close,

So she just puts a bookmark in the book,

Places the book down beside her,

And gives in to the temptation to sleep,

By snuggling down,

Closing her eyes,

And gently relaxing and drifting,

Deeply and comfortably,

Asleep,

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close,

And allow yourself to begin to relax,

And as you begin to relax,

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice,

Or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words,

And as you comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this sleep story in the background,

And it's a sleep story about a woman who's on holiday,

And she's relaxing by a swimming pool,

On a sun lounger,

And as she rests on that sun lounger by that swimming pool,

She's just enjoying the warmth of the sun overhead,

She's enjoying having nothing more to do than being able to be here absorbed in the moment,

And she can smell the fragrant mango smell of the sun cream that she had applied,

And there was something calming about this smell to her,

Something about it that made her recall other holidays,

Because she'd always used the same sun cream when on holidays,

So that smell of the mango sun cream instantly brought a sense of peace and calm to her,

Because it reminds her of peaceful,

Calming,

Sunny holidays,

Just resting,

And enjoying doing pretty much nothing for a period of time,

Because she knows that she sometimes struggles to do nothing for a period of time,

And just shut off and relax,

And so she's resting here on this sun lounger,

Enjoying the warmth of the sun,

Massaging her body,

Feeling that warmth on her face,

And the peace that it brings to her mind,

And she doesn't like to stay in the sun too long,

But just long enough to almost feel like it's recharged her,

And then she likes to go and do something,

But something where she doesn't have to put in too much effort,

So after enjoying the sun for a little while by the pool,

She leaves the sun lounger,

She walks to the pool,

She descends the steps carefully and slowly into the pool,

Feeling the warmth of the water,

But aware that that water is still cooler than the air,

And brings a sense of refreshing relaxation,

She pushes through the water of the swimming pool,

And rolls onto her back,

And with the most gentle of kicks,

Propels herself floating across the pool,

Feeling the tension of the water along the side of her face just above her ears,

Along her cheeks,

Around her jaw,

And around her arms and hands,

Occasionally just steering and propelling herself through the water a little bit,

With the flick of a wrist of one hand or another,

And then turning over again onto her front,

Diving beneath the water with a deep breath,

Enjoying the peace and silence of being underwater,

Kicking her legs a little bit like a dolphin or a whale,

As she propels herself under the water,

Feeling so effortless to swim underwater,

Before emerging at the far end of the pool,

Resting her head and neck on the side of the pool,

And allowing her body just to float to the surface,

And gently kicking her legs,

Holding herself in place,

Feeling so deeply relaxed,

Just swimming so effortlessly and floating around in the pool,

Enjoying,

Relaxing in this swimming pool,

And then swimming across the pool,

Doing breaststroke,

Pushing that water forward and back,

Pushing through that water,

Pushing her hands forward and pulling back,

Her feet pulling in and pushing back,

And a few strokes of crawl,

Reaching the other side of the pool,

And then turning onto her back again and just floating through the water,

Occasionally,

Gently,

Maneuvering herself by moving her hands under the surface,

And after swimming for a while,

She gets out of the pool,

Ascending the steps,

Heads back to her sun lounger,

Sits down on that sun lounger,

Rests there while she dries out gently in the sun,

Before leaving the side of the pool,

And heading into the hotel,

And in the hotel,

She finds that the air is so much cooler with the air conditioning,

And in the hotel is a water feature,

And some tall green plants,

And it smells so fresh and clean and airy in here,

And is so bright and comfortable and relaxing,

That everything about being on holiday here encourages a deep sense of peace and relaxation,

And so she then heads to her room,

Heads into her room,

Changes into some different clothes,

Takes a few moments to lie down on her bed,

Relaxing on that bed,

Sinking so deeply and comfortably into the bed,

And from the bed she can look out through the large windows,

Over the ocean below,

Seeing the blue sky,

Blue ocean,

And then as the sun sets and the evening crawls in,

She heads down for dinner,

She eats dinner at a table outside of a restaurant,

And the evening here is dark,

But incredibly warm and comfortable,

And she finds peace here,

And after dinner she heads back into the hotel,

Heads back to her room,

And settles down for the night to drift asleep,

And as she begins to comfortably drift asleep,

She thinks about what she's going to choose to do tomorrow,

She knows that some of the time will be spent relaxing and enjoying the pool,

Enjoying resting by the pool,

But she also wants to go and explore other areas around here,

Other locations,

And enjoy her time doing many relaxing activities,

And while she thinks about what she's going to do tomorrow,

And on other days of her holiday here,

She drifts and floats so peacefully,

So comfortably and relaxed asleep,

Drifting and sleeping so deeply all night long,

Drifting and sleeping so deeply all night long.