The Volcano Island (Long Meditation Sleep Story)

The long sleep story is about you working in a museum, entering a picture, finding yourself on a volcano island during a storm searching for a gem, finding yourself sleeping on the back of a turtle, diving to a crystal palace, then to an underwater cave, finding what you need to find and then returning.

Transcript

So as you listen to this bedtime story and begin to fall asleep comfortably, I don't know whether you'll find yourself falling asleep faster to the sound of my voice, To the words that I use or perhaps to the spaces between my words. But as you fall asleep, You can just listen to me in the background and you can have a sense of finding yourself walking through a museum and as you walk through that museum, So you can hear the way that your footsteps echo off the walls. You can hear doors being opened and closing and the way the sounds of the doors echo through the corridor and down into each room in the museum and while you walk around the museum, So you notice that everyone is beginning to leave, That the museum is beginning to close for the night and you're here to keep an eye on the paintings, The statues, When everyone's gone home and so you walk around checking that everyone's leaving the museum and while you walk around, You notice different statues, Different paintings, Large paintings, Smaller paintings. You hear the different doors being closed, There's different rooms that are empty of people until eventually all the customers have left and then the other staff leave and leave you to keep an eye on the museum yourself and after the last person has left and the front door has been closed, So you go and sit down somewhere in one of the rooms and the idea is that you'll sit down in a room and then every 15 to 20 minutes you'll stand up, You'll walk to another room and sit down there for a while and just doing the rounds so that you're in each room as the night goes on, Being still, Being able to listen in case there's any sounds in the museum and as you sit in one of the rooms, So you hear some sounds and you decide to go and investigate and what you find in one of the rooms is a sound of tribal drums and you can't figure out where that sound is coming from and then you notice that some of the statues start to come alive and then one of the statues comes over to you and you're a little surprised by this and the statue comes over to you and says that your help is needed, That you need to find a lost gem, A gem that belongs in one of the statues in the museum and that until that gem is placed back in the statue things can't settle and you don't really understand exactly why or what they mean but the way that they describe this makes you think you've got to go and help in some way and you think it's got to be more exciting than just sitting in one room or another on your own in silence. So you ask what it is you need to do and the statue looks over at a painting and you walk over to that painting and as you get to that painting you gaze into it and you notice how large that painting is, That the painting is taller than you are and at least twice as wide and you gaze into that painting and you can see it's a painting of a volcanic island, A volcanic island containing a forest and so you don't really know what you're supposed to do and you notice there seems to be something unusual about this painting, There seems to be a slight shimmer to the painting so you reach out with your hand and you gently put your fingertips onto the painting and as you put your fingertips onto the painting so your hand starts to go through the canvas and it feels like your hand is gently lowering into some cool water, You can feel the surface tension around your fingers and you can feel that moving up your fingers to your palm of your hand and then as you keep putting your hand in you can feel it moving to your wrist and then slowly and then slowly tickling and tingling as it moves up your arm as you push your hand into the painting and after your arm is in the painting so you step in and follow it and you find yourself in that painting on the volcanic island and you can hear a thunderstorm start to rage, Hear lashes of rain and you start to get soaking wet so you run into the forest and as you run into the forest so you notice how the rain changes, You can now hear that rain falling on the leaves above you, Hear it bouncing on those leaves, Hear the thwap sound hear the thwap sound as each large raindrop hits the large leaves and you're relatively dry inside this forest with such dense forest around you and you can hear the rumble of thunder and notice shards of light appear from above as the thunder rolls and lightning flashes and you walk through this forest and you feel lucky that it's quite warm here warm here as you walk further and further into the forest and you start to dry off while being protected from that rain, Protected from the raging storm and you continue walking further through the forest, You don't yet know what you're looking for how you're going to find this gem, Where this gem is and as you continue walking through the forest, So from time to time you reach out and touch the bark of trees, Feel that at your fingertips, You can feel the thud of each footstep on the ground the dull thud as the sound gets absorbed by all the woodland you can hear that storm above hear that heavy rain on the leaves and you continue walking deeper and deeper and as you continue walking you don't know where you're going there just seems to be a bit more of a path on the route that you're taking and you recall what this picture looked like before you stepped into it and so you try to recall that in your mind almost like a map, Trying to work out where you must have appeared and where you must be now and you know that you're on a volcanic island you're currently not walking uphill or downhill so you know you're not walking up towards the center of the island or down directly towards the coast, You must be walking across the island which means at some point you'll start walking down but for now you're just walking through the forest and after some time of walking through the forest you start to hear a bit more wind coming from in front of you and you realize you must be approaching the edge of the forest and although most of the rain isn't making its way to you and isn't falling on you it's being blocked by the canopy above you you're aware that when you get out the other side you're going to need to keep dry so what you start doing is collecting some of the big leaves around you you start collecting some of the big leaves around you and on some trees they have bark which you can cut at the top and then you can peel it off in strips almost like rope and so you do that and get yourself a load of strips and then you can peel it off and then you can peel it off and then you can peel it off and then you can peel it off and then you can peel it off and then you can peel it off and so you do that and get yourself a load of strips of bark then as you approach the far side of the forest and you start to see some light again and you know that it's very dark because of the storm and yet there's some light because above the storm the sun hasn't set yet and so you clear the forest walking back out into the storm you see that you're near the edge of a cliff and so you decide to set up a camp here you need to set something up that can just keep you dry and protected you decide you'll continue your search when the storm has passed so you make a pyramid with the larger bits of wood you tie it all into place with the bits of bark you weave in the leaves tie some of them into place creating a watertight shelter you place some of the other leaves inside and then you crawl into the forest crawl inside your shelter and relax down and while you relax down so the storm rages on you can see the clouds light up with lightning you can hear the rumble of thunder and hear the large raindrops hitting the ground around you hitting your makeshift tent and now you're in the dry and sitting down you feel so relaxed you find the sounds calming relaxing you find that they're peaceful they make your mind just want to drift and wander and from where you are you're looking out off a cliff over the sea and you can see that the sea is quite rough at the moment and much of it is clouded by the falling rain and so while you sit in your makeshift tent your eyes begin to close and as your eyes begin to close so your mind starts to drift and dream and you drift and dream and float back through time in your mind and you start to have this sense of almost being like a bird of just flying over the ocean seeing this clear blue sea seeing comfortable rolling waves and you drift back through time and you have a sense of wonder about this island you're on what was the island like before it was an island how did it become this volcanic island and drifting and floating through time you have this sense of under the water deep down a volcano is gently erupting lava is spewing out crackling and popping as it reacts with the water glowing red in the deep blue sea as it gradually builds up this island from deep under the ocean building this island up higher and higher towards the surface and you watch in your mind's eye as that continues at a steady pace and then occasionally a larger eruption happens under the sea and the island gets a growth spurt and then after thousands of years the island begins to get nearer to the surface and gradually the whole time the land over the magma is shifting slightly and the island is gently elongating until eventually one day the tiniest island appeared above the waves initially just creating some ripples on the surface where it was just below the surface most of the time and only at low tide would it be just above the surface until one day there was this tiny island and then the volcano continued erupting and grew to a one metre square island two metre square island four metre square island eight metre square island sixteen metre square island and it started growing exponentially while the whole time the island was moving while the magma was remaining in the same place and after a while there was this huge black island above the surface of the water with nothing but black rock and then as time continued on so the earth's plates continued to move and so the magma was creating other islands elsewhere and no longer creating this island and then as thousands of years continued to pass occasional seeds blown in the breeze around the earth would find themselves caught on the island and then one day thousands and thousands of years ago the tiniest little sprout of green started growing on the island followed by another and another until the island started turning from black to green and then as even more time passed little sprouts of trees started springing up and then these trees started growing taller and taller and over hundreds of years they grew into tall forests encircling the volcanic island and the water crashed against the island creating areas of beaches and other areas of cliffs and then as thousands of years continued some life would find its way to the island floating on branches and leaves from other places and the occasional lost bird landing and making the island their home and some would survive and find others and then create more and others would be the only one of their kind would make the island their home for their life and then as thousands and thousands of years passed trees and plants multiple generations of life exist on the island and have existed on the island and you float around and drift around like a bird in the sky finding it fascinating looking down on this island watching the evolution of this island from when it was just forming on the bottom of the ocean watching as it grew up taller and taller, Broke the surface of the ocean and became an island that you see now that you recognize as being like the island you're currently camping on and your mind drifts wanders sees the island in the most beautiful calm sea with the most beautiful sky as your attention then draws back to the fact you're in a tent you're in a makeshift tent on the edge of a cliff gazing out over the ocean with a storm raging around you and you look out of the tent you see the thick rain falling in front of you you hear the sound of the rain on your makeshift tent you can see the rough sea and the lighting and darking of the clouds as lightning rumbles through the sky and as you continue to watch so you notice how that rumbling thunder how that storm seems to be weakening and you can then see the way that rain is falling over the ocean and no longer falling over you and as you continue watching so you watch as that storm moves further out to sea as that storm passes by towards the horizon and you watch the way the lightning dances in the clouds makes the tops of the clouds glow and flash and flicker before a low rumbling of thunder reaches your ears you notice how the sea below you appears to be calming as that storm moves further away and after some time you notice the storm has moved far enough away you can see some cloudless sky you can notice the red hue to the sky and you know that somewhere behind that storm a sun is setting as you watch that red hue dimming down and you sit there gazing out to sea watching that storm at night until eventually the rumbles get so quiet you can barely make them out and yet you can still see on the horizon the way that storm in those clouds high up into the air has lightning dancing, Flashing and flickering making those clouds glow with white light almost like a light machine in a party flickering that white light through those clouds and as hours continue to pass so that storm gets more distant until you can see that it's almost entirely over the horizon and you can see at the same time the sun is almost entirely set as just the faintest orange glow on the horizon and as the sun sets over the horizon and the storm passes by the sky ends up a cloudless sky the air smells so fresh and clean and clear you can start to hear sounds around you of wildlife in the forest so relaxing and you start gazing up at that sky gazing up at all the stars seeing more appear as the light disappears seeing more appear as your eyes begin to get used to the dark you just gaze up comfortably in awe at the sky feeling a sense of how small you are when looking at such a blanket of beauty and as you gaze up at that sky you notice there's a meteor shower happening and you start to see streaks of light flashing across the sky in all directions looking like they're coming from the constellation of Leo and you watch as that happens from that constellation and as you watch those meteors flashing across the sky you feel like you can hear them fizzing and popping fizzing and popping and you know it must be in your mind because you know there's no time for the sound to have reached your ears yet because they'd be burning up high in the atmosphere and yet you have this feeling like you can hear them fizzing and popping you notice some of them from different colours to white you even have this sense like you can smell the meteorites as if they're landing near you almost like the smell of a sparkler but again you know that just must be in your mind because of how intensely focused you are on the beauty of this how dark it is begetting here and while it's getting darker and darker here so you realise you can see the stars meteors clearer than you ever could before in your life and you get so drawn in to the experience you almost forget that you actually stepped into a painting and this is all taking place inside a painting because you should be in the museum and yet this all feels so real to you almost like this is real it all feels so real to you it doesn't feel like you're in a painting not that you'd know what being in a painting would feel like and so and so as you continue to gaze up at the sky gaze over the sea which now looks jet black you decide it's time to close your eyes rest for the night and you'll try and find the gem in the morning so you take a moment to settle down in your makeshift tent you close your eyes and you fall asleep and while you sleep you start to hear the sound of water being pushed aside like oars pushing through water and you feel so comfortable you feel like you're resting and sleeping in that early morning dozy state where you can feel asleep and yet feel awake at the same time and you feel so relaxed and then you start to feel the warmth of the sun on your face so you just listen to that water around you just the subtle slightest lapping of the water around you feeling the warmth of the sun on you the pushing sound of the water the oars gently pushing through water and then after a few moments you start to come round and you start to open your eyes and you realise you've been sleeping on the back of a giant turtle and you feel perfectly fine and calm and curious and you start looking around you and in every direction all you see is the smoothest most beautiful turquoisey blue water that leads to a turquoisey blue sky and the colour of the water and the colour of the sky are so similar you can't tell the difference between the water and the sky, You can't see where the horizon is you can't see where the water ends and where the sky begins and you look in front of you and you look all around you you look behind you and you can feel that turtle beneath you the smoothness of its shell as it continues to swim through the ocean and as it swims so it could almost be staying stationary because nothing around you changes you can't see anything you can't see anything you're heading toward or anything you're heading away from you can't see anything to the left or the right of you or anywhere else around you you're just surrounded by the most perfect blue and then after a while the turtle lowers its head and starts to dive beneath the surface of the water as you dive beneath the surface of the water on the turtle's back and you hold on as it dives and you notice straight away that you can breathe underwater just as easily as you can on the surface and that the turtle is breathing just as easily as it does on the surface and you can hear bubbles of air with each out breath coming from you coming from the turtle you can feel the water on you as you push through that water diving deeper and deeper and as you dive deeper so the bottom of the ocean begins to come into view and you can see fish just going about their everyday lives you can see the way that seaweed is swaying and moving under the surface of the water and you don't know where you're diving to all you know is you seem to be diving deeper and deeper and then after some time diving deeper and deeper the turtle levels off and starts to follow what looks almost like a path of pure white sand between two cliffs and it's a very wide path and after a while two mermaids appear either side as if to escort you somewhere and they're swimming along silently either side of the turtle as you swim on that turtle's back following this path unsure exactly where you're going just feeling curious about the experience and then after you turn a couple of corners so the sides give way to an open plain of white sand white sand that appears to have waves built into it that has ripples across that sand and off in the distance you see what looks like a crystal palace and you notice that the turtle is swimming towards that palace and the mermaids are escorting you towards this palace and all the fish go about their lives but move out your way as you're heading towards that palace and then after a while you find yourself entering into the palace entrance and you follow a long corridor being escorted by these mermaids and at the end of a long corridor is a huge door and two merpeople open the door stand aside as the mermaids and the turtle and yourself pass through into a huge chamber with a high ceiling chandeliers light glistening and reflecting everywhere merpeople standing down both sides and what looks like a king and queen on thrones and the turtle lands on the ground with his head the mermaids swim off and join the other people and you climb off the turtle's back you walk your way through the water finding it so easy and effortless to walk through the water finding it easier than you expected and you walk through the water and stand in front of the king and queen and they tell you that what you seek is deep in the valley at the end of a cave and only a two legs can find it and you don't know what this means but you're sure this must be something to do with what you're searching for they say to return after you've got what you seek so you go back to the turtle climb back onto the turtle's shell the turtle raises its head moves its fins pushing off the ground turning around swimming back out of the chamber down the corridor and out of the palace and the turtle swims around the outside of the palace and starts swimming along behind the palace away from the palace further and further until eventually there appears to be a cliff and the turtle dives straight down into that cliff going deeper and deeper under the surface of the ocean swimming down deeper and further and further and deeper as the water gets darker and darker and you notice as you're swimming down deeper and further how everything seems to get quieter how it's interesting that time seems to almost stand still underwater everything seems to be in slow motion you swim down deeper and deeper and after some time you find that you can barely see in front of you and then you notice that there's some ground approaching and then the turtle follows that ground and swims along and finds the entrance to a cave and you realise you can barely see now there's no way you're going to be able to see in the cave and you start to focus on the solution that you want that you want some light you want to be able to see inside the cave and you start focusing on that solution you focus on what it is you want and as you're focusing on what it is you want so you find that you can see little green lights starting to flicker all around you getting closer and brighter and brighter and closer you notice a shawl of fish starts to form around you and the turtle below you above you, To the left, To the right behind you of bioluminescent fish and they're swimming on the spot all around you coming up where you are almost turning the whole of you into a giant torch and then you think about going into the cave and the turtle starts into the cave and as the turtle does so the fish keep pace with you and swim in with you and you notice the green glow of the fish on the walls of the cave on the floor of the cave roof of the cave swimming into that cave and you swim deeper and deeper into that cave, Further and further, Unsure what you're going to discover swimming deeper and deeper further and further and then you start to notice something in front of you it looks like off in the distance is a wooden door and you arrive at that wooden door you get off of the turtle you knock on the door and hear that underwater knock you then knock in another location you try and find a way through the door you can't find any easy obvious way and then you see on the ground two marks that almost look like footprints and so you put one foot on one mark, One foot on another mark nothing happens and you bounce around a bit and still nothing happens and then you see a mark on the wall on one side and the other side and you reach out and you put your hands on those marks and you push in all four directions at the same time pushing down with both legs pushing on the wall with both hands and then you hear a clunk and notice how that wooden door slides aside and you enter through the wooden door and find yourself inside a large chamber and in the centre of that chamber you see a gem and you notice the way that light seems to be coming from somewhere almost like light is perhaps channelled from the surface channelled from the surface somehow through the cave into beams straight onto that gem and you see the way that gem is lit up by those beams of light and you walk over to that pedestal you pick the gem up off the pedestal and notice it's the most beautiful gem you've ever seen and you feel that in your fingers and in the palm of your hand you feel the weight of that you roll it around in your fingers gently and slowly and as you do so the pedestal starts lowering down into the ground you can hear the rumble of rock as the pedestal lowers and as you notice a little chamber at the back opening up as a rock door slides aside and so you walk to the back of the chamber and you find a scroll and you pick up that scroll and decide to take the scroll and the gem back with you and you head back and you get back on the turtle and you start to swim out of the cave with all those fish surrounding you swim out of the cave and when you get outside the cave the fish start following you up through the darkness and when you reach a point where the light allows you to start seeing more the fish disperse and swim away and the turtle continues swimming up and then around and heads round to the entrance to the palace and it swims its way into the palace swims back to the main room lands on the ground and you walk to the king and queen and you say you found the gem and they say you can keep the gem and you say you also found a scroll and they tell you it's a scroll that they've known the existence of but have never been able to get and yet it's a scroll that can maintain peace across the land and you hand over the scroll and they thank you for that and they know that the knowledge, The wisdom can be taught to the people of the land taught far and wide to bring peace and comfort and you walk back to the turtle climb back on the turtle and swim out of the palace swim back out across the huge open white flats of sand finding your way all the way back to the surface and then when you reach the surface you notice that nothing has changed you still can't see anything in any direction there's still just this beautiful blue the slightest movement of the water the sound, Almost like oars of the turtle swimming through that water and you rest on the back of that turtle as it swims through the water and while it swims through the water so you rest your cheek on the back of the turtle you can feel the back of that turtle against your cheek you can feel the warmth of the sun you feel comfort and relaxation you feel yourself beginning to drift comfortably asleep and as you drift comfortably asleep so you can hear in the background the slight sound of the water the sound of the turtle swimming feel the warmth of the sun feel your gentle breathing and gradually the sounds begin to fade away gradually it all begins to fade away and you find yourself beginning to hear sea birds beginning to hear louder sea against the shore and the cliff beginning to hear birds, Other sounds in the forest feeling a breeze on your skin and you find yourself back in that tent back in that makeshift tent gazing out off that cliff over the ocean, Seeing the blue sky seeing the sun rising aware that the storm has long passed feeling the breeze on your face and you surprise yourself by finding that the gem is in your hand and that somehow that experience on the turtle even though you feel like you fell asleep and it was a dream was somehow real but then you're unsure about how real because you're already inside a painting you fell asleep in a painting and ended up in the sea on a turtle you don't question it, Something feels comfortable about it and so you take that gem you leave your camp and you head off into the forest starting to make your way back to where you came from and you walk through the forest, Unsure exactly where you're going to go or how you're supposed to get back out of the painting and you walk through the forest just trusting yourself walking through that forest, Hearing the sounds in the forest the relaxing sounds in the forest, The sounds of each footstep the feeling of breeze the sounds of rustling leaves as the wind blows in the trees finding your way through the forest then after a while you find your way out the other side of the forest and you see a tree that seems fuzzy and you walk over to that odd fuzzy tree you go to touch the bark of that fuzzy tree and find your hand starts going into the tree and so you put your hand in, Your arm in and eventually you take a step through that tree and you find yourself back in the museum and you show the living statue the gem and the statue says that's the gem that was needed the gem that will help them all to finally sleep and rest that will help everything go back to the way it should be and the statue explains why that gem is so important and walks you round to a specific statue and in the head of that statue is a gap where this gem should be and you place that gem in the gap in that statue and as you do so the other statue starts walking away the other statue starts walking away back to where it's supposed to be stood and before it's reached where it's supposed to be stood it grinds to a halt and stops in a standing position and everything goes silent and you walk back to that painting and you touch the painting and it's just a normal painting of a volcanic island and you're unsure what to make of your experience as your shift comes to an end you go home in the morning and pondering your experience and the meaning of your experience you go to bed and as you go to bed so you fall asleep and as you fall asleep so you drift and dream you hear tribal drums and you find yourself on that volcanic island sitting in your makeshift tent gazing out over the ocean aware that when you fall asleep here in this tent you'll find yourself awakening on the back of that turtle awaiting whatever adventures happen next