Alone, Awake, Connected - Night Words To Comfort You

If you're not in the mood to follow a story, try listening to my night-time ramblings, which I hope will comfort and distract your busy mind and nudge you gently in the direction of sleep. Please let me know how you get on.

Transcript

Hello there,

It's Mandy here.

Thanks so much for joining me tonight.

Sometimes,

If the story is really interesting,

It's quite difficult to fall asleep to,

Because you want to find out what happened.

So,

I thought it might be an idea tonight just to talk to you about any old thing,

To ramble on purely for the sake of it,

So you don't have to follow a storyline,

But you can just drift off to sleep,

Listening to the sound of my voice.

I hope it might make you remember being a child.

Perhaps there were times when you lay in bed,

Upstairs,

With the covers pulled up to your chin,

Listening to the sound of grown-ups talking and laughing downstairs.

You were comforted by that sound,

Because on that particular occasion,

You hadn't come up with a million ruses to gain permission to stay up past your bedtime.

No,

You'd had a full day and you were feeling sleepy,

So you were glad you didn't have to stay on downstairs,

Making a huge effort to sit ever so quietly and still,

So that the grown-ups would forget you were there.

It's nice just to lie in bed,

Not being,

And not trying not to be,

The object of anyone's attention.

It's nice to lie here,

Being nothing more than a bystander,

Knowing that life is going on downstairs,

While you let your attention drift.

Of course,

Not all of us had that experience.

Some of us had to listen to people arguing downstairs,

Or maybe the sound of the TV turned up too loud,

Or perhaps there was no one there at all,

Or someone who you wished wasn't there.

But even if you didn't have that experience as a child,

It isn't too late,

You can have it now.

Because life really is going on downstairs now,

Especially if you think of downstairs as being nearly 8,

000 miles down,

Which happens to be the diameter of the earth.

Most of the people who live on the other side of the world to you are awake right now.

They're eating their breakfasts,

Going to work,

Going to school,

Taking their children to school,

Driving buses,

Performing brain surgery,

Doing the shopping,

Feeding the rabbits,

Training to be pilots,

Or astronauts,

Or lawyers,

Or actors.

They're singing,

Cleaning other people's offices or houses,

Taking their dog for a walk,

Meditating,

Doing tai chi,

Delivering the post,

And so on,

And so on.

And people who aren't on the exact other side of the world,

But a little bit further round,

Are at the other end of their day,

Cooking the dinner,

Watching the TV,

Telling the kids to do their homework,

Praying,

Playing badminton,

Writing in their journal,

Or going out to listen to music and have a few beers.

Doesn't it make you feel exhausted just thinking about it?

But the thing is,

All those people,

Up and about and active,

Are keeping the world spinning on its axis,

While you lie here in the dark,

With nothing at the moment that you need to do.

You've worked hard all day,

And it's your turn to rest now.

Let all those other people take care of things for the time being.

Soon enough,

You and I will be up and traveling to our job,

Or school,

Or college,

Or we might be working from home,

Or not exactly working,

But still finding ourselves very busy with all sorts of things,

Because there is always so much to do.

I don't know where it comes from.

When I was small,

We lived on a busy main road,

And my grandmother used to encourage me to listen for the big trucks that passed in the night.

Think of the lorry drivers,

She used to say,

And how they'll be up all night,

Driving from one brightly lit motorway to another,

One dual carriageway to another well-lit A road,

One dark B road to another road that doesn't even have a grade.

They'll sit there at their big steering wheel,

Their furry dice dangling from their rearview mirror,

And their cheese and pickle sandwiches wrapped up in greaseproof paper next to them on the passenger seat,

Along with a nice slice of lardy cake that their wife baked for them.

My grandmother was born in the 19th century,

By the way.

There weren't any women lorry drivers then,

And even if there had been,

It's unlikely that their husbands would have made them lardy cake.

But I digress.

At some point,

In some distant lay-by,

She would say,

They'll pull over and tuck into those sandwiches,

And sink their teeth into those delicious layers of sweet lardy cake,

And pour themselves a cup of tea from their thermos flask,

And listen to the BBC World Service on the radio.

Doesn't that make you feel lucky to be tucked up in your own warm bed?

And it did.

The lardy cake,

Also called dripping cake,

By the way,

Was tempting,

Of course.

Have you ever had any?

It's extremely delicious,

Though it has more calories than any food ever invented.

But lardy cake aside,

It made me feel very sleepy,

To think of all those lorry drivers having to drive on and on through the night,

Having to keep the great big wheels of their great big trucks turning,

Eating up the miles.

And here I am,

Later in life,

In a bedroom that's next to an A Road again.

We've got double glazed windows,

But it doesn't keep the sound out very well.

I don't really mind though.

I must admit,

I find the sound of those odd cars that pass in the night quite comforting,

And I like to follow the sound they make,

The sound of the tyres humming over the road.

Sometimes I pretend to myself that I don't know what kind of sound it is,

And I listen as it changes and lengthens with distance,

And eventually fades away altogether.

So that's where I am,

A stone's throw from the A65 in the north of England,

UK.

It makes me wonder where you are while you're listening to this.

Are you somewhere rural in the deep countryside,

Or by the sea,

Or even the desert,

With not so many other houses or people around?

Or are you in the middle of a big city,

In a flat,

Or a hotel even,

With hundreds of people quite near you,

Separated from you only by partition walls?

Perhaps you're on a journey in a ship's cabin in the middle of an ocean somewhere,

Or on a train ride with your headphones in,

Snatching a few minutes of calm before you arrive at your destination.

And how about aeroplanes?

We haven't even mentioned those.

Perhaps you're lying back in your seat with one of those eye masks on,

Trying to relax on your long flight.

Of course,

While there are lots of people in the world who are wide awake right now,

There are others who are sound asleep.

Perhaps some of them are in your house with you.

One might be even snoring next to you in bed,

Irritating you,

Keeping you awake and flaunting the fact that they are safe in dreamland when you are wide awake.

Even when you kick them,

Only very gently of course,

Because you would never dream of actually trying to wake them.

No,

You'd merely like to encourage them to turn over and stop snoring.

But they sleep on,

Oblivious.

But thinking of the wider world again,

There are also a bunch of other people,

Thousands,

Probably millions,

Who are lying awake,

Trying to get to sleep just as you are.

Their eyes flick open,

They switch on the bedroom light,

They get up to make a cup of tea and take two paracetamol or an antihistamine tablet,

Because sometimes that helps.

They might even pick up that novel or that non-fiction book from their bedside table or from the floor beside their bed and read a chapter or two of that to distract themselves from all the annoying thoughts that have come into their head about someone at school or at work who seems to have got it in for them,

Or on the other hand is a complete nana,

Or some project they're supposed to be handing in,

Or some other project they're supposed to be managing,

Which seems like a total nightmare when they contemplate it right now from the utter powerlessness of their bed,

In the utter powerlessness of feeling really tired,

And even a bit ill with tiredness in the middle of the night.

These thoughts go on and on,

Insisting on themselves,

Full of self-importance.

You really need to listen to me now,

They say.

All the sleepless,

Tossing and turning people know in their heart of hearts that the thoughts are masquerading,

Pretending to be A-list thoughts,

And that in the light of day they will dwindle and shrink to the size of mice,

But that doesn't make it any easier to switch them off in the middle of the night.

I don't know about you,

But I think it can feel quite bleak waking up and trying a little unsuccessfully to get back to sleep.

Something about how tired I feel,

And the way I can't see any colours in the room,

As if the world has turned monochrome,

Can make me feel as if I'm the only person awake in the entire wide world.

It can feel quite lonely,

Even if you know you have family or friends or partners in other rooms or in the same room.

I think it's something to do with the fact that they're asleep and you aren't.

They've gone off somewhere,

Into the private recesses of their dream world,

Where you can't possibly join them,

And they've left you washed up here like a piece of driftwood on a beach of sleeplessness.

And why is it that we sometimes feel obliged to toss and turn?

Our pillow feels too hot,

No matter how many times we turn it over.

We're too hot inside our duvet,

So we throw it off,

Only to feel absolutely chilled to the marrow a few minutes later.

We try leaving one leg out,

Like a kind of thermostat,

But our toes get cold,

So we draw the leg back in,

And a moment or two later we're boiling again.

And anyway,

Why do we suddenly find ourselves with a spare arm or a spare hand?

Where are all the arms,

Hands and fingers meant to go when we're asleep?

That arm curled under the pillow suddenly feels awkwardly crushed.

We worry that we're going to cut off our circulation.

Our arms ache if we lie on them,

And feel awkward when we fling them sideways.

We toss and turn,

As if we're lying on a bed of nails,

And not a thick memory foam mattress with a special covering,

Called a pillow top,

That we spent weeks selecting at the bed company,

And which cost us a fortune.

Oh,

Is that just me?

But maybe there's some comfort in knowing that you're not the only person lying awake in the wee small hours.

At any given time,

There are probably thousands,

Millions of us,

As I said before,

All trying to get to sleep at the same time.

Perhaps that's what causes the problem.

The sleep fairy and her team have to fly all over the world,

Shaking sleep dust into a million pairs of eyes at once,

Which wouldn't be so bad,

Except that we're all so impatient.

I want to go to sleep now,

We all cry,

Not in an hour's time,

Now.

It might help us though,

To think about all those other people who,

Right now,

Are trying desperately hard to stay asleep,

Even though their alarm clock is telling them,

Rather rudely and cruelly,

That it's time to get up.

It's time to get up,

Clean their teeth,

Get in the shower and go to work.

Their heart sinks at the sound of that impossibly loud bleeping.

Surely it can't be time already.

It was such a nice dream they were having.

That gorgeous actor,

Or sportsperson,

Or music legend they love,

Was about to kiss them,

Or else they were at a party,

Where they were the life and soul,

And everyone was hanging on to their every word.

And had one of them just received a phone call from the Swedish Academy,

Saying they were going to be awarded the Nobel Prize,

The panel had realized the value of all the work they'd been doing for their whole lives.

So they'd like to get back to that happy world,

Please,

And not have to get out of their warm bed and commute to work,

Or sit in front of their computer screen,

Attending difficult and boring meetings on Zoom.

Their hand shoots out from under the bed clothes,

And gropes for the snooze button for the third time.

But it's too late.

That horrible clock,

Or the alarm on their phone,

Has already done its work.

Even if they've set the alarm to a nice sound,

Like birdsong,

They feel resentful.

They are just that little bit too much awake,

And will have to get up now.

Oh,

How they wish they could stay in bed under their rumpled duvet,

And snatch just another 10 minutes rest.

So don't you feel lucky that you're not one of those people?

Not at this particular moment in time,

Anyway.

We all swap places continually,

Of course,

But let's try and make the most of the place we're in right now.

Let's try and enjoy it,

The softness of the pillow,

The light touch of the sheets,

Or the cozy,

Comforting weight of the duvet,

Or eiderdown.

Let's try and enjoy it,

Because all too soon we'll be one of those people who's being woken up by the alarm,

Summoned from our soft,

Cozy bed,

Into the unkind,

Exciting,

Difficult,

Exhausting,

Wonderful world.

It is absolutely amazing just how cozy,

Calm,

And comfortable our bed can feel,

When we know we have to get up soon.

Just as it felt the total opposite,

Uncomfortable,

Hard,

Hot,

And unyielding,

When we were lying awake just a few hours ago.

But the bed is the same bed as it was,

Of course.

It's us who have changed.

We've relaxed.

We've slept.

We are still half asleep,

In fact.

Talking of beds and bedclothes,

I wonder what kind of bedclothes you're lying under at the moment,

Because that's another mind-boggling thing to think about.

The fact that people on the other side of the world,

Or even just quarter of the way around the world,

Are experiencing a very different temperature from the one you're experiencing now.

It might be deep snow outside their homes,

The sort that transforms landscapes into soft,

White,

Glittery undulations and hummocks,

And makes everything sound muffled.

Or it might be that time of year when the snow begins to melt,

Plummeting and plopping down from the tops of the pine trees,

And rustling down through the branches,

Creating great,

Spreading,

Icy,

Splashy pools of slush by the sides of every road.

Or it might be pouring down with rain,

Where they,

Or you,

Are a steady,

Relentless patter on big leaves and on the roofs of houses,

Running down,

Making big puddles on which the raindrops dance in the dark.

Perhaps you,

Or they,

Are camping in a tent at the moment.

That's a lovely sound,

Sound of rain pattering onto canvas,

As long as it doesn't start finding its way in and seeping into your sleeping bag,

That is.

I'm probably a bit older than you.

I remember the days in the UK of brownie and guide camps,

Though I'm sure they exist in other parts of the world too,

Or something similar.

Great troops of girls in uniform,

Going off in a lorry,

Singing campfire songs and carrying an army-style kit bag,

With all our clothes,

Toothbrushes,

Torches and towels in.

We slept ten to a tent,

And the tents had a ridgepole and loose flaps.

Basically they were like a piece of canvas draped over a pole,

Then pegged down round the edges.

They were kind of open at the sides,

And if your sleeping bag was on an edge,

And if the tent had been pitched on a little bit of a slope,

You could oh so easily roll out of the tent in the middle of the night,

And even if it didn't rain,

You would wake up at dawn,

Wet and shivering,

Because the morning dew would have covered you in its chill,

Misty blanket.

But perhaps it's a close night where you are.

Perhaps you've had to throw all your bed clothes off,

And left them in a tangled heap on the floor.

Perhaps it's so hot that you need to go into the bathroom or kitchen to plunge your wrists into cold water,

Or lie on the terracotta floor tiles to cool down.

I remember a night like that in a hotel in Spain in summer,

Where the air conditioning had broken down.

The proprietor offered to arrange a different hotel for me,

But for some mad reason I decided to stay.

It was so terrifically hot that night I couldn't sleep a wink.

It felt as if the bed was being heated from underneath.

But the bedroom had a marble floor,

And in the end I put my sheet down on the floor and tried to sleep there.

Not that that really worked.

I don't know if you've ever tried to sleep on a marble floor.

What I can tell you is that it's extremely hard.

A carpet or even wooden floorboards are like feather beds in comparison.

Having said that,

Some of the best sleepers I've ever seen were elderly men in China.

This is going back about 40 years,

And if anyone who lives in China is listening to this,

I would love to know if it's the same nowadays.

But back in the 1980s in Beijing,

You would often see Chinese men napping at bus stops and train stations.

They would just lie down on the pavement while waiting for their bus to arrive,

And they would be instantly off to the land of nod,

Just like that.

They didn't worry about being in the way,

And anyway people would simply step over them.

I envied them a great deal.

And there's another group think of who have also learnt to sleep in very difficult circumstances.

Circumstances that would turn most of us into insomniacs.

It's a small elite group,

And if you wanted to join that group,

You would have to do many years of training and be exceptionally fit physically,

Mentally and emotionally.

I'm talking about the people in space.

At this particular moment in time,

There are 10 people living and working up there,

Over 200 miles above the surface of the earth.

They are staffing the three space stations.

You might know this already,

But sleeping in space is much more difficult than here on earth.

The zero gravity means that you don't have to adopt a different position in order to go to sleep,

So there's no sense of sinking down into a comfortable bed.

It's quite noisy on board with various hums and fan sounds,

And although you can adjust the lighting to simulate night,

There's no natural sense of day or night.

If you look out of the window,

It's always night.

And sometimes,

Apparently,

It's a bit difficult to know what to do with your arms.

You don't want them just floating in front of you.

You might have to tuck them into your sleeping bag.

At least those of us on earth tonight don't have to encounter those particular difficulties.

Talking about perpetual darkness,

There are also those countries in the northern hemisphere of our planet,

Where it's dark for six months of the year,

And then light for six months.

In the Arctic,

It can be difficult to get to sleep when it's always light outside.

Like an astronaut,

You have to create your own sense of night and day.

Perhaps you could use blackout curtains or eye masks.

Perhaps you could take melatonin before you go to bed.

You might think that the six months worth of darkness that follows the six months of light would mean that people who live and work in the Arctic countries would sleep well in their winter.

They might be able to make up for all the sleep they lost in the summer.

But strangely,

That isn't necessarily the case.

Apparently,

It's difficult to sleep when it's dark all the time too.

All this difficulty.

You'd think sleep would be very simple,

Wouldn't you?

And it's a weird and wonderful thing about human beings that,

From those of us who are most famous to those who are completely unknown,

We all need sleep.

Peoples whose lives are almost unrecognizable to us need sleep too.

People who have committed unimaginable crimes.

People who spend their days caring for others.

Writers,

Architects,

People living in poverty,

People of wealth,

Kings,

Presidents,

Homeless people,

Office workers,

Rock stars,

Influencers,

People with no children,

People with no parents,

Elderly people,

Soldiers,

Lawyers.

It's the same for all of us.

We all need sleep.

I wonder if we've talked enough now,

Or rather if I've talked enough.

It's strange talking to you like this without being able to gauge your response.

I must say you've been exceptionally patient and a most wonderful listener.

I do hope you're starting to drop off,

Having found it impossible to concentrate on my unstructured ramblings.

In fact,

I hope you're fast asleep.

This isn't something I normally want people to do when I talk to them,

But these are special circumstances.

But just in case you're still awake,

There is one more group to whom I'd like to draw your attention,

And that's people from medieval times.

I'd like to mention these historical people because in those long ago days,

People from both high and low places in society found it totally normal to have two phases of sleep every night.

They would go to bed at say 10 o'clock and sleep for a couple of hours.

Then they would get up for a couple of hours.

They would use this awake time,

Which was known as the watch,

To carry out all their normal household tasks.

They might check on their farm animals or do some mending,

Some weaving.

They might pray.

They might simply sit in bed talking.

When they finally went back to sleep,

Their second sleep would be the longer sleep of the night.

Then when they woke up from the second sleep,

Say at dawn,

They would get up and go about their normal day.

So you see,

It isn't all that unusual to wake up in the middle of the night.

In fact,

It's sanctioned by our ancestors.

Anyway,

I hope you've enjoyed all these different people who,

Just like you and me,

Are sometimes awake and sometimes asleep.

I'd like to reassure you,

No one has ever died from lack of sleep and that's because a mechanism in our brain ensures that we don't.

It's a fail-safe mechanism that causes micro-sleeps that last for a period of 1 to 30 seconds.

These happen much more often than people realise and show that even if we can't give our brains what they need,

Our brains will take it anyway.

I don't know about you,

But I find that thought quite reassuring.

And even if you're not sleeping right now,

You're resting and that's a very good thing.

On that note,

It's time to take my leave.

So night night,

Dear one.

Sleep tight.

Reviews

🙏Thank you for this!🙏 It helped distract me, felt comforting and even gave me a few chuckles!😊
I would love it so much if you could do many more of these wonderful chats!!!
Much love and many blessings to you!✨❤️✨

I love your ramblings. They’re so wonderful. They always managed to make me smile with your cute phrases so thank you so much.✨🙏🏼💜✨

you really stped me from stressing about things in an endles circle like i usually do.thank you

Thank you Mandy . I enjoyed listening to your ramblings and two or three bits really made me smile ( snoring section was one!)

Omg!! Thank you! I loved the stories, it’s 12:30am here in NY and listening to you just made me feel so normal and loved, sending many many many hugs to you!
PS: I’m gonna confess that I got excited to hear more stories going to your page now, hope you have more! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Oh my! This was so perfect for me in the wee hours this morning. I have listened to all of The Enchanted April and The Phoenix and the Carpet. Have had a few weighty matters to challenge me lately. Your kind intelligent voice in the darkness made me feel ...well,.like a cared for little girl who doesn't feel so alone and I thank you for that.
Things are crazy here in the US right now and folks can't seem to take their eye off the spectacle long enough to get peaceful. Outrage all the time and shocking themselves over and over with it. For some reason I have the long view of this situation and although concerned and willing to be active if need be, I am seeing that so much of the hub bub is self inflicted. At least, that's how I do it...telling myself "this shouldn't be like this " and "if only they would change or this would change then I would be happy". I'm unlearning these stories over time.
Namaste and thank you.

Thank you for your talented approach to the subject matter, quite interesting yet soothing. I fell asleep during the nighttime truck drivers ramble😴will listen for more Mandy!

I’m in Florida with my cats on either side of me while I listen and I found your musings very pleasant to listen to. I agree completely about the strange way the bed seems to change in comfort over the course of the night.

This meditation seemed rather strange at first but it did finally put my mind to rest! It was wonderful to remember my parents enjoying one another after getting 5 children to bed. Thank you!

I loved this. Smiled and laughed and thoroughly relaxed and distracted me from my stresses. Not what I expected and I can’t wait to replay it. Thank you.

I drifted right off. More like this one please; I love being read to. Thanks Mandy 🙏🏻

Wonderful! I was actually quite captivated by the talk of cake…lol! But, don’t remember the end as I fell asleep.
Please do more of these ramblings.

This has become our "go to" meditation pretty much every night. I never even get to hear about the lorry drivers and the cake before I am gone into dream land. How do I know this? Well today when I awoke I listened to the whole meditation. Mandy is warm , funny and weaves a soothing "rambling" which I love. Thank you Mandy- I am hooked on this.

I didn’t fall back asleep but I loved listening to your rambling! Many thanks Mandy 🙏❤️💫

Fabulous
You are so talented
I was enchanted
Thank you

I have been listening to Mandy since months now and I feel so at ease and comforted by her stories that I look forward to hearing her each night before I go to bed. Thank you Mandy, sending you big hugs from India!

Mandy thank you so much for these delightful ramblings. I could relate to so many of them. You have such a wonderful way of engaging the listener fully. I really feel like I am getting to know you as a friend! Definitely more of these tales please xx 😊

“…one leg stuck out like a thermostat…” 😅 So true!

Mandy, this piece is brilliant! I did fall asleep but listened again later. I so enjoyed hearing your thoughts and memories, some of which brought back a few of my own. Thank you from the mountains on the east coast of the U.S. at 11:00pm!
ETA, as Jo said, this and the Diaries are my absolute favs. ❤️

That was so much fun! I loved all the places your creative mind took us, especially the lists of things people were doing around the world.

5 star all the way!!! I live in the United States in Pennsylvania (eastern) near New Jersey. 1 hour north of Philadelphia. I live with my 2 cats .