In this post: A rambling history of The Sleep Pod.
Okay, so these posts are probably going to mostly be in keeping with the formatting of the podcast; in as much as they are going to be rambling, unplanned, and probably slightly chaotic stream-of-consciousness blog posts that will hopefully remain on topic.
I should do these as audio too. They could be more content!
I've always gone through phases where I couldn't sleep without some kind of background noise on. Sometimes I can manage to wean myself off that particular crutch, but sooner or later I have always ended up reaching for the headphones after staring at the inside of my eyelids for a few hours.
TV provides an inconsistent solution, especially late at night when the volume levels of adverts seem unpredictable at best. I'm a big fan of audiobooks and can sleep whilst listening to them, however I usually wake up in a panic about 30 minutes after dozing off, and scramble to my phone to find the last point that I remember. Losing your place in an audiobook is a million times more annoying than with standard books.
Around this time last year I was, yet again, having trouble getting to sleep. I'd grown bored of falling to sleep to QI on iPlayer, and needed something new.
Podcasts!
I was sure I'd noticed a few podcasts over the years that catered for people who were having trouble sleeping, so I downloaded a handful of episodes of the recommended shows and... had mixed results.
Now obviously these shows work for a lot of people, but they just weren't working for me. Either the host's voice wasn't my particular cup of tea, the subject matter wasn't engaging enough to keep my mind from wandering, or the subject matter was too engaging and I didn't want to fall asleep because I found it interesting.
I gave up, and went back to streaming old episodes of TV shows.
Around this time last year I had just finished writing a pilot script for a radio drama, I had upgraded my equipment at home for my work as a voice-over artist, and I had a conversation with a friend about recording parody self-hypnosis tapes.
It didn't take me too long to merge these factors in my mind and start considering starting a podcast of my own.
It made sense! I could do a slightly daft hypnotist-style voice, I had the equipment, I had experience writing fiction, and I could see that there was a gap in the market for something mildly amusing, calming, and light-hearted. The Sleep Pod was born!
So... yeah. That's it. And now it is a thing. And now I'm here, writing this. I don't know who these posts are actually for, and if I'm being totally honest, it was either write this or start today's housework. But i've done this now. So I better go and get started. Thanks for reading!