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Sound Machines for Sleep
The human brain is an amazing thing. It is able to innately comprehend patterns and rhythms it sees and hears in nature. It also has one special feature. The human brain will also try to apply pattern and meaning to things it does not understand at all. This is one of the prevailing thoughts behind the popularity of astrology. Over the centuries people have been connecting the dots of the stars in the night sky into the shape of a bear, big dipper or what-nots. Humans have taken these dot patterns and created a whole dot-science complete with predictions of the future written in parables to insure multiple vague interpretations and occasional accuracy. Further, the human brain also enjoys seeing famous figures in the discoloration of a potato chip. People who have a proclivity toward gambling might think they sense a pattern in the cards or on the video poker machine. This is all because the big human brain seeks order in a chaotic world.
The Problem with Nature Sound Machines
Sleep sound machines, those clever little alarm clocks or big black boxes one can purchase online for varying amounts of money, are a nifty idea with one big drawback. The human mind, with it's innate ability for pattern recognition, quickly picks up on the looped sounds. Over the years I have purchased 1 or 2 of these devices myself. They are good... for a night or two. Then I would get bored and switch the sound to crickets. Again good for a night or two. I finally understood that my brain wasn't buying into the looped sounds. Looped sounds have a dripping faucet effect on me and, after awhile, you find yourself thinking 'here comes that same thunder sound again'. The sounds lose their 'specialness' as we become aware that we are hearing the same 60 to 120 second audio clip over and over again.
We strive to create unique relaxation and sleep sounds here that , if nothing else, emulate an actual audio environment. We do not loop our sounds. It is not unusual for one of our recordings to have well over 100 individual audio clips contained within. One of the more recent, Amazon Nights, has over 150 audio components in a 45 minute recording.
I have played with the idea of creating a sleep sound machine where the sounds are not digitally recorded but constructed individually. In other words, the numerous components of a thunder sound (tone, rate, length, rumble, volume, direction) are randomized and the audio output is a unique sound each and every time. Maybe The Virtual Sound Company will come up with a sleep sound machine in the future... but it will be unlike anything that has ever existed because looped sounds just don't do it for me.
It could happen! (although it is probably not in the stars)
Brad McBride
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