Bedtime stories to help adults get through anxious times

Curious Sleep Stories for Grown-ups contains ten therapeutic sleep stories, available from streaming and downloads services.

Unlike bedtime stories from other creators, each of Dan’s sleep stories has been created with viewers of his Dan Jones – Healing Sleep Meditation Sleep Stories YouTube channel where he holds live sessions every week creating sleep stories with his viewers, for his viewers. The album is more than ten hours long and comes at a time when an increasing number of people are struggling with stress, anxiety and worry, especially with the ongoing Covid situation and an increase in uncertainty about work and what the future looks like.

Dan said: “Every week I go online live on my YouTube channel to engage with viewers. I read and engage with comments viewers post in the live chat about struggles they are having with the uncertainties they are facing and the challenges of loneliness, handling isolation and concern about things like job security.

“The viewers then share ideas in the live chat for elements they would like me to create a sleep meditation bedtime story out of so that I can create them a story they would like to listen to that can help give them something positive to focus on and to help them sleep while reducing stress, anxiety and worry.”

Dan takes the ideas that have been suggested and live on air during the livestream he turns those story element suggestions into a 45-90-minute long sleep meditation bedtime story like the bedtime stories on his latest album which includes: Connecting the Realms, Encounter with the Deep Sleep Guide, Secret in the Pyramid and Sleeping in the Blanket Fort.

Dan explains: “Viewers suggest words like whirlpool, oasis, parallel universe, sheep, tree, swing. I then take these words, think about what therapeutic metaphors relating to stress, anxiety and worry I could build out of them and how I could turn them into a story and, without any further preparation, I create a therapeutic sleep meditation bedtime story live in front of the viewers.

“So with these words, perhaps I create a story about someone swinging gently on a tree swing in the back garden of a farm while counting sheep and because they are counting sheep they get tired and drift into a day-dream and in that day-dream they discover themselves standing by a pond. Noticing a whirlpool in the pond, they get sucked into the pond and discover that it was a wormhole to a parallel universe where they find themselves in a desert. They see an oasis off in the distance in this desert and head to that oasis... and the story would continue.”

Dan offers 160 sleep stories for grown-ups across 13 albums on streaming services including Spotify, Amazon Music, SoundCloud and Apple Music. The 15-90 minute sleep stories span a wide range of topics from fantasy, fairy-tale and science-fiction stories to stories of love, travelling and adventure. There are even stories from the perspectives of cats, dogs and other animals and stories with and without background music and sound effects.