I’m Never Using a Guided Sleep Meditation Again

I’m never using a guided sleep meditation again.

I have trouble getting to sleep. Maybe you do too. For me, it’s racing thoughts. I keep thinking about the book I’m reading, or the film I just saw, or the game I was playing. I analyse and overanalyse, approaching imaginary problems from every angle. I suppose I’m obsessive.

It’s a problem.

My sister suggested a sleep meditation playlist. I thought it was worth giving a go.

There’s a strange, wired kind of energy to insomnia. Every muscle seems wound up, like its being tightened with a clinch. There’s a buzz to your sight – if that makes sense – a vaguely nauseous, not-quite-painful feeling that starts in your gut and pushes out through your eyes. You’re irritable. Your attention span shuts down at random, drifting away from someone mid-sentence. You’re too tired to sleep, but you’re way too exhausted to do anything else. When you come home from work, you just sit on your couch and throw on the TV as your eyes glaze over. You stop being a tired human being, and become some kind of zombie, neither living nor dead.

Most of the sleep playlist was useless. Maybe it works for other people, but it didn’t for me. It didn’t help to listen to white sound, or to the ocean, or some light, trilling piano. It was too easy to drown it out with my own thoughts. All those peaceful sounds would dissolve into the back of my perception, whilst my brain chugged back into churning gear.

But I persevered. I kept trying.

That’s how I came across guided sleep meditation.

I won’t name the actual playlist or podcast, because – despite everything – I’m still afraid of being sued for libel or something. Or maybe I’m afraid of something worse. But it wasn’t just trickling water or soft violins. It was someone talking at me. It had an androgynous voice, that kind of public radio voice that talks a little too quietly, a little too close to the mic, a little too dehydrated. It probably sounds annoying to you, but it adds up to something calming, punctuated by those tiny smacks of thirsty lips.

The voice spoke directly to me, like they were an actual hypnotist in my bedroom. They told me to imagine standing at the top of a stairway. At the bottom of the stairway was something wonderful. A place of contentment and peace. All I had to do was imagine going down the stairway, step by step. I had to imagine the feel of the banister on my palm, conjure up the pastel baby-blue of the wallpaper, pretend to scrunch my toes into the shag carpet. After each step, the voice told me to imagine another detail. What did it smell like? What was the temperature? What did it look like? What did it feel like?

I never got to the bottom of the stairs. I was already asleep. Every time.

At first, I thought it was fantastic. The voice commanded just enough of my attention: I couldn’t phase it out with racing thoughts. Its hypnotic interactivity encased me in a sleepy bubble. I was sleeping again, getting a good four to six hours, and then eight, sometimes longer on the weekends. My skin changed from sickly, pale yellow to something fuller and healthy. I put on a bit of weight. I was more productive and sociable at work.

The trouble was, I was having these crazy dreams.

I kept dreaming of descending a stairway. With each step, I fell deeper and deeper into the power of what waited at the bottom. The stairway wasn’t very long – just the kind of stairs you’d find in a house – but it ended in a wall. I never saw what was in the basement. Orange light flickered from around the corner, and sometimes I’d get the impression of some huge, writhing shadow cast on the wall beside the bottom stair. I’d hear that voice whispering things: dies irae, dies illa // solvet saedum in favilla …

There was more. I could write it out verbatim. I heard those words (and the rest) so many times in my dreams. It wouldn’t even be a struggle to remember them. But I’m not going to do that.

I’m afraid something bad will happen if I do.

I don’t think I was fully aware of the dream at first, though I’m certain it was always the same dream. I remember that my skin felt warmer with each step, but I’d wake up shivering and cold. It smelled stale and sweet, like if incense could rot, and night by night, the dream would get clearer and clearer, feel more and more real.

That’s when I started noticing.

It took me a weirdly long time to notice. My waking days were taking on a strange, dreamlike quality. I would arrive at work without really remembering how I got there. I would blink and my spreadsheets would be done – I’d remember doing them, and have a sense of time passing, but not the sensation of actually doing the work at the time. Dreams and reality were reversing.

The meditation was stealing something from me.

I don’t know how or why I finally snapped out of it. I think it’s because of my obsessive tendencies. I’ve watched enough horror films to recognise creepy Latin, so I put the words through an online translator.

I won’t tell you what it said.

I remember the feeling of ice being thrown down my spine when I read those words.

I might have chalked it up to my own craziness. I’ve never been psychotic or anything, but I’ve always struggled with sleep. But it felt real.

It’s ironic: I was too paranoid to accept I was just mad.

The next morning, I called in sick. I made myself a whole pot of coffee and forced myself to drink it. The caffeine headache felt a lot like those insomniac days, but I was afraid that the podcast might put me to sleep against my will. I went for a walk – it was winter, so it was wet and freezing – and listened to the guided meditation on my phone with a set alarm.

I wasn’t taking any chances.

Never use a guided sleep meditation.

It starts off normal. That’s the bit that you remember. That’s the bit that you fall asleep to. Then it gets really weird. The voice becomes scratchier, and it stops smacking its lips. Its breath becomes like a rattle. It stops asking questions and starts giving you answers. You smell putrefaction. You feel warmer and drier. You see The Shadow on the Wall. Dies irae, dies illa // solvet saedum in favilla …

I don’t know if it’s just someone screwing with insomniacs. I want to believe it’s just a troll. But, either way, it’s dangerous. I’m never using a guided sleep mediation again.

And if you’ve been using one, stay the hell away from me.