Bedtime stories for grown-ups

Sleep stories for adults, read slowly.

A free 90-second listen from History of Rome — no sign-in. The full 91 minutes, and 127 more stories, are in the free trial.

Long, narrated bedtime stories for adults — sleep fiction, slower sessions and factual Universe listens, written for grown-ups and read at the pace of the part of the day that needs less speed. No ads, no gimmicks. Relaxing stories to fall asleep to — slow, quiet sleep relaxation audio for anyone who wants help getting to sleep, on the web and in the app.

Latest sleep story

History of Rome

Somewhere in the middle of Italy, a river bends slowly through low hills — and a city begins. A calm, true walk through Rome's long life, told slowly enough to carry a busy mind gently under.

91 minHistoryNarrated by Thomas

Listen tonight

Guided programme

Sleep Journeys

A fourteen-night guided wind-down. A soft voice walks you slowly down into sleep, in a new and quiet place each night.

14 nights Start the programme

Night 1 The Slow Descent A slow, steady step-down from the day into the first night's stillness.

Night 2 The Lantern Path Follow a soft lantern light along a quiet path as the day loosens its hold.

Night 3 The Quiet Harbour Moored boats, still water, and the slow rhythm of a harbour at rest.

Night 4 The Snow Cabin A warm cabin, soft snow at the window, and nowhere else you need to be.

Night 5 The Meadow at Dusk Long grass, fading light, and the hush of a meadow settling for the night.

Night 6 The Warm Spring Warm water, rising steam, and the weight of the day easing away.

Night 7 The Night Garden A moonlit garden, cool air, and the quiet unfolding of the evening.

Night 8 The Sleeper Train The gentle sway of a night train carrying you softly onward.

Night 9 The Closing Library Quiet shelves, low lamplight, and a library settling into silence.

Night 10 The Glowing Shore A calm shoreline, a glowing tide, and the slow pull of the waves.

Night 11 The Cloud Terrace High, soft clouds and a terrace above the world, far from the day.

Night 12 The Moonlit Orchard Still trees, ripe air, and an orchard resting under the moon.

Night 13 The River of Stars A slow river of starlight carrying you gently downstream.

Night 14 The Deepest Descent The final step down — the slowest, softest descent of them all.

Fiction

Quiet reckonings, civic-archive letters, late-life regret. Moral weight, not melodrama.

8 stories

41 min A Debt of Dust A slow western bedtime tale of a quiet stranger and a town that takes too much.

42 min Salt and Paper A Lisbon typesetter sets a fifteen-year confession in metal type for his sleeping wife.

70 min First Tile In a quiet Portuguese ceramics studio, Zélia inspects a flawed batch of tiles for a small station…

62 min Corn Song A slow Oaxaca sleep story of maize, stillness, and hand-ground masa.

83 min Shepherd's Frequency A slow Kyrgyz mountain sleep story of wind, flute, field recordings, and a cello returning to voice.

92 min Burnt Garden A warm sleep story of ash, returning neighbours, and a garden growing back differently.

96 min Flicker and Fix Sink into the worn velvet seats of the Star-Light Cinema, where the air smells of warm popcorn and dust,…

93 min Sand and Seed Drift off on a rooftop garden steeped in the last of the afternoon light.

Travel

Sleeper trains, Mediterranean ports, river barges, lost cities. The unfathomable through place.

14 stories

36 min What the Box Carried Step aboard a sleeper train rocking gently through the night, where Leo cradles a small wooden box across…

99 min Documentation Cartographique A Marrakech archivist reconstructs a lost Atlas mountain path from torn maps, notebooks, and memory.

99 min Four Hours in Doha Stranded by a growing delay in Doha, Thomas watches a queue of anxious travellers become a fragile circle…

76 min Grass Shadow Distance Jiyoon arrives on the Mongolian steppe with schedules still buzzing in her mind, then finds herself riding…

87 min Kites at Dawn After a long winter journey, Leo arrives at Aunt Yuki’s house feeling like a guest in a family rhythm he…

89 min Night Float Seven strangers push off from a creaking mangrove dock for a night kayak into a moonless bay.

79 min Ohrid Morning Pier At dawn on Lake Ohrid, a traveller wakes to find the guesthouse pier twisted by rain just as the market…

88 min Platform Tea On a fogbound morning at Fenqihu station, Hsu finds Chang, the wife he has not spoken to in three months,…

72 min Refugio After Rain Rain holds three travellers at a Patagonian refugio, where a flooded river and Santiago’s gauge decide when…

82 min Salt and Yeast On a fog-bound ridge, a disused seismic station fills with the cold scent of pine, instrument oil, and…

71 min Well of Echoes A traveller follows a stray goat through a banyan's roots and finds a hidden stepwell, cool with damp…

71 min Windcatcher Lessons A restless traveller arrives in Yazd with a tight itinerary and finds his guesthouse stifling, its…

67 min Driftwood Shore Finnish · Mozambican · Likoma

69 min Suitcase of Sap January · Santos · Cerrado

Mystery

Truth real but hidden. A case worked, an absence listened for. Resolution within story — never cliffhanger.

7 stories

47 min Orpheus's Silence A noir detective listens through the rain as a cold case dissolves into silence.

91 min Lanterns Below A warm mystery sleep story of hidden lantern-light, ancient tunnels, and trust restored.

142 min Dune Song A warm sleep mystery of singing dunes, a lost trawler, and grief turning slowly into life.

153 min Mountain Threads Climb to a fog-bound indigo workshop where an old cloth hides a map of the mountain.

125 min Sand in the Gears A night train stalls in the Atacama dark, where a carved line leads to a poet's hidden journal.

83 min Garden Below Lanterns Drift off in a tea-house garden as the lanterns glow and five old friends gather on a stone bench in the…

75 min Salt and Silk Laila arrives in Khiva to scatter her mother’s ashes, but a torn silk robe reveals hidden Persian…

History

Real periods, fictional or fictionalised composite protagonists. The past as the unfathomable.

6 stories

49 min Messer Ottobono A Genoese clerk loses a sealed letter at sea, then carries its meaning to Palermo by memory and honour.

68 min Titu An Inca tambo keeper handles a damaged quipu on the royal road.

91 min History of Rome A calm, true walk through Rome's long life — from a river bending through low hills to an empire's slow hush.

85 min History of the English Kings

68 min The Great Wall of China A slow, true bedtime journey along the Great Wall of China — from its earliest earthen ramparts to the long stone dragon winding over the mountains north of Beijing.

67 min The Great Pyramid of Giza A slow, true bedtime journey to the Great Pyramid of Giza — the last of the ancient wonders still standing, and the quiet arithmetic of the men who raised it.

Adventure

Quest, voyage, expedition. The journey is the unfathomable. No sustained peril.

10 stories

53 min Bayankhongor A bicycle courier crosses the Gobi with a weather sensor and a promise to keep.

49 min Yard Still A quiet Arctic sled journey through weather, pressure, and an old promise.

74 min Cloud Meadow A soft sleep story through a meadow above the clouds.

68 min Storm Festival A typhoon turns a village's lantern festival down a sheltered path.

71 min Hull and Sail A widowed boatbuilder finds his way back through the work of his hands.

77 min Path of Stone Two old companions cross the Patagonian steppe, stone by stone.

74 min Passage Restored A blocked mountain pass, cleared stone by stone.

71 min Salt Return Stranded on an alpine ridge, signalling for rescue through stone.

92 min Silver Run A brother, a sister, and one last salmon run through the fog.

75 min Saffron Ridge Four walkers trade a mountain summit for a quieter path down.

Sci-Fi

Speculative present and near-future. Real laws, unfathomable scale — but invented fiction, invented stakes. (Factual cosmic content lives in Universe.)

6 stories

43 min Stoplight at Three Forty Sixty-two feet beneath the surface, marine biologist Mara Osei watches the last blue light surrender to…

38 min The Relay Station A quiet journey to the edge of the solar system, where one person tends the invisible threads that connect…

45 min A Different Green A scientist keeps vigil with a plant remembering another world.

58 min Alloy Drift A comet-forged cup becomes light, shelter, and a story.

64 min Storm Glass A warm Mars sleep story of storm shelter, repair, and shared light.

84 min Float Audit A gentle station farewell about twenty kilos, an old harmonica, and what still travels with you.

Future

Far-future, post-scarcity quiet, civilisational scale. The world has moved on; the protagonist sits inside the new shape.

7 stories

82 min Aurora Hall Rotation A stalled Venusian sky-dome, closed at last by one shared rhythm.

63 min Gravity-Core Dispute A failing moon homestead bargains for warmth through the long night.

61 min Pulp and Press A grieving woman learns papermaking aboard a quiet station.

82 min Podlight Exchanges Strangers trade quiet gifts through a station wall.

74 min Blue Token Return A courier retraces a quiet market morning to find a lost token.

81 min Kettle Wake One Earth-made kettle, passed through generations on a starship.

78 min Solstice Algae Harvest A quiet algae harvest aboard a station sliding into its dark season.

Survival

One person against weather, wilderness, circumstance. Resolution by competence, not luck.

2 stories

55 min Callum Shore A Southern Ocean skipper keeps a wounded yacht moving toward the Falklands.

46 min Pour Papa A guide returns to avalanche snow for a father's lost notebook.

Paranormal

Hauntings, unexplained presences. Atmospheric, never menacing. The strange thing is real but the night holds it.

7 stories

90 min Atacama Hum A low hum rises from beneath an Atacama desert village, and a geologist and an old healer must learn to…

92 min Dust Songs A slow drive out of town along a two-lane desert blacktop, where salt-cedar windbreaks slide past and the…

101 min Fog Season Drift off to a remote island village preparing for the season of fog, where black basalt houses step down a…

91 min Singing Stone A quiet paranormal sleep story set in a mountain village, where Lena returns to a weathered stone tied to…

103 min Soundings A polar-night sleep story about Sigrid and a village drawn by a bell sounding from beneath the fjord.

93 min Steam Figures A mountain sleep story about Lira’s arrival at a forgotten bathhouse where steam carries shapes from older…

88 min Stone Breath A calm sleep story about Anahit, a stone carver asked to shape a piece of tuff that seems to hold more than…

Detective

Hard-edged, noir, procedural. An investigator with method, a case with stakes, a city the case cuts through.

6 stories

74 min A Quiet Eye On a hillside stairway above the harbour, a tired delivery driver finds a quiet ritual at an old woman’s…

78 min Egret Hour At a lagoon research camp, Dr Elise Moran’s missing field notebook becomes a quiet mystery traced through…

85 min Label Shift A quiet sleep mystery set inside a rural seed exchange, where Lena finds tomato packets deliberately…

93 min Light Returned At dusk on a snowbound harbour, Elin discovers the church’s whalebone lantern has vanished before the…

81 min Pasture Echo At dawn on Don Eliseo’s coffee finca, Lucero the goat is gone, and the village’s brass good-luck bell has…

73 min Tidal Drift A slow-burn sleep mystery set around Horta harbour, where marine researcher Sara joins a salvage dive for a…

Fantasy

Invented worlds. Rule-bound magic. Distinct from history (real) and sci-fi (speculative-real).

5 stories

65 min Apsis Tower A moon-watcher, a tiny mark in the sky, and a town held by constant light.

61 min Cold Came A riverkeeper's apprentice, a missing brass pin, and a winter gate that must hold.

68 min Merra Filled A moss-keeper tends a stone forest in a dry season.

56 min Old Gate A night tram carries a lost bell schedule through the fog.

81 min Amber Dusk Fenn · Enough · Two

Romantic

Adult romance — slow-burn, reunion, found-letters, a meeting deferred and then arriving.

3 stories

85 min Whale Song Off Tofino A week of grey mornings, whale song, and slow thaw off Tofino.

77 min Danse Macabre in Oaxaca A photographer, a dancer, and Oaxaca's Day of the Dead.

65 min Quinta Harvest Two feuding vineyards race a storm through one long night.

Universe

Factual night listens. Real places, real data, real missions — the solar system, deep space, galaxies, stars, time itself, and the missions humans have sent.

33 stories

57 min Integrity Float alongside four astronauts drifting home through the long dark, three hundred million miles from…

Universe Titan Rain A sleep story set on Saturn's largest moon.

Universe The Rings Drift among Saturn's ancient rings in perfect silence.

Universe Olympus Mons A slow, immersive walk up the tallest mountain in the solar system.

Universe Europa Beneath Something like thirteen hundred atmospheres at the floor.

Universe The Far Side A journey to the far side of the Moon, where no signal reaches and ancient silence stretches in every…

Universe The Pillars A journey into the vast columns of the Pillars of Creation, where scale dissolves and stillness deepens.

Universe Enceladus If there were a motorway here, if there were mornings.

Universe Pale Blue Dot The slow arithmetic of a half-life measured in decades.

Universe Io It does not rise or set.

Universe Sagittarius A* Travel to the gravitational heart of our galaxy, where four million suns compress into stillness.

Universe Andromeda Approach A faint smudge just below the chain of stars.

Universe The Cartwheel A gentle journey to the Cartwheel Galaxy, where a single collision set off a wave of creation still…

Universe Bootes Void The data came back with a gap.

Universe Betelgeuse One point two billion kilometres across.

Universe A White Dwarf For most of human history, no one knew it was there.

Universe The Crab Nebula The Song dynasty astronomers were meticulous people.

Universe The Cosmic Calendar There is nothing to carry sound through.

Universe Deep Time It is four billion years old.

Universe The Cosmic Web A contemplative journey through the largest structure in the universe.

Universe Heat Death The universe is still full of light.

Universe Golden Record The clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has no windows, and the air inside it has been washed…

Universe Grand Tour On the twentieth of August, nineteen seventy-seven, a rocket lifted from the Florida coast into a sky still…

Universe Pale Signal Somewhere beyond the edge of everything the Sun can reach, a machine the size of a small car drifts through…

Universe Earthrise Travel to the stillness of deep space through the eyes of Apollo 8's crew.

Universe Tranquility Base Rest in the most absolute stillness ever known — the untouched silence of the lunar plain where the Eagle…

Universe Lunar Rover They had folded it flat against the flank of the spacecraft, packed tight as a card table in a cupboard.

Universe Opportunity's Last Drive Travel alongside a rover that outlived every expectation, across a silent Martian landscape measured in…

Universe Jezero Crater Travel to the red planet and settle into the vast stillness of Jezero Crater.

Universe Philae Ride alongside the Philae lander on its seven-hour fall toward a comet older than memory.

Universe Hubble Deep Field There is a building in Baltimore, on a university campus, that most people walk past without a second glance.

Universe Cupola The hatch is open, and the module below is dark except for the glow of Earth through seven windows.

Universe Last Shuttle The crawler moves at one mile per hour, and the ground shakes with it.

Every room, unlocked

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